#because i only played like 1 chapter of the roommates book but baby bird pissed me tf off cause it’s clunky and not even clever

[cadybear420]

My thoughts on the 2023 Choices releases so far

I don't usually do this but fuck it. If I feel like it I'll do one for 2022 since I was active that year. Not for 2021 though, since I was still very new to the app starting in that year. I am currently working on a masterlist for all Choices books though.

Some of these books, I have not fully read or caught up with yet, but I'm still providing my opinion on what I anticipate for them.

Guinevere

Haven't started yet, but I heard it's really good. It doesn't seem like something I'll consider one of the bests, but who knows, it might surprise me.

Surrender 2

This one really cemented the Surrender series as the worst Choices stories ever of all time to me. All it does is hammer down how much worse Reagan is than Pat. They infantilize MC and are incredibly controlling to the point where they enforce BDSM outside of the bedroom and then straight up say "when a woman agrees to be my sub, she agrees to obey".

MC does leave them over this, thank God, but unfortunately her self-respect is very short lived. She seems completely unfazed when Reagan literally tracks her down on her getaway trip, and even proposes to them barely even a day after they talk things out (and keep in mind, that talk only happened because Reagan tracked down MC).

God this series was such a waste of potential.

Kiss of Death

I'm only in the middle of Ch1, but I've heard a lot of mixed opinions about this one. On one hand, there are options for MC to be more badass and proactive. But on the other hand, a lot of characters infantilize MC and she does get forced into a damsel in distress position often.

With other trashy smut books, I at least kind of know what to expect. But with this one, it's a very mixed bag.

Getaway Girls

I've only played Chapter 1, but so far it seems pretty fun and chill and I'm looking forward to playing it.

Roommates With Benefits

The first chapter wanted my MC to lap-dance on the LI. I think by that point, we already knew the cliched gender-normative smut romance we were in for.

But with that in mind, there wasn't anything that severely pissed me off about this book like there was about books like Surrender 2 and FCL. Well, besides the LI constantly calling MC "baby bird", but even that is relatively minor compared to the problems of books like Surrender 2 and FCL.

Overall, it's a pretty mid-level story.

First Comes Love

Awful awful awful. MC is a FemCeL. The story wants us to root against Rebecca despite that she did literally nothing wrong. Even when we choose to be nicer to Rebecca, it's all meaningless and they clearly want it to be fake kindness. MC basically gets rewarded for her behavior in the end as she ends up with the Blake.

I know MCs don't need to be goody-two-shoes all the time but if they're gonna be shitty or morally grey, at least give it more nuance. Have some self-awareness of some sort.

Overall, easily my number 2 worst Choices story ever.

The Duchess Affair

I haven't even started it yet and thus I'm mainly going off secondhand spoilers. But this is the one affair story where I'm actually more sympathetic to the affair. It's like, the 1800s. MC was married off into a loveless marriage with an abusive prick, which was common for women at the time. Those women, especially if they were sapphic, did not have a lot of options in those days.

It's also kind of nice that, as easily as this one could have been male-coded (and they do kind of end up doing that in the last few chapters), it actually makes even more sense with a female LI. Not only with the forbidden romance being spicier because 1800s sapphism, but a male tutor for a married woman would not be nearly as believable as a female tutor. I mean, I find most GOC-LI books to be better when played as anything other than wlm, but here the male LI situation goes from bland to straight up not even believable, so yeah.

But it's really hard to take it seriously when Nat is an entitled prick and they have bullshit such as MC watching deers mating or getting off from horseback riding. Just like MTFL, its sexual tone seems very out-of-place for the kind of story they want to tell. I swear to God they had to have hired some Brickleberry writers for that mating scene.

Crimes of Passion 2

Haven't started yet but I feel like it might be alright. The first one was mostly slightly above-lukewarm to me outside of MC, Trystan, and their dynamic. But from what I heard, this one is pretty solid too.

Kindred

Haven't started it yet, I feel like it'll be one that I'll end up being pretty fond of.

Blades 2

Haven't started yet but I'm a little worried about it. I really want my shamelessly-RoleReversal Imtura x m!MC moments, but from what I heard... it feels very disconnected from the first book, to say the least.

And I'm surprised that they're giving it a third book, what with their nowadays attitudes towards the series that actually have effort put into them.

The Billionaire's Baby

It's literally just TNA but with a surrogate MC instead of a nanny MC. The only thing that surprised me is that Joss wasn't the one Daphne was cheating on the LI with.

As if it wasn't already obvious from the Jenny/Aditya subplot in TNA 3, this book makes it SUPER obvious that PB would have had an accidental pregnancy plot in TNA Book 1 if Sam wasn't GOC. And I can easily say that if this book's LI wasn't GOC, they'd probably have had MC have an accidental pregnancy rather than the surrogacy plot.

This one gets a lot of hate, but I personally think it's not worth my anger because it's just... derivative in every way possible. It's perhaps the most soulless of PB's stories yet. Cheating, pregnancy, AND romancing a billionaire? Really? Pretty sure every other app that panders to Facebook Karen Moms has already done that story dozens of times.

Dirty Little Secrets

I'm a bit behind on this one now, but so far I do think it's one of the better releases of the year. It's a fun balance between spicy murder mystery and campy smut, and I like that it kind of knows what it is a bit more rather than books like TNA and TBB that force you to take them seriously.

It's definitely still one of those books where the mlw, wlw, and mlm routes are far more engaging and spicy than the probably-originally-intended wlm route where it's very been-there-done-that, but hey, I'm certainly enjoying the hell out of the mlw route.

Also, some of the male MC outfits are a little bit of a step up from the usual premium m!MC outfit we get where it's just something completely basic. Some of them definitely still feel very safe compared to their f!counterparts, but there's progress.

Alpha

Haven't started yet, but I'm looking forward to it. About time we got a werewolf book that's GOC. I'm sad we don't get to be the Alpha but at least I can make the route mlw.

Ship of Dreams

Haven't started yet, I don't have a lot of expectations for it.

The Cursed Heart 2

I want to bone Jack. I want him to sit on my face. I want him to flatten my pelvis as he rides my strap. Omnomnomnom sexy guy in crop top aahbhahghgahrbharhagrhahbrhgrbarkbarkabgrakagarkabrakarkrbark