Review: Rule Breaker by Lily Morton
SYNOPSIS:
Is it really wrong to want to murder your boss?
Dylan has worked for Gabe for two years. Two long years of sarcastic comments. Two long years of insults, and having to redo the coffee pot four times in the mornings to meet his exacting standards.
Not surprisingly he has devoted a lot of time to increasingly inventive ways to murder Gabe. From stabbing him with a cake fork, to garrotting him with his expensive tie, Dylan has thought of everything.
However, a chance encounter opens his eyes to the attraction that has always lain between them, concealed by the layers of antipathy. There are only two problems – Gabe is still a bastard, and he makes wedding planners look like hardened pessimists.
But what happens when Dylan starts to see the real Gabe? What happens when he starts to fall in love with the warm, wary man that he sees glimpses of as the days pass?
Because Gabe is still the same commitment shy, cold man that he’s always been, or is he? Has Dylan had the same effect on Gabe, and has his solid gold rule of no commitment finally been broken? With his heart taken Dylan desperately needs to know, but will he get hurt trying to find the answers?
REVIEW:
Lily Morton is a new to me author, whose cover I stumbled across on the book-web and thought I’d give it a try. The synopsis promised me an enemies to lovers office romance and we all know those are my weakness. And while it did deliver on some fronts, I have a few issues with the story as well.
So lets start off with the good, Dylan and Gabe’s sizzling chemistry. They have charming banter. It reminds me of that old saying where there is a very fine line between love and hate. Both of these boys are so deep in denial but the underlining attraction is simmering none-the-less. As they start a friends with benefits relationship, you know this is going to be a train wreck before it even has a chance to go anywhere. Gabe is so damaged and broken that I am not sure he is willing to put himself out there. In contrast, Dylan is having trouble bottling up all his growing feelings. So the tension and story line was enjoyable. They are a great contrasting couple and the ending left on a good note but a little bit of a tease/cliff-hanger there.
So let me now get into my issues with the story, first off – I don’t know if the Lily hired and editor/proofreader, but she needs to. There were numerous cases throughout the story where the wrong characters name was used or the wrong word was used in a sentence. And this occurred frequently enough for me to pause each time and try to re-read the sentence/paragraph and figure out what or who was supposed to be referenced.
Secondly, things were so bloody descriptive I was getting bored. And its not the type of descriptions and details that add to the stories development, its the type that I want to skip actual pages and get to the conversations because you are wasting my time type. For example, Dylan was at Gabe’s house when he was sick, and Dylan was flipping through Gabe’s music collection. There were literally pages of Dylan snooping around and in the end it did nothing for the story and didn’t paint me a better picture of the house. This made the chapters ridiculously long and made the story feel like it was droning on forever.
Finally, I don’t like how Gabe and Dylan got back together. Honestly it was weird AF that Dylan was injured and that was a catalyst to them pouring out their hearts and pulling their heads out of their *sses. It just seemed like the story was dragging on with no end in sight and then bam, everything wraps up with a nice little bow. I think the ending of the story needs a little more fluidity and flow. Instead of month lapses and then, kiss – the end. As a side note, this is marketed as a rom-com…it is not remotely a rom-com, it’s a contemporary romance.
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