Finding Gene Kelly - Torie Jean - ★

AUTHOR: Torie Jean

GENRE: Romance

PUBLICATION DATE: September 20, 2022

RATING: 1 star.

In a Nutshell: A romance where the FMC has endometriosis. Loved the cover and liked the endometriosis rep. But was bored by the conversation-dominant writing style, the flat plot, and the ad-hoc character development. Very disappointed.

Plot Preview:

Twenty-seven-year old Evie has been staying in Paris since seven years, hoping to fulfil her dream of having a bakery but struggling with her chronic pain and endometriosis. She keeps her distance from her family back home, especially her toxic mother Caroline. When an upcoming event needs her presence back in Massachusetts, Evie is forced to convince her childhood nemesis Liam Kelly to be her fake date so as to get through the wedding without too many barbs from Caroline. Little does she realise that her suppressed feelings for Liam will get in the way of this pretend relationship.

The story comes to us in Evie’s first-person perspective.

I grabbed this book for three reasons: the cover, Gene Kelly, and endometriosis. These three ended up being the only good things about the book for me. 😕

Bookish Yays:

😍 That adorable cover. I wish I could find a similar pink heart-design umbrella in real life. It’s cheesy but cute!

😍 The endometriosis representation. The most important reason for me to take this book. The author also has endometriosis, so the rep is genuine and informative. I learnt a lot! (Be aware that this goes into TMI territory at times, but I cannot complain about that since that’s probably the reality for many women with endometriosis.)

😍 Gene Kelly! Mentioned not just in the title but also a few times in the book indirectly through references to ‘Singing in the Rain’ and his other movies. Loved the nostalgia!

😍 The heartfelt author's note about the content and trigger warnings at the start of the book. Truly appreciated.

Bookish Okays:

🤔 The location of Paris. (There are some scattered French words here and there. Might be better if you know the basics of the language.) Enjoyed how the city’s depiction was not romantic but realistic and respectful. At the same time, how come almost everyone in the book is an American?

🤔 The intimate scenes. I respect how the details are authentic to the endometriosis experience, but somehow, it felt forced. There’s too much focus on physical “jolts of electricity”.

Bookish Nays:

😒 Evie. I tried hard to sympathise with her for living with a chronic illness without family support and for having a toxic mother, but her unsteady portrayal, her constant hyper-drama (not related to her illness), and her fascination with spray-can cheese made it very difficult to root for her. Her first-person narration sounds more whiny and immature than heartfelt. She judges everyone without hesitation or justification, but gets upset when others judge her – go figure! To top it all, she doesn’t improve till almost the very end.

😒 Liam. Either overly annoying or overly perfect; no in-between. I wish his character felt more realistic.

😒 The remaining characters – flat and one-noted. Everyone seems to have only a single character trait with no layers. Evie’s mother is the worst; there’s no rationale as to why she behaves that way, and her instant ‘transformation’ at the end is without any basis. (On an aside, I was also bugged by Evie’s calling her mother ‘Caroline’. I know people do that in real life at times, but it often was confusing to remember that Caroline was her mother.)

😒 The random transformation in character behaviour, whether the leads or some of the supporting cast. Evie’s and Liam’s conversations are full of abrupt switcheroos in emotions, joking one moment and fighting the next with no justifiable reason and never convincing. It felt like drama was being added for the sake of it.

😒 The use of the fake-dating and enemies-to-lovers tropes in this book – utterly unconvincing. As a result of which the romance is also utterly unconvincing. The line between caregiving and romance is stretched thin.

😒 There’s one scene that supposedly happened when Evie (and Liam too, I think) was five. The details in this were just creepy! No five-year-old would behave like that and remember all that!

😒 The plot – so minimal! The book starts with Evie’s bumping into Liam at Paris and the reveal that her brother wants her to be present at his wedding back home. And until the final few chapters, Evie is still in Paris and still planning about what to do for the wedding. The actual story couldn’t have taken more than 50 pages.

😒 Why is the book 400+ pages long! And slow-paced on top of that! No romance needs this length.

😒 Most of the ‘story’ is nothing but extended conversations. This writing style never works for me. I need quality detailing and not meaningless rambling. Here, Evie is a bartender but we don’t even see her actually at work. She is also a blogger but all we get to see is that she took photos for her blog. The whole focus is only on talk, talk, talk, and most of the talking is between Evie and Liam. Frustrating!

😒 With all this communication, you might assume that at least they avoid miscommunication. Wrong!

😒 The repetition – the icing on the cake of extended conversations. “I hate him but he's hot and I want to be with him but I don't want to be with him because I hate him but he’s hot…” – on and on and on, ad nauseum. Equally irksome was the overuse of Liam’s nickname for Evie – ‘Peaches’. (125 occurrences of Peaches in a single book! Does almost every dialogue need to have the nickname?) The chapter structures are also somewhat repetitive, with almost every chapter following a similar flow between the past and the present, sandwiched by some appeals of Paris.

😒 The ubiquitous double-entendres. The puns cover not just food metaphors but also risqué phrases. These are a bit funny, but after a point, they just get irritating because of the frequency. No one speaks in puns all the time! The chapter titles are a mix of donut puns and classic pop hits – again, gets repetitive after a while, especially as I didn’t see the point of this.

😒 The attempt at humour. Just doesn’t work with this kind of a plotline. It was a serious story with an important focus, then why attempt to bring in somewhat slapstick-style comic scenes? It felt like the writing tried too hard to be impressive, but this failed, at least for me.

Overall, I disliked the book just as much as I loved the cover, and had it not been a ARC, I might have DNFed it as well. I never thought it would go so poorly for me, especially given its theme. But knowing the characters well is essential in every genre, and especially in romance if we have to root for the lead pair to get together and see them happy with each other. That is where this ‘romance’ lacked most credibility. The connection simply didn’t feel genuine.

Of course, one big reason for my boredom was the conversation-dominated storytelling, which I absolutely hate. If this is not a major factor for you, you might still like to give this a go. I hope you enjoy it better if you do.

I still appreciate the attempt at spreading awareness of endometriosis and how it goes far beyond what most people know. All the stars I have given below are for this attempt. We need more books about endo warriors, but let’s please not make them so immature and rude! Just because a person has endometriosis doesn’t mean they can get away with faulty behaviour.

My thanks to Sunset and Camden Creative for providing the DRC of “Finding Gene Kelly” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this went so poorly for me.