Hace rato que no leo romance, salvo que sea LGBT. Cuando leí la sinopsis me llamó la atención porque era una chica puertorriqueña, mamá soltera y estudiante de enfermería y un jugador afroamericano de baseball. Es raro para mi toparme con libros con protagonistas que no sean blancos, por lo que me llamó mucho la atención.
Fue la desilusión de la vida.
Sin duda, el peor libro del año para mí.
Angel, nuestra protagonista, al tener una vida nada fácil creí que iba a ser un personaje fuerte e independiente, y en gran medida lo es, pero su personalidad "Mary Sue" se lleva toda esa idea del personaje. Parece que la autora quiere que sea "fuerte e independiente" y solo la describe así, pero todas sus acciones demuestran lo irracional, tonta y poco independiente que es. Lo peor es leerla hablar de feminismo y de pelear contra el machismo, cuando ella es una terrible machista. Da asco leer cómo denigra a todas las mujeres a su alrededor salvo aquellas que la ayudan y le sirven para algo.
Me resultó ridículo verla hablar de feminismo, siendo completamente dependiente de Duke, siendo humillada y maltratada por él en repetidas ocasiones. Lo peor, es que lo justifica y lo deja pasar sin mayores repercusiones. Angel es un personaje plano, sin personalidad que pretende ser mucho y que termina siendo nada.
Duke es incluso peor, si cabe aclarar. Es machista, egoísta y egocéntrico. Usa a las personas y cuando no le sirven las deja tiradas, cosa que hace repetidas veces con Angel a lo largo de todo el libro. No tuvo UN SOLO GESTO CON ELLA. UNO. Hasta Christian Grey tuvo más momentos lindos con Anastasia de los que Duke con Angel. Lo único "bueno" que hizo, fue ayudar a José, el hijo de Angel, pero vamos, eso lo haría cualquier ser humano con una gota de decencia en el cuerpo, por lo que para mí, ni cuenta.
Ahora, con respecto a lo esencial del libro que es el romance... ¿La autora de verdad cree que esto es amor y romance? ¿En serio? Relaciones basadas en el interes, en ser abusivas y superficiales. Más allá de que una es enfermera y que al otro le gusta el baseball, ninguno de los dos sabe nada del otro, obviamente esto tiene que ver con que sus personalidades son más planas y poco profundas, pero incluso así. Son de las parejas con menos química que he leído.
Agradezco mucho que las escenas de sexo son casi mínimas, porque juro que hubiera dejado de lado el libro por completo si encima tengo que leer a estos personajes malos follar.
Horrible. En todo el sentido de la palabra.
Ojalá, en unos años, estos tópicos de la literatura romántica desaparezcan, porque no son lindos. No es lindo usar al otro, Y QUE ELLO NO TENGA JAMÁS CONSECUENCIAS. Ni una disculpa, nada. Porque nadie pretende relaciones perfectas, pero sí que las malas acciones tengan repercusiones.

--------SPOILER



Acá todo pasó sin más, Angel lo perdona porque sí. Duke fue un personaje horrible y ella también y ambos son mega felices... ¿Por qué? ¿Qué hicieron para merecer ese final?
Hubiera preferido, siendo más realistas, que no terminaran juntos. Hubiera sido un mejor final, teniendo en cuenta lo forzada que fue su relación.
Lo punico que destaco fue la escena con el doctor y Angel, cuando intenta acostarse con ella. Fue feo de leer, me sentí incómoda y de verdad quería que se defienda, pero creo que fue bien narrado, ya que angel estaba en pánico, se sentía dominada por el poder que el hombre ejercía sobre ella, y narra una atmósfera terrible. La mejor parte de la historia, fue una de las peores experiencias de Angel, pero igual así, lo más rescatable.
Todo lo otro es malo.

I received an ARC of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Angel Gomez has one goal: finish nursing school, so that she can better support her young son. Then they can move out of the crappy apartment, she can afford groceries, rent, and her son's asthma medication, and she'll prove to the world how strong a young, Puerto Rican single mom can be. The last thing she expects is that the handsome guy she's run into at the clinic is the New York Yankees star pitcher.

Caleb "The Duke" Lewis is running low on, well, everything: luck, money, time, his career. Duke suffered a major injury to his ankle during a shooting at a club a year before. But, worst, he lost one of his best friends. The pain caused him to start drinking, lose his girlfriend, and may cost him his pitching career wiht the Yankees. His secret clinic visits are not helping. However, he does meet a certain nurse...

When a kerfuffle with the media lead to Angel and Duke pretending to fake-date, neither of them have any idea how their worlds will be turned upside down.

Full of wonderful characters--to include a beauty parlor full of fairy godmothers--and more importantly very real, very human characters who face very real, very human problems, "The Perfect Date" is an addicting read about beating the odds, finding your own path in life, and taking a chance on love.

TW for: attempted rape, past gun violence, drugs, sexism, racism, and past domestic abuse.

ARC courtesy of Netgalley

Angel Gomez, a single NYC mother working hard to support her asthmatic son and to earn her nursing degree, gets drawn into a fake relationship with a Yankees' pitcher whose career is in jeopardy due to injury (he needs a reason to explain why he's visiting a medical clinic; she's a student working on her practicum there). The set-up sounds great.

The first big annoyance is that the baseball references were completely unbelievable. A star pitcher is NOT going to get "fired" for having an injury. A major league team would have doctors either on staff or doctors with whom they work overseeing an injured player, and most likely some contractual language obligating him to work with said doctors rather than running off to a shady doctor on his own. And a pitcher would have been down in Florida for spring training, along with the other catchers and pitchers, not in NYC. And he would have been at the ball park every day, rather than chasing around after Angel...

What is really upsetting here, though, is the romance, or lack thereof. Most of the novel shows Angel and Duke being suspicious, doubtful, and many times outright cruel to one another; none of the good feelings, longing, or even romantic tension one reads romance for exists in Angel and Duke's difficult relationship. One can admire Angel's determination to make something of herself without liking her approach to romance. After Angel thinks "Then she knew. She'd lost all respect for Duke. As that respect receded like a wave, it also wiped out her desire to be with him," I'm all "you go, girl." But alas, she kept the door open, and he and she kept being cruel to each other, which made me lose all respect for both of them.

This book was not what I was expecting. I saw the cover and fell in love. Don't let it fool you.

Angela is a single mom and doing the best she can. She is in the process of finishing her nursing degree as well as working as a bartender, needless tosay she is always busy. In comes Duke, a pitcher for the Yankees. Angela doesn't know who he is, all she knows is that he needs her help. He needs Angela to pretend that they are dating so that he can use her as an excuse to be going to the clinic that she works at.. The question is with all the drama a single mom has in their life does she really need to add the drama of pretending to be someones girlfriend?

This book wasn't the greatest, but it held my attention long enough for me to finish it. It tends to repeat itself alot it had some scenes in it that you will be like this is SO fiction. But at the end of the day I enjoyed the book enough to finish it.

Not sure I would recommend this book to my friends. If they asked I would tell them that I finished it. They know if I don't finish a book not to bother getting it.

Painfully bad. Every single male character, including the "hero" was a complete scum bag. Most of the women were too. The misogyny absolutely dripped off the pages. Throw in the fat phobia and the casual racism, and it was a nice little trifecta of hate. Also, the utter lack of understanding of what patient care consists of for nurses and other medical professionals was pretty damn clear (hint - patients going to the doctor's to get their toenails cut is super common for a while variety of reasons and nurses aren't going to be analyzing urine samples in a clinic). Seriously, do your research on your characters' careers! Also, there were approximately 4000 incidents throughout this incredibly short story where Angel is described simply as "bangin'", including when Angel describes herself! Find another descriptor. Better yet, find a way to describe a character that isn't just a reduction of her to physical attractiveness!

Before I get to the review, I just want to mention a few things that may have influenced how I felt about the book. 1. I was aware that this had a rating of approximately 2 stars on Goodreads so I wasn't expecting anything great out of it. 2. For the sake of completing the entire book to write my review, I listened to the audiobook.

This book is a train wreck; it's not good, but you can't look away and the only time I felt emotional was when someone was hurt. I think reading this is the literary equivalent of watching Real Housewives or Basketball Wives (which Evelyn Lozada is a cast member on). I audibly said what the f**k many times while reading this.

The Good: The cover is cute. The book is short. I finished the audio in 5hr and 25min. I've officially invested more time into this book than Game of Thrones. There's enough going on plot wise (almost too much) that it held my interest.

The Bad: The main characters are awful. Both of them believe that they are better than everyone else and neither of them truly confront their issues and instead just decide to accept what they believe the consequences will be. That really bugged me that essentially both of them walked away from their problems and decided I'm good with the alternative instead of actually dealing with it head on. There's a lot of women bashing and putting down other women as well as women hating on all men and thinking all men are awful. This is also a dual POV that is heavy on Angel's POV, which I don't like to begin with, but the jumps between perspectives are not clear. I had a very hard time distinguishing each character's voice as they all felt the same.

The WTF: I don't think the synopsis really matches with the book I read. Throughout the story the main character is called Duke, which I thought was supposed to be a nickname. There is one steamy scene between the main characters, otherwise the steam feels slimy and like a cheap VHS porno (twice Angel walks in on other couples.) At the end, the story all of a sudden decides to try and turn into a crime novel that was way too out there. I feel sort of bad for everyone who DNF'd this since they didn't get to see what a shit show it became.

I also found myself making a list of topics that were casually mentioned and definitely not dealt with appropriately while reading. This includes mental illness, specifically depression and suicide (MAJOR TRIGGER THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CAUGHT IN EDITING); gun violence; drug abuse, both illegal and prescription; sexual harassment; alcoholism.

Overall, I didn't like this book, but I didn't hate it, and I definitely wouldn't recommend it. I'm not sure if maybe the author has never read a romance novel before and just thinks that this is what they're like. Regardless, I feel like there was a major editing fail since not only is the POV not clear, but there were triggering topics that were handled inappropriately, especially for 2019.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had a huge, well thought out review written. Then the goodreads app refreshed and wiped it out.

Number 1 point, I feel betrayed this was not cut and sexy the RomCom i was expecting.

I was hoping this was going to be fun and light but I could not get into this at all