Catching Orion

I didn’t really enjoy this. I found it a bit tedious. It started of well but it went from somewhat passable beginnings into absurdity way to fast.

Firstly I can almost suspend belief to jump into the deception plotline, but only almost. Knox’s uncle enter’s him in a dating site raffle unknown to him and he wins. after winning his uncle confesses.  This isn’t too bad. The problem is in order for Ryan, (his name is Orion and I spelt it wrong before editing because he’s called Ryan in the book so Oryan was the most logical leap. Maybe I’m just weird but… yeah ). Back to the point, the problem is that for Ryan to also win he’d have to have a online profile as well. This brings to question who set up his profile, and why didn’t they do like Frank and tell him he’d won. Instead they pretend to be him and gave up his personal information like the name of his cat, favourite movies and so on, for all they know Knox could’ve been stalking the site for his next victim to add to his backyard garden. I couldn’t get on board with that kinda deception and breach of personal space. Especially when no one ever comes clean about it. Even his address was uploaded. It was too much to overlook.

Secondly I came into this book expecting a blind date story full of hilarious moments as they journeyed to find eachother leading to a nice happy HEA. What I got was an entire middle section of book, so a third maybe more, that involved Knox’s great uncle and his partner, apologising and monologuing, with some exposition and whatnot that derailed the focus. It was supposed to be funny, but two older men posing naked with hardened anatomy, for an art class while knowing that their nephew would be there on his blind date and then finding out it was all part of a big elaborate setup was beyond too far of a stretch to suspend reality for. I couldn’t find it funny or believe neither of them would know how wrong this was. I especially didn’t expect it to get so much page time. It wasn’t until 80 percent that this second section of the book finished, leaving us only 20 percent, just a fifth of the book for the relationship to do it’s due. Not nearly enough time for the MM romance readers came into it for.

I read this book twice. Routinely reread books to write my reviews and sections of them more than I’ll probably ever admit. The first time I struggled through the art scene but managed to finish the book. The second time I skimmed so much of it by the time I got out of the art scene I had to quit. I had read so little of it that it didn’t make sense going on. I would’ve quit the first time too but the story is short so I forced through it. Sad thing is I can’t remember the end. My only take away is this lengthy middle section was meant to be hilarious but instead came across as too absurd to take seriously and took away from the focus of the book. Knox and Ryan’s romance. To be fair I was bored a bit before so by the time it got to this section the first time I was reading extra fast because I was only interested in the main characters story arch.

This book didn’t, for me, deliver on what I’d expect from a blind date set up. It chose to take the too far out there formula angle for these types of stories but it didn’t work. Leaving me as the reader feeling it was indeed too far out there instead of insane comedic brilliance. This story didn’t lift of the pages and I couldn’t connect with it.

This could’ve been good fun but unfortunately the unbelievable beginnings plus a nonworking middle section undid what might’ve been a great insta-love story.