Playing Through Every Choices Book, In Order (Part 99: Along Came Treble)

Hey! Today we become manager to a rebellious pop star and attempt to reignite their career.

Next time, we get invited to a co-ed fraternity that turns out to be full of...werewolves?!

Link to previous reviews: https://www.reddit.com/user/stresseatingdog/comments/sj3s3m/all_choices_reviews_megapost/

Along Came Treble

M/C: Nicole Valentine

Final Love Interest(s): Cai

Favorite Characters: ...

Least Favorite Characters: Gene

Rating: 2/10

Unfortunately, I cannot not in good conscience suggest that I enjoyed this book.

Starting with the plot. I mean, there is some interest to be had here. Being a manager for a musician is a novel idea, especially the whole idea of PR and revitalizing the career of Cai after they've landed themselves in numerous scandals. Unfortunately, this aspect of the book is largely secondary to the main plot...the smut, which I will touch on in a bit. Cai opening up about their contract, issues with celebrity, and past with Veronique could have been interesting, had enough focus been put on these plots. Instead, what should be developments on the main plot are treated as subplots. Cai's mom, for instance, shows up in ONE chapter, and their rocky relationship is slightly touched upon and then...she never shows up again. Veronique disappears after the chapter with Cai's roast as well, leaving that story thread very underbaked. The plot is just too unfocused and quick, despite this book being nineteen chapters long.

On to Cai themselves, I mean, they're fine? I feel like they fall for M/C too quickly. I would have preferred a slow-burn buildup between them before they're jumping each other's bones. Cai's whole "bad boy/girl and rule breaker" persona just isn't done up enough for them to remain consistently characterized.

The other characters are either forgettable or confusing. Mr. Deacon, Salas the bodyguard, Cai's former bandmates, these characters are all thoroughly unmemorable and weak. Gene is your typical over the top Choices villain who is just evil incarnate with absolutely no nuance whatsoever. Any interesting dialogue about the music industry and its exploitation of talent is overshadowed by Gene being this big bad. Veronique is the confusing one I alluded to. I'm not sure what they were going with for her. Cai speaks of the relationship as being borderline traumatic, and notes that Veronique was fully consumed by the industry. You'd think this would lead to her character representing the perils of the industry, or the corruption of fame, or something along those lines. No, instead she's just a minor, overly bitchy antagonist with no substance whatsoever, and Cai's intense trauma related to their relationship with her is left pretty vague. Great.

As for the smut, the actual scenes themselves were pretty good, I thought, in terms of writing. This book has the most male ass rep I've ever seen for a genderlocked book, and that was a bit shocking. However, the smut tends to derail the main plot threads so, so often. There's a chapter early on where some random lady invites Cai to a sex club, and M/C is dragged along with him. It felt SO jarring and out of place, and then they proceed to misuse the terms "top" and "bottom", and the whole chapter ends up being filler for the sake of some light BDSM smut. This book falls into the same category as other smut books I've looked over: not enough romance. I don't buy Cai developing such strong feelings for M/C when all they've done is bang a whole bunch. I also don't buy M/C's willingness to abandon her career dreams for Cai. She kind of forgets what she even signed up for and becomes more focused on having sex with him.

There's also the matter of the genderlock. Pointless, as usual, and I will be enacting my usual harsh penalty for it. (seriously nothing in this book necessitated a genderlock).

Overall, I find this book confusing. It has the skeleton of a good plot, and decent smut writing (and male ass rep galore, which I will ALWAYS appreciate), but falters so much in actually developing its story and characters, leaving everything feeling so hollow and flat in the end.