now……i’m going to start this off with a disclaimer. these are my thoughts and personal opinions. i am well aware people have read this book thinking it was good. i attempted to read through until the end because i genuinely wanted to see how it wrapped up. unfortunately, this book IMO was so poorly written that approximately 61% of the way into the book i legitimately had to throw in the towel. edit: i ended up finishing the book just for sh-ts and giggles and i should’ve left the towel thrown the ending was God awful.

“The Red Eye” by ade akinosho was not the worst book i’ve ever read (top 5 for sure), but after this one line in the 9th chapter i had to check and see if the author was Black. which she is. so i’m genuinely confused.

let me explain:

the book is about a Black woman (ciara) who is in an on/off relationship w a cheater. ciara and her cheater BF have a trip planned to mexico and the night before she catches him cheating. he was sleeping w/ another woman. insane, but cool. drama comes early we love it. she decides they’re done and she’s going to see her family in chicago. there’s 2 POV’s which i also personally enjoy in novels (especially romance ones) and it switches to the other dudes POV (phillip), rather quickly if i might add. which again, is something i would typically enjoy. PHILLIP himself is a serial cheater which ????? and he has a girlfriend. and he is white so like mixed race (w/B) couple…. not my cup of tea personally BUT **if the book was written like “The Wedding Date” by jasmine guillory i would’ve tolerated it. but it was not. so anyway these two are on the same flight (to chicago) their flight gets grounded in colorado and they have sex and she gets pregnant after being told that she can’t have kids. interesting plot….. but IM STILL JACKIN IT like i want to see what happens next.

this is when it starts to get dicey fa me…. she has twins, doesn’t tell anyone he’s the father, one twin dies and she also doesn’t tell him about the pregnancy, the birth, the death nothing.

nowhere in this book does it delve into how mothers genuinely grieve the loss of their newborns that entire part of the book was legitimately glazed over to the point where it wasn’t even an afterthought. that was strike one (officially) for me. i tolerate lack of detail in mystery novels because obviously you can’t give the reader everything, but this is not that. a romance novel has both detail and emotion. phillip ends up seeing her again after he’s engaged to his gf i can’t remember which comes first despite having read the book 2 nights ago ish LMFAOOOOO. the way all of these events are happening is like nothing is being explained the way it should be. they’re back to back to back to—

like the 2 main characters are just lustful and stupid… it’s not giving. i started realizing it was written like a fanfic before i reached the 50% mark, and that was strike 2 for me. i genuinely felt like i was reading some one direction wattpad story back in 2013. i started to get flashback but I STILL PERSERVERED. fast forward to the part i’m at now, my strike 3, the nail that broke the camel’s back, the straw in the coffin:

phillip has ciara and their daughter (fillipa) visiting at his house in cali.

his WHITE mother (who hates ciara AND is on his ex-fiancé's side) says, “’Fine you have my word; your pretty tramp will not be hung publicly.’”

i’m sorry—

will not be WHAT?????????????

THAT is when i looked up the race of the author. and after i found out she was Black, that didn’t make the situation better so i knew sum wasn’t sitting right with my spirit. i realized that it don’t matter what race the author is, a white woman in or OUT a book “joking” about hanging a Black person is criminal. like prison, but make is maximum security. no thank you. no ma’am.

and then phillip responded by telling her not to name-call……………..

that’s all you have to say…? like this is realistic fiction. this is realistic fiction romance because it is not an IMpossible situation. white men that intend on being partners to minority women need to have a strong sense of allyship and this man quite literally lacks every fiber of ally in his being. and now it’s like okay…… bffr. be SO ffr girl. the mom is blatantly racist and a part of me…..a LITTLE part of me just wants to read to see how bad it’s going to get, but if i do that the author wins. edit: …….she won, and i’m so sick to my stomach about it too

in conclusion, all in all, to sum it up, if i was 13 years old and chilling on summer break getting no sleep reading fanfiction til the sun came up this is EXACTLY the type of plot i would enjoy. because Lord knows i wasn’t supposed to be reading ts anyway LMFAOOOO. as a 23 year old with an impeccable sense of taste, i can say this book was not great at all. 0 out of 10 i would not recommend to a friend unless i want them to be an enemy.