In the Unlikely Event

I don't write many reviews since I'm lazy and English isn't my first language but I decided to start doing so and unfortunately my first review won't be a good one. First of all: I love LJ Shen's books. I really do. Vicious, Broken Knight and Angry God are some of my favorite books ever which makes this quite painful to write simply because I was used and expecting something else. I'll start with the things I liked first: — Rory's mom surprised me. In a positive way. Lying to Mal was wrong but she wanted to protect her daughter. It's hard to not hate the village and the people who live there. — The side character's povs/notes were really nice. I loved reading them and seeing their pov even though I hate Kathleen's but I'll talk about that later. — The premise. It was an interesting idea. I'm not into insta-love but this seemed interesting but... Yeah. Turned into a mess. Now to the things I did not like. — RAPE. Mal was RAPED by Kathleen and no one seems to care? It's brushed aside like it's nothing bad and Kathleen is shown in a "positive" light even though she is a RAPIST. I am writing "rape" in big letters because it needs to be addressed and handled properly which wasn't. If you want to include a rape scene it needs to be dealt with. This alone is the reason why I gave this book one star. I'd give it zero if I could simply for this. — Kathleen. She is a horrible, horrible person. Like genuinely horrible. She and Glen are probably the worst followed by her mom. She's a bitter, selfish, manipulative, egotistical, pathetic character and since this wasn't enough she's also a RAPIST. That's why I don't understand why the characters name their child after her. A RAPIST. Not to be that person but she had it coming at the end. Really can't say I feel bad for her. Her daughter is lucky she got to grow up with Rory and not with manipulative Kathleen. — The entire village is messed up and Mal is messed up for keeping all of this and staying there. Yeah I have no sympathy for these people. They're all horrible. — Mal is a egotistical and bitter and doesn't deserve Rory. First he blames her for all of his problems and decides to bully and mess with her. He insults her, ridicules her job. All of this because he is miserably and believed his rapist of a ex wife and her mom without trying to reach out to her and ask for her side. I really hated how quickly he turned and became the "good" guy. How he wanted her back after she said one thing, basically shattering the illusion and fake image he let other people create for him. One day he is insulting her then he wants to love and protect her. Look, I love bully romance. I really do. When it's well done. This was... Confusing. — Rory forgave Mal too fast. Here's one of my main problems. If someone kept these things from me and treated me the way he did, I'd most likely ruin their life. He needed better redeeming and suffer more for what he did. Mal is a mess and Rory deserved better — Chocolate bar scene. Period. — Rory's cheating. This was unnecessary and made her unlikable for me for a short time. She's horrible for doing that. But at least he cheated first I guess. Maybe I'm just petty to think of this as karma. She still sucks for doing that. There's not much for me to say and honestly I doubt anyone here will read this so I'll just say rip Ashton (I think that was his name) and continue with more of LJ Shen's books, reread the ones I already love and wait for her new releases.

Pure faszination, addiction potencial! Leigh created a masterpiece here that had something own in it. Every time this author anounces a new book i highly anticipate. This book surprised me and i love it because its classic from this Author combined with something new. We saw many new sides of this author in this story. A bit over a year ago i read an other Standalone of Miss Shen. and this book goes in the same direction from the level of humor. I laughed much while i read this story. What i really enjoyed about the way this was build was that i didn't see how it will end. Plotwists were there there i didn't see coming. It was so hard to but down this book and go back to my own work. It hooked me from the first Scentece. We saw that sometimes life forms characters in a special way and how time lets grow people appart even if there is chemistry between them. All this sexual tension in this i were able to grab. Miss Shen found so many words to describe all this different energies in this book. Mal is a not an easy man. He is a talented musician. But being loyal to persons is not one of his strenghs. Hurting him is not a thing you wanna do because he doesn't forgives others easy. He has a talent to get poeple to do what he wABTS THEM TO DO. Rory is women who has a lot of passion in her. She does what she wants to do. She fights for she want's. She tries to do the right thing allways. She lives her and loves her live. Concluding you can say that a masterpiece was created on other time. I laughed and fought tears while reading. If you read this book make sure your brain is clear for it becuase this book deserves every minute. Once again Miss Shen proved that romcom is a thing she can write as perfect as she's able to write her more serious ones. Lots of humor gets all the stars.

Surprisingly hilarous, if you can get past how the rape was handled und fit into the story. If this would have been done more sensitive it would have been a 5 star read for all the laughter it got out of me. Not necessarily like comedy laughter, oftentimes more like damn wtf