Review: Off Limits by Riley Hart
SYNOPSIS:
It started out as a little fun. When there was a man in my building on a hookup app, why not message him?
Only we didn’t meet. We just texted—one night after the other, after the other.’
GoodWithHisHands was the perfect escape from my life, where pressure was always on my shoulders: my father’s expectations, the worry about my sister, Maddy, getting sick again, and her ex-husband, Ryder Lynwood, suddenly back and volunteering at the same hospital as me.
It would have been smart to keep my distance from the man who came out as gay, tearing our close families apart and breaking Maddy’s heart. Except Ryder intrigues me. I like talking to him, same as I enjoy chatting to GoodWithHisHands.
They weren’t supposed to be the same person.
I wasn’t supposed to fall for him. To want him. To need him. Maddy didn’t deserve to get hurt again, and I didn’t need another reason to feel like an outsider in my own family. Ryder was off-limits. I knew that. Still, I couldn’t make myself stay away.
REVIEW:
This book was okay, not my favorite Riley Hart read but an enjoyable one, none the less. Ryder and Hutch were perfect for each other, you can see their instantaneous chemistry from the start of their chats, when they believe each other strangers, but there were definitely some road bumps in the way which turned me off to the story a bit.
So lets start with what I loved and that was Ryder and Hutch. I adored how in both versions of their lives, the virtual and in person, they have this budding friendship that eventually turns more. Ryder was the pillar of support that Hutch so desperately needed, and he just understood Hutch on such a deep and intrinsic level that it had my heart swooning. Hutch truly had to face his own hardships during this story, which mainly center around his fractured family and the unrealistic pressure they put on him.
But one thing I didn’t like in this book, and its a pretty big thing…Ryder’s ex wife and Hutch’s sister, Maddy. The entire book seemed to revolve around her and her feelings. And while Maddy had two bouts of cancer as a child, everyone still walks on eggshells around her and treats her like she is fragile and breakable. She is a grown woman and just never had to be held accountable for anything because she had cancer. She just played too much of a central point in the story and it took away from Hutch and Ryder’s relationship, instead of enhancing it.
But one thing that had me excited, was Isaac and the next book in the series. Isaac intrigued me to no end and while the banter between him and Hutch was too notch, I can’t wait to see the banter between Isaac and his step-brother, Lane.
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