Hold Me Like a Grudge

I received an arc copy from netgalley!!<br/><br/>I wish I could say I liked this book. But I am so glad that its over. <br/><br/>Overall, the story is good! The emotions and relationship is great!<br/><br/>Part of the problem is, I absolutely hated all the random pop culture references and quotes. This is a niche gripe and I am aware of that. But it felt cheesy and awkward and like it was thrown in the same way marvel movies have turned into a minefield of jokes that dont land and just make you cringe. It felt like the popular tumblr shitposts were sprinkled in to try and maybe make the characters relatable? But to me fell flat and felt out of character.<br/><br/>Also, the only characters that had any character were Caleb and Asher. The rest just felt like set dressings there for the main couple to interact with and so we could say there were a bunch of queer characters. I wish any of them were given more depth or story. <br/><br/>The pacing was all over the place as well. Things went from moving super quickly to dragging and going nowhere. Halfway through the book it felt like it was time for the story to be over. There were also some continuity errors in scenes where it felt like something from a single page previous was forgotten. <br/><br/>Edit: I forgot to add that this really felt like it was written to capitalize on the success of Heated Rivalry instead of trying to be its own thing. And it felt like I got to a point where I didnt need to continue reading because I had already seen how everything played out already. <br/><br/>I really wanted to like this book. It ended up very much not being for me. It should have been a good fun read, but the only reason I didnt dnf it was because I felt obligated to read the whole thing to give a full and accurate review for the arc copy I received.