Review of Rabi and Matthew by L.A. Witt
A modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet? With gay characters? Muslim vs Christian? Democrat vs Republican? Love vs hate? I am so there! This is what I was thinking after reading the blurb.
Rabi's family and Matthew's families hate each other. Have forever. Why? Neither young man knows why, not sure if anyone knows why. All they know is that their families hate each other, so the two of them cannot, should not, be together. And yet they cannot help themselves, and fall for each other anyway. And set off a horrible set of consequences that are almost too real to be believed in this day and age of so much hate roiling around our country.
I wanted to love this story; unfortunately, I didn't end up loving it. I did end up liking it, for the most part, though. What I like? Rabi and Matthew. They're both so sweet, so oddly innocent, and their love is an insta-love, romantic, fairy tale type of love. What I didn't love? The rest of the story. I didn't get to know any of the characters very well, or what motivated them beyond a feud none of them knew why existed. None of them felt particularly deep or layered. And the requisite epiphany came far too late in the story for it to have any noticeable effect. If it had happened earlier, had given our two young men longer to be out and in love, I would have appreciated it a lot more. And the disgusting amount of hate and recriminations that swirled around Rabi and Matthew was horrifying to read. Unfortunately, pretty realistic, though. While I can appreciate the realism of this, I didn't particularly enjoy reading about it. So 3.5 stars for two great leads, the good writing, but because most of the characters weren't particularly substantive, I can't go higher than 3.5 stars.
ARC via NetGalley.
#bookreview #RabiAndMatthew #LAWitt #gay #gayromance #MM #LGBT #forbiddenromance #Muslim #Christian #Democrat #Republican #RomeoAndJuliet #feud #NetGalley #ARC
A modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet? With gay characters? Muslim vs Christian? Democrat vs Republican? Love vs hate? I am so there! This is what I was thinking after reading the blurb.
Rabi's family and Matthew's families hate each other. Have forever. Why? Neither young man knows why, not sure if anyone knows why. All they know is that their families hate each other, so the two of them cannot, should not, be together. And yet they cannot help themselves, and fall for each other anyway. And set off a horrible set of consequences that are almost too real to be believed in this day and age of so much hate roiling around our country.
I wanted to love this story; unfortunately, I didn't end up loving it. I did end up liking it, for the most part, though. What I like? Rabi and Matthew. They're both so sweet, so oddly innocent, and their love is an insta-love, romantic, fairy tale type of love. What I didn't love? The rest of the story. I didn't get to know any of the characters very well, or what motivated them beyond a feud none of them knew why existed. None of them felt particularly deep or layered. And the requisite epiphany came far too late in the story for it to have any noticeable effect. If it had happened earlier, had given our two young men longer to be out and in love, I would have appreciated it a lot more. And the disgusting amount of hate and recriminations that swirled around Rabi and Matthew was horrifying to read. Unfortunately, pretty realistic, though. While I can appreciate the realism of this, I didn't particularly enjoy reading about it. So 3.5 stars for two great leads, the good writing, but because most of the characters weren't particularly substantive, I can't go higher than 3.5 stars.
ARC via NetGalley.
#bookreview #RabiAndMatthew #LAWitt #gay #gayromance #MM #LGBT #forbiddenromance #Muslim #Christian #Democrat #Republican #RomeoAndJuliet #feud #NetGalley #ARC
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