Bad Wrong Things by CP Harris
This is kind of a funky book to review, because it's a lot.
Bad Wrong Things is an age difference MM romance, wherein a guy hooks up with his son's best friend after making a vow to his son that he's going to be selfish for once. That best friend has been in love with him for years.
However, what starts off as a soft, fluffy romance that made me go <3 turned into a toxic mess. This was intentional, I think.
I would categorize this novel as 'toxic romance' not 'dark'. I think for me 'dark romance' means that while the relationship might be unhealthy and toxic, the characters are fully into it and it's... consensually toxic, shall we say? This is not that. This is toxic yaoi.
The book starts on Raven (the younger one) returning after years away for his mother's funeral, and meeting Clint (the older one) again. Clint convinces him to stay the night at Clint's place, and in the middle of the night Clint has dubcon sex with him. I'm honestly not sure how consensual it was? It was really hard to tell. After that, the book reverses the timeline by eight years, and we get to see how Clint and Raven got together, and how that relationship than broke down into toxicity.
I dig Harris' writing style, which is always a plus, so I devoured the book. But it did feel like it was dragging a lot. The majority of the book was about their past, and because I already knew it was going to fall apart, once the sweetness of them falling in love had been established, I just kept turning the page and wondering when and how it would all go wrong. It took a bit too long to get to that point, I think, especially as the book started off by announcing it would.
Then when things did start to fall apart, it did so in a kind of... like, something about it felt contrived? Honestly, for characters that talked a lot, Raven and Clint had major communication issues. Also, it bears to keep in mind that while they definitely engage in some unsafe BDSM, at no point does safewords come up. Not even after they reconcile. Like, it felt like things fell off the wagon in part due to insecurity, because they never really talked about boundaries. They just relied on understanding each other. But that's not really a safe way to explore BDSM, which I think they were definitely doing. Like not fully, possibly not intentionally. But they were definitely doing kinky stuff. They just never discussed it.
Actually, I think it doesn't even come up in the character's inner thoughts. Which begs the questions of, did Harris even realize they were doing that? ...Yeah, this is a funky book.
Once their relationship fully fell apart, the book then returns to present day. I like the fact that Raven and Clint don't immediately get back together, but I feel like somehow it still happened too fast? Which boils down to communication, again. (Still no safewords! Boundaries!) They talk a lot, and somehow never around boundaries or expectations.
I also think that, because the book spent so much time in the past, their present didn't get enough time to really develop. They get back together in the end, presumably in a healthier relationship, and yet there's so few chapters dedicated to this that I'm simply not sure I buy it. I think it would have benefited from another chapter or two. Like, the section about their past feels like it drags on, and the section in their present feels like it goes too fast.
Also, there was a lot of delicious (cue devil emoji) angst in their past, but in their present a lot of that weight is gone, in a way? Like, because the book is rushing toward the end and getting them back together so it can end on a Romance note, it doesn't really dig into the process of them getting back together in the same way as it did the first time. And I think that definitely cheapened the ending, because the difference was just so stark.
I did enjoyed reading this book, despite the flaws! Raven and Clint getting together and Clint falling in love was really sweet and well-developed. While it eventually got to the point that it dragged, it was still relatively well-paced, and the breakdown of their relationship offered some delicious angst even if it did sometimes make me feel like grabbing them by their shoulders and shaking them.
...I feel like maybe this review mostly ended up focusing on the negatives so I just also want to say, I've been in a pretty bad reading slump this year. And I read this book in two days. I even finished it! So it was captivating and it did offer intrigue that was engaging to read.
This was my first Harris read, and I'm absolutely interested in reading more by them. (You know, once I've read the other 500+ books on my TBR orz)