First Class Package

Okay. If you have read any of my reviews you know I tend to lean towards short story hate. They always seem to try too much to be like their larger counterparts instead of taking the time to deal with what they promised in the blurb. If you say quirky short comedy that’s all you need. Sweet mushy no angst romance that’s all you have time for. Deep introspection, or self-discovery, well dig into that character development and only that because with just 50 or so pages there isn’t enough page time to try to do more. And that is why I loved this book. Like really loved it.

The blurb states that a stay-at-home science author has a crush on his hunky postman and has zero idea how to ask him out. Even though it’s obvious the postman finds him attractive as well. Christmas is looming and after which the postman Patrick will be moving on and James called Jim will never see him again. And, that is exactly what you get. No attempts to take a deep dive into the characters. No trying to dig up too much back story and other such things you would for a longer story. The blurb is about a guy afraid to ask another guy out and coming up with ways to keep that guy on his doorstep in hopes he’d get the courage to ask him out. And, pun intended, this story delivers on just that.

This was wholeheartedly refreshing.

It was funny how they ogled each other and how Patrick gave more than enough clues he was interested. Even more sweet was Jim almost embarrassed yet unable to stop himself from looking out his window in hopes he’d see Patrick come by even when he had no mail for him. Then ultimately scheming to buy things he didn’t need to get him back on his doorstep. This book understood the assignment and anyone coming in expecting more from it in 50 pages was expecting too much. I just did a review previously where I said the same from a different angle. It required a deep dive into the character to make it work but most of the fifty pages were used for backstory and descriptions and other things so there wasn’t enough page time left to deliver on what the book promised. This story, however, did what a short story should do, milked every page to bring forth what was detailed in the blurb knowing that it didn’t have the pages to even attempt to do more than that. And that is as all 50-page or less stories should be.

Pick the main focus and go all in no matter how deep or fluffy that may be if only because there isn’t enough page time for distractions and you don’t want the readers to know a lot of stuff usually in full-length novels is missing.

I laughed a lot reading this. I felt all of the feels. So many cute feels. And the fluff levels were not so fluffy I groaned. They were just in my acceptable range of fluff. There’s nothing more rewarding than reading a blurb, looking at the page count and having the story match that. For 100 pages or so this story would’ve been a flop. I would’ve expected much more character development to make this romance leap. Simply adding Patrick’s POV would’ve fixed that. But, knowing it was so short I expected to be overloaded with nothing but a boy with a crush trying to figure out what to do with that and the hilarious and sweet dialogue that comes from it. I wasn’t disappointed.

For some people that may not be enough but again, this is a short story, and it did exactly what the blurb said and nothing more, because it didn’t have the page time to do so. And I am here for that. Expect more when there actually can be more. When it can’t, expect what you were told to expect. Lucky for this book it came through on its promise. If a short, sweet, doesn’t try to read like a big-book within the confines of a little-book type story is what you need, this one will fill that void. And, this may or may not have affected this review, but I am def team Jim here. There is never a good reason to let sexy thick masculine thighs and the ass to match, walk out of your life. This mission to claim the postman was worth every purchased item Jim didn’t need if only for that reason. I thoroughly enjoyed this even with the almost too cheesy but fit the book ending.