Situationship
Grade : D

If you like Lifetime movies that include precocious children, rambunctious dogs, and judgmental, shrewish heroines, you will like Marina Adair’s Situationship. Sadly, I like neither Lifetime movies nor this book.

Teagan Bianchi has ditched her gambling-addicted leach of a soon-to-be ex-husband Frank and taken her twin daughters and their motley dog Garbage Disposal (I cannot stress how much I HATED that dog name) to live in the Pacific Cove beach house left to her by her Nonna Rose. When she arrives and discovers her younger sister Harley squatting in the house while she hides from a relationship that’s getting too serious, Teagan is not having any of it. Not only does she view Harley as too chaotic a presence to be a part of her and her daughters’ lives, for some bizarre, convoluted reason Teagan holds Harley responsible for the last time Frank fell off the gambling wagon and literally cost Teagan her livelihood. But Teagan has plans to re-establish her grandmother’s baking business, so she reluctantly agrees to let Harley serve as a nanny to the twins. Harley proves to be a decent babysitter even if she doesn’t always follow Teagan’s strict rules to the letter. She’s also a huge help in putting Bread N Butter on the track to success.
Colin West, Teagan’s next door neighbor and high school fling, is a veterinarian with an obnoxious teenage daughter about to leave for college. The first four times we encounter Colin, he’s not wearing a shirt. That’s really all you need to know about him.

Despite their shared history and mutual attraction, Teagan and Colin can’t be a couple because Teagan sees Colin as entering his empty-nester phase while she still has two young children to raise. For his part, Colin can’t trust Teagan because back when she was eighteen years old, she broke up with him when she went off to college, assuming that they should both pursue their own paths. But over time, these objections fall away and the two begin a serious romance.

Until Frank shows up.

At first, I figured that my dislike of this book was based on my general dislike of kids in romance novels and heroines who live in perfect houses that are literally just handed to them located in perfect seaside towns that only exist in fiction. A case of ‘just not my kind of story’ at play. But my disgust with Teagan as a character was simply too strong to overcome.

Teagan is a first class witch-with-a-B. She’s hyper-controlling, passive aggressive and downright nasty to Harley, with an entitled my-life-is-so-much-harder-than-anyone-else’s complex that made me want to smack her more than once. When their parents divorced, Teagan’s mother split the sisters up, with Teagan having a fairly stable upbringing with Nonna Rose and her mother while Harley was stuck being raised by their rambling, irresponsible roadie of a father. Teagan sees no need to be grateful for her lucky roll of the dice or give Harley any leeway for what amounted to a completely unstable childhood.

Ironically, Teagan is also the biggest pushover put on the page. For some dumb reason, she holds herself responsible for breaking up her family, even though it was her gambling husband who destroyed their lives. When Frank shows up with zero indication that he’s in any way changed, she not only opens her door wide for him, she is willing to hurt a decent guy like Colin in the process. There was literally nothing that I liked about Teagan. Nothing.

Like I said above, I’m not a fan of kids in romance novels, and if the story does include them, I prefer them to be offscreen as much as possible. Four-year-old twins Poppy and Lily are not only all over this story, they are written in the most cloying, baby-talk-lispy fashion that I found myself skimming over every scene in which they open their mouths. Or rather, whenever Poppy opens her mouth because Lily never talks, apparently having that super-special twin connection that allows Poppy to read her mind and speak for her. The whole experience resembls that awful moment when someone forces you to look at endless photos of their children. Not everyone finds your kids and their antics as adorable as you do.

I won’t even go into the silly mistakes that always drive me nuts and pull me completely out of the story. Like why Teagan, leaning right while driving her car, would be pressed against the window. Or how she knows that a shirtless Colin is wet because he just washed his truck even though she just pulled into the driveway and is surprised when he appears next to her car. Or how a 120 pound dog easily leaps out the open window of a car when my dog, who weighs a mere eighty-five pounds, would struggle to squeeze out of our SUV window. And why would a town established by Episcopalians have a lot of steeples? All of these questions and only one chapter in!

The thing that saves this book from utter failure is Harley. As a character, she has good reasons for her fear of commitment and adulting, and she genuinely tries to be helpful even though Teagan doesn’t deserve it.

I won’t recommend Situationship, but I will admit that it might appeal to some people. I’m just not one of them.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local bookshop

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Reviewed by Jenna Harper
Grade : D
Book Type: Women's Fiction

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : November 6, 2022

Publication Date: 10/2022

Review Tags: California

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Jenna Harper

I'm a city-fied suburban hockey mom who owns more books than I will probably ever manage to read in my lifetime, but I'm determined to try.
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