I can’t even be angry; I’m just disappointed. The concept was SO tremendous, but the execution was so bland and excessively cheesy in a way that didn’t even make sense. The worst part is Wallace. His character would make a great protagonist to have a redeeming character arc. Still, within the first five chapters, his personality is “quirky,” and he already understands everything he needs to learn. I also need clarification on how big Wallace’s and Hugo’s age gap is supposed to be. Wallace dies of a heart attack, so he has to be over fifty statistically. He mentions that Hugo is in his thirties, yet Wallace doesn’t speak like a person his age, let alone an earnest lawyer.
The side characters are the highlight. Especially Nelson. The reason I almost cried, in the end, was solely because of him and Apollo. The manager was also pretty cool, but I didn’t enjoy how he became the villain at one point.
Overall, I don’t know why this book needed romance. Wallace became compelling overnight because the author needed him to, so we were ruling for the romance to happen. The author does the classic “tell, not show” when exploring Wallace’s actions when he was alive. We only see him mistreat one person; after that, he just heard people tell him, “you were an asshole.”
I felt like this book had the potential to make us reflect on exciting topics such as the meaning of life and death, the importance of letting go, and mental health, but it just fell flat in every single aspect. It stopped exploring exciting topics and characters (the dude that arrived after Wallace, Cameron, the girl’s mom, etc.) because Wallace had to keep giving Hugo “do-me eyes” even though he had been a bad person for god knows how many years and has only known him for like three days.
by Prior-Throat-8017