This is a bit of a long rant, but I also want to understand what exactly is so compelling about this book that it has a higher score than perhaps 95% of all books ever (yes, I know that Goodreads scores are not the gold standard for literature, but still).
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Anyway, after seeing some recommendations on YouTube and the good score on Goodreads, I decided to give ‘’Caught Up’’ a whirl, even though I haven’t read the first two books in the series (as I understand it, it’s a shared universe with some connections between books, but they are all stand-alones). I am not a big romance buff, but I do seek to diversify my reading, so I’ll occasionally grab a book that’s outside my comfort zone.
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So, in this book, which is over 400 pages long, mind you, we basically have to deal with 2 young adults, a professional baseball player and a distinguished pastry chef. He (the baseball player) realized recently that he got a baby son after a one-night stand with a woman who now doesn’t want to be a part of the baby’s life, so she surprised the male main character (MMC) with the news of the baby and basically shoved it into his arms before disappearing. The female main character (FMC) is feeling stuck in her career, so she accepts her father’s (who is the MMC’s coach) proposal to babysit the MMC’s baby for a couple of months, during MMC’s baseball season, in hopes that FMC’s inspiration will return before she has to start working as a consultant in high-end restaurants again.
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Right from the beginning, it struck me how PERFECT everyone was. I don’t know if this is a thing in romance books, but isn’t having imperfect, flawed, non-Mary Jane characters a more compelling asset for your book if they are literally the MAIN characters who the readers are (presumably) supposed to identify with in some way (at least on some ‘’humanity’’ or ‘’universal’’ level)? Because, let me tell you something, the main characters of this drawn-out nothing-is-happening romance are in most ways simply perfect, in practically unachievable ways. The MMC is the best player on the team, he is tall, muscular, dashing, beautiful, athletic, intelligent, sensitive, romantic, rich as hell funny man, whose fatherhood instinct and perfection is only trumped by his intuition about EXACTLY what FMC wants and needs at any given moment (he understands her doubts, struggles and emotional states, he is able to intuit exactly what steps to take to alleviate the stress and anxiety of this girl he met mere weeks ago and, yes, they are also such compatible lovers and he such a skillful thoughtful every-step-of-the-way consent-seeking passionate responsible lover that he is able to, I kid you not, make her orgasm by stroking her nipples and kissing her – but hey, I am a gay man, I can’t say I know much about this aspect of sex from real life, it just struck me as a bit… interesting).
The girl is less perfect, because she has an endless need of proving herself and ‘’earning’’ the love of her father (who is another paragon of fatherhood and goodness, more about that in a bit), so she feels compelled to keep chasing titles and accolades, and is afraid of settling down. Other than that, she is charming, funny, drop-dead gorgeous, well-endowed, and, to drive the point of perfection further, literally the youngest ever pastry chef to have received the most prestigious award in her profession. But it doesn’t stop there – the FMC’s father (and MMC’s coach and mentor) is a perfect father figure to both of them, having renounced his (you guessed it, amazing) career prospects to take in the FMC when her mother died, and being a perfect father thereafter. The MMC’s baby son is the embodiment of sunshine and grace; he obviously gets along terrifically with the FMC, and they quickly form a bond of deep affection. He may occasionally soil his diapers, but overall he is a right proper lad, barely ever crying and just spreading around joy and rainbows. The MMC’s teammates are a slightly rowdy bunch, but at the end of the day, they are all absolutely in love with the MMC’s baby and would do anything to accommodate their superstar teammate and son.
As you can guess from the descriptions above, being such perfect specimens, the FMC and the MMC have insane chemistry – they are both gorgeous and obviously strongly attracted to each other, they complement each other well, they are able to support, encourage and reassure each other, they are both financially set, and the sex is amazing… but we do have to fill 400 pages with SOMETHING, so the FMC starts acting out and withdrawing, her explanation basically being ‘’But I am just not the type of girl to stay in one place for long and get attached to people.’’ This is what the conflict of this entire novel can be reduced to (because everything else is perfect, as we have established). Yes, I understand that she is insecure because her adoptive father gave up his career for her, but at some point the MMC starts constantly trying to convince her that her father adores her and wouldn’t trade her for his hypothetical career, yada yada yada. I mean, if there was some initial animosity or awkwardness between the baby son and the FMC, for example, that would maybe be a believable conflict which actually poses some difficulties and doesn’t make me what to scream at the FMC for being so insufferable. Or if the MMC does not immediately understand the FMC’s motivation and reasoning (who could blame him), or if he was the one breaking some boundaries that she set to prevent them getting attached… But noooo, the baby and the FMC are practically best friends from the first time they meet, and the MMC immediately sympathizes with the FMC and is always just reacting respectfully and perfectly to any whim that the FMC has.
My favorite part of the novel was during one of the porn scenes (I intentionally say ‘’porn scenes’’ as opposed to ‘’sex scenes’’). It was the first time the main characters were removing all their clothes, and something was said about the FMC’s perfect and big breast and perfect lady bits (just as an aside, the MMC obviously gives perfect oral). I paused, put my book aside and mentally said ‘’Hmm… Let me guess… The MMC has a HUMONGOUS dong.’’ Surprise, surprise, this Adonis who is perfectly respectful and thoughtful and loving and sensitive, but also passionate and fiery and voracious, who is a superstar athlete with perfect body, perfect fatherhood instincts, perfect temper and perfect bank account, also has a gigantic pecker. The author did address the possible discomfort by throwing in a line or two about the inconveniences of inserting the guy’s tremendous shaft into her tight vagina, but when all was said and done, the whole arrangement was, you guessed it, perfectly sensual and pleasurable. As I mentioned, I am a gay man, so just like it was above when I was describing her Bluetooth orgasms, I cannot say I have an intimate understanding of the female reproductive organs, but from what I heard, gargantuan weenies are more often than not quite uncomfortable given the fact that the vaginal canal is not interminable, though I imagine her getting Niagara-falls wet at the sight of him might have helped things a little bit.
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My last criticism is just how REPETITIVE the writing got. We had to be reminded chapter after chapter, paragraph after paragraph, about FMC’s doubts and insecurities regarding her father and her trying to earn his approval (though he is, as we said, not some dismissive or narcissistic asshole, so I don’t know how she got to be so insecure with this perfect father raising her) and about her fears of getting attached (it wasn’t even that at the beginning she was steadfast and confident she would not get attached… literally in the first third of the book, the huge cracks began to show, i.e. she already started getting seriously fearful that it was going to be hard for her to leave this time, and that she was having such a great time, so why would she even want to return to her career which was not even fulfilling anymore – yes, all this was already going on in her head way before the 50% mark). The author really has to, in my opinion, deposit more trust in her readers’ ability to memorize information and draw some conclusions for themselves from what they already know about the characters, their previous actions, etc. Not everything needs to be spelled out (let alone spelled out TWENTY TIMES). Anyway, that’s it, I am done. One star.
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by LordOf2HitCombo