This review is going to be somewhat rant-y. I don’t usually rant in reviews – actually, I don’t think I’ve done it before – but there’s one thing that’s really, really bugging me. One character, more precisely: Kyle, at the beginning of the book.
Mew has social anxiety and hates surprises, but one night Kyle comes home and is like “Hey, babe! Surprise! Here’s a big, scary guy who is a stranger to you and I’m going to act very shifty when you question me about him. Oh, and he’s staying for dinner. And by dinner, I mean I invited him to live with us for a while, in our apartment, without asking you first. It’s totally cool, right? Oh, and Adam and I used to fool around in high school. He was my first.”
Okay, he did not use those EXACT words, but basically that’s what happened. I get that Kyle and Adam are friends and Adam has nowhere to go, but pulling that on Mew is so unfair and quite frankly made me dislike Kyle right away. And a lot.
Then Kyle goes “If you don’t like Adam, he doesn’t have to stay here”… But he’d already told Adam he could stay with them. He’s putting Mew on the spot and if Mew didn’t agree to let Adam stay, Kyle would have to say “Yeah, I promised you to stay, but Mew doesn’t like you, so bye,” which is pretty cruel/messed up towards Adam, and would make Mew seem like a bad guy, even though under the circumstances, he has every right to say no to Adam being there.
As someone with social anxiety that gets pretty bad sometimes, I know I’d feel trapped if my boyfriend pulled something like this off.
Kyle’s way of making amends?
With some naughty action in bed. It’s good that he’s trying to make amends, but naughty time shouldn’t make up for something so big. He apologizes later, but even that is only a couple of lines, said as if he forgot to do the laundry. Mind you, that last one might be on the narrator and the way he read the lines.
Still. There are parts where Adam – a complete stranger, is taking Mew’s feelings into consideration more than Mew’s boyfriend, who keeps telling Mew he loves him.
This really rubbed me the wrong way.
Kyle got better as the story went on – he was much more considerate of Mew, but I still can’t get over everything I’ve talked about until now.
That was it for the rant.
As for the rest of the story, and the other three (I’m counting the cat too) characters…
My favorite was Bartholomew, a.k.a. Mew. I don’t know if it was due to the story being told from his POV, because I can relate to his awkwardness, or because of both, but I really seemed to connect with him. Maybe that’s why I reacted so strongly to how Kyle mistreated him in the first couple of chapters.
Then we have Adam. He seems like a chill guy, but I didn’t see that much of a personality from him. My opinion: he’s okay.
Then we have Boots – a typical cat, and therefore, he won me over.
Story-wise, I enjoyed the book. The plot is simple and the book is a quick read with short chapters, that I think I might’ve enjoyed even more if I was actually reading, and not listening to it. The narrator speaks too fast at the beginning (slows down later on), and his version of Mew isn’t good. The character is prone to stammering, but the way he is read just makes him feel awkward and slow. Still, the book gave me a few chuckles, and they were mostly Mew-related.
I’d recommend Not So Vanilla to people who want a quick read with some guy on guy (on guy) action. Since the chapters are so short, I think the audiobook will be suitable for people with a brief commute to work.
My overall rating: 3.5/5
Book rating: 4/5
Narration: 3/5