Rating: –
Steam: 4
PoV: dual, 3rd person
Series: Jericho’s Boys #3
Genre: dark romance, MM
Tropes / tags: friends to lovers, kink, found family
They were end game. Just because Nico couldn’t see past his childhood trauma didn’t make it any less true. Mal was patient.
I honestly have no idea how to rate this one so… I guess I just won’t?
I usually love Onley James’ stories and I’d been looking forward to more of Jericho’s boys for quite a while, but sadly this one just felt off to me. Other reviewers have written about it better than I probably will (see BookSafety’s review for example), but I expected so much more than what I got from Mal’s character. Mal was described as being genderfluid, while also waking up with a new personality every day – but this was never actually shown in the story. It was such a shame, as I was very curious about how the changes of his identity, sexuality and personality would be portrayed, and how he and Nico would navigate that in their relationship, but they barely even discussed it. It didn’t sit right with me, especially as the description of Mal as genderfluid felt very misleading.
I was on the verge of abandoning this one, but I stayed for the moments of found family and the usual unhinged characters – which is a guarantee when it comes to this author. It was, as always, a pleasure seeing some of the Mulvaney’s again, and I also adored how Jericho finally – although somewhat reluctantly – had accepted that he’s “the dad” to his collection of strays. The easy banter and familiarity was on point, and I can’t help but being curious about whatever is going on between Seven and his lawyer Daddy.
So… To do some kind of summary; Barbarian was a pretty underwhelming read for me, which honestly pains me to say. There were a lot of contradictions, both when it came to the characters and the plot, and it was a little all over the place at times. I don’t know – it just didn’t feel like an Onley James book to me.
Fooling around with him was supposed to be a one-time thing, a temporary solution, not the answer to every prayer he’d ever had.
Book links:
Amazon | Goodreads | BookBub | StoryGraph
The Secret Librarian 