If you need a break from life, adulting, or are just looking for some great escapism, this is the perfect pick my friends! Running the gamut from being hilarious and absurd to sweet and sexy, Not That Complicated is unadulterated entertainment from start to finish. “In English?” I said, louder than intended. I did downward-facing dog on him.” I stared at Detective Nash in horror. “That exact spot was literally where I lay my mat. I thrust a finger up at the ceiling in the room above. I’ve been doing yoga on top of a dead man for five years.” These plots are unique and have potential but there is some serious house cleaning that needs to happen with the writing. There were kinks hinted at that the author never followed through with… the author highlighted that there is a lot of awkward but instead of it being endearing it got so dragged out and irritating. And the murder/dead guys plot didn’t go anywhere at all…

I’m not really sure why Adam likes Ray… there just really wasn’t any development there so I didn’t really feel connected to them at all. Like the other book, this started out strong, I was laughing and invested… then it just slowly lost its way and I started skimming dialogue just to get to the parts that actually furthered the plot. The characters are a bit flat, and this is single POV and the character we’re reading through isn’t particularly likable.

There was so much repetitiveness both in plot and interactions and it just dragged. This book should have been at least a third shorter. There is too much talking, too much internal rambling. Unfortunately I realized about half way through what other book this author wrote and I understood quickly the cause of my issues with this one. i’m definitely keen to check out the author’s other works and will keep my eye out for their next releases, as well. the writing was really snappy and fun (and, again, sometimes quite weird, which i enjoyed lol). their backstory also weirded me out a bit at first but ultimately their dynamic won me over in the end. Ray, though, was a weirdo and a mess, and that just made him much more relatable as a character to me lol.

i’m just personally not a big fan of super cocky and confident characters, so he didn’t really appeal to me right away - although, like i said, i did grow to like him more by the end of the story. I fell in love with Ray, our POV character, pretty much right away but Adam, the love interest, took until basically the epilogue to really connect with me. the humor here reminded of Alexis Hall’s writing style, actually a bit weird (in a good way!) and over-the-top, but with strong character work and enough heart to still keep the story grounded despite the sometimes farcical circumstances of the plot. it was kinda strange but also quite sweet and delightfully funny. Well, this was quite the pleasant surprise.

Not that complicated by isabel murray