BREAKING THE RULES (Troubleshooters #16; four stars)
Izzy Zanella wasn’t looking for another reason to butt heads with his Navy SEAL teammate, and nemesis, Danny Gillman. But then he met Danny’s beautiful younger sister, Eden. When she needed it most, he offered her a place to stay, a shoulder to cry on-and more. And when she got pregnant with another man’s child, he offered her marriage. But Eden’s devastating miscarriage shattered their life together-and made the intense bad blood between Izzy and Danny even worse.
Now Eden’s back, and she’s on a mission to rescue her teen brother, Ben, from their abusive stepfather. Even if she and Izzy can prove that their broken marriage is still in one piece, winning legal custody of Ben is a long shot. But they’re not alone: Danny and his girlfriend, Jenn, offer to help, and he and Izzy agree to bury the past and fight for Ben’s future.
As they plan their strategy, Izzy and Eden grapple with the raw passion that still crackles between them-while Danny and Jenn confront new depths in their own rocky relationship. But events take a terrifying turn after Ben befriends a girl fleeing a child prostitution ring. When the young runaway seeks refuge with Eden and Izzy, her pursuers kidnap Ben-and a deadly standoff begins. Now they must all pull together like never before and strike back, swift and hard, to protect their unconventional little family and everything they hold most precious.
YOU GUYSSSS. I love this book. The fact that I read it way out of chronological order -- it was either the first or second non-Jules centric book I read -- is why, despite the fact that he is often super skeezy, I still ultimately really like Izzy. This was a much better first impression than his actual first appearance. Or second appearance. Or… you get the idea, though he suffers upon discovering the full context. But more importantly: the romances in this book take a back seat to the fact that it’s about family. AND I LOVE STORIES ABOUT FAMILY.
I: Izzy and Eden
II: Jenn and Dan
III: And all the other stuff
I: Alright, so. Per above: when I read this book without the full context of Eden and Izzy’s relationship, Izzy came across pretty well as a guy who was half-heartbroken and trying to help Eden out while also emotionally protecting himself. He’s funny, kind, and protective (but not remarkably not overbearing about it). And while even on that first readthrough I was a little bit like “DUDE, stop complaining about how sad her miscarriage and her trauma are FOR YOU,” he overall came across well and I dug him.
On rereading… well, look. He’s still improved vastly from INTO THE STORM and his other early-ish appearances. He’s not super-skeezy. He is super exhausting (OH MY GOD IZZY, YOU CAN JUST CALL THEM “DAN” AND “MARK” YOU DON’T NEED TO CALL THEM “DANNY DANNY BO BANNY” AND “MARKY MARK” EVERY SINGLE TIME ahem) but I’m willing to go with that. But where he runs into issues -- which I know now is part of a pattern, which is why I noticed it -- is that he still frequently thinks “This is super duper wrong” and does it anyway. Except this time, he not only thinks “this is wrong” but he also thinks “and I’m so hard done by because of it, woe is me.”
It goes like this: Izzy goes to see Eden in Vegas, trouble occurs, and they’re thrown together despite his plan to leave and go be a sad sack back in San Diego without her. But they end up making out by necessity and then have sex, and he decides: 1) yep, having sex with her is a bad idea because this will never be the relationship I want; 2) I’m gonna do it anyway and just try to ~harden my heart~ and pretend I don’t care; 3) WOE IS ME, THIS IS SO HARD. Through practically the whole rest of the book his internal narrative is that this is terrrrible it’s so haaaaard waaaaaaah, OH MY GOD, SHUT UP, IZZY.
And speaking of OH MY GOD, SHUT UP, IZZY: having actually read INTO THE FIRE, this readthrough made the aforementioned issues where he complains about how Eden left him after her miscarriage REALLY AWFUL. Like, they were bad enough in the first place, but: she had a painful, nearly fatal, miscarriage WHILE BEING HELD CAPTIVE BY TERRORISTS, realized that the man she’d married largely by necessity and barely knew DIDN’T BELIEVE SHE WAS RAPED, and he then had to leave the country and she was alone, SO YEAH, SHE LEFT, SHE GETS TO DO THAT, WHATEVER WAS THE RIGHT THING FOR HER WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO OH MY GOD, SHUT UP, IZZY.
Ahem.
And yet! Those feel like fairly minor points in the grand scheme of the book. That last all caps bolded anger is actually only one or two (gross) moments, and the undercurrent of whininess is balanced out by Izzy, on a whole, still being very charming and fun to read about. The fact that this book also delves into his relationships with other people -- Dan in particular, Ben to a lesser extent -- helps, too. I’ll get to those in a bit, but for me, they really do round him out as a character and make him way more tolerable. And he gets what, in retrospect in this series, is a really important beat for a protective hero to experience -- the moment when he realizes that even though he’s terrified when Eden does impulsive things to save people, he also loves her for it, and trusts her instincts. (Cosmo got this beat. Nash got this beat twice, for some reason. Sam also got this beat and it was great -- then lost it again and it was a disaster. Ric never got it in the first place and that’s a huge part of why I loathe him so much.)
So that’s Izzy. And Eden? Eden is wonderful. And not just because, when Izzy finally gets all “woe is me” out loud, she snaps at him, “Sorry for all the inconvenient great sex I’ve been inflicting on you.” Heh.
I’d say Eden is great because she’s plucky, but plucky doesn’t feel like nearly enough. This book reveals the extent of everything she’s lived through: sexual harassment since she was a little girl; rape at the hands of her step-brother during Katrina as she tried to save her little brother’s life (and implied rape in the aftermath as she tried to get to the Superdome); molestation from her step-father and harassment from teachers and other adult men in her life; gang rape while drugged. She’s given up on even telling people about the bad things in her life, because through all of this, she’s also learned that no one believes her - her own mother believed the crack-addicted step-brother over her, and wrote her off as a slut. The whole family, Dan included, did the same - except Ben, the youngest of the Gillmans. (Gillmen?) She’s been fired from jobs for complaining about the harassment, and she gave up on low-wage work like fast food because of it. So instead, she’s decided fuck it, and become a stripper - it’s good money, it’s exploiting men who would exploit her otherwise, and at a decent club with decent security, it’s as safe as she’s ever been. (So: still not very.)
Through all of this, she has maintained her sense of humor, her attitude, and her ability to love and care about people (particularly, but not only, Ben). She does her best to pretend none of what she’s been through matters, and that she doesn’t care what people think - when actually, her family’s rejection has hurt her badly. She knows Dan thinks she’s a fuck up, so she’s never even told him about what happened during Katrina, because she’s certain he wouldn’t believe her (and he probably wouldn’t have pre-book, tbh). And when Izzy think she’s lying to him and stealing from him and she finds that out, she is genuinely devastated. But she pushes on, because she has a goal, she has things she needs to do, and at the end of the day, people may hate her or write her off, but no one, NO ONE, will stop her.
EDEN ♥♥♥
Her goal, of course, is to save Ben. Greg has been abusing him and is planning to send him to a pray-away-the-gay camp, so she returns to Vegas (after spending six months or so in Germany with her father, who is estranged from the rest of the family) to save him. She gets the job stripping so she can save up enough money to 1) pay back Dan everything she owes him, and 2) support herself and Ben, with the hope that 3) Dan will agree to take custody of Ben (their mom would give it to him, but never her) if she can pay for Ben’s expenses. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get Ben out of Greg’s clutches and off to where he’s safe.
But it isn’t just Ben - Ben has befriended Neesha, an escapee from an international child prostitution ring. Eden doesn’t know what’s going on, but she does know some seriously bad people are looking for Neesha, and when she spots them, she risks her own life to save Neesha’s. She does it impulsively and without thinking of the consequences, because as far as she’s concerned, saving people who are helpless is just … what you do.
Which in turn leads to finally wrapping this section up: Izzy and Eden as a couple. As mentioned above, Izzy does get that same moment as Cosmo, and I love it. He realizes he loves and respects Eden for taking risks to help people. He loves all of her, and he finally learns to trust her, and finally FINALLY FINALLY actually believes her when she says how she feels, instead of assuming she’s only manipulating him, or only means something in the moment it’s said. Eden, for her part, doesn’t have as much learning to do because she’s already awesome, but she does finally accept that Izzy loves her and not just having sex with her. Together, they are a really fun, dynamic, hilarious couple.
And alright, fine, it is probably worth noting their pretty extreme age difference - about eleven years - and that their relationship started out with some seriously messed up power dynamics, given how desperate Eden was. This book doesn’t have the same feel and brings them to much more equal footing. Eden is still desperate, but no longer willing to count on anyone except herself, so it feels a lot less like Izzy holds power over her by virtue of being her savior. And the age difference itself doesn’t actually bother me much. (Worth noting: my parents had a 20 year age gap, so my view on that might be a tad bit skewed.) It does make me wonder what’s going to happen when Eden continues to mature and grown up and Izzy … stays Izzy, BUT this is romance novel land, so presumably that will never be a worry and they will live happily ever after forever. And I’ve gotta say, I do love the glimpses into their HEA that we’ve gotten from the short stories.
II: OH GOD, WHERE DO I EVEN START. DAN IS STILL THE WOOOOOORST.
So at the beginning of the book, Dan nearly dies. Jenn, upon getting this news, immediately forgives him for the shitty things he said in the previous book and decides to screw the whole taking it slow thing, and basically upends her entire life to take care of him. Not just as he recovers from the injury (though, that too), but as things blow up with Eden and Ben, she takes an extended leave from her job so she can go fix everything for him.
And I do mean fix everything. She fixes all the problems in his life, and she fixes him. And it doesn’t even come across as “look what a manic pixie dreamgirl!” she is. It just comes across as her doing literally all of the emotional labor as well as logistical and domestic labor for him, while he pretty much continues to be an asshole manchild, in a way that is terrifyingly true to life in ways I don’t like. I am just so grossed out by that dynamic and it is SUPER gendered. Trufax, I am actually fine with the human disaster/loving fixer dynamic in m/m - I mean, hello, Robin/Jules and Adam/Tony - and I suspect I’d be fine with it in f/f (though I haven’t run across that). And possibly, if done well, a lady disaster and gentleman… uh, gentleman. But as soon as you drag in all the retrograde gender dynamics that have her lovingly cleaning up every mess he makes, while he puts in zero effort, I am just OUT. JENN, YOU ARE TOO GOOD FOR THIS.
Among other things, it’s Jenn who figures out all the logistics and legalities they need to adopt Ben -- she contacts lawyers to get advice, she comes up with the plans, she makes sure Dan and Eden and Izzy are all on the same page. She schedules appointments and gets people to them on time. As more shit goes down, she readjusts and reconfigures until they’re all, once again, ready. And this readjusting doesn’t just mean figuring out a plan. It means drastically changing her entire life: quitting the job she worked so hard at in New York and marrying Dan out of necessity so they can make a better case to CPS to get custody of Ben.
I will say, much as I hate to, that I have to give Dan a tiny modicum of credit -- he does offer to be the one to make the sacrifices, career-wise. He’s willing to leave the navy and find work in New York, so she can continue her life there. She’s the one who won’t hear of that and actively decides to move to San Diego so they can make things work. But, on the flip side, from the second Dan finds out that it would be easier to adopt Ben if they got married, he obsesses over it. Jenn puts it off as long as possible, finding other solutions, until they have no choice left. It seemed very clear to me as a reader that yes, Jenn does want to marry him - but she also wants it to be because he loves her, not just because she brings a whole bunch of solutions to the table. Dan never notices that, he never assures her that at the end of the day he’s eager to be with her and not just to ensure he’s got her help. He absolutely uses her, and she goes with it because she loves him, but it makes me so, so, so uncomfortable and unhappy as a reader.
And then there’s the fact that Dan is a verbally abusive asshole.
Not towards Jenn - THANK GOD - but he absolutely is towards Eden. He is 100% convinced that she’s a copy of their sister, Sandy, a drug addict who’s been in and out of rehab several times. He’s also convinced Eden is a slut, and calls her that, repeatedly. In fact, he has ever since she was first introduced. He knows she lost her virginity at 14; he’s believed every lie and rumor about her since. He never talks to her about them (except to berate her and refuse to listen if she tries to defend herself). He makes it very clear he thinks she’s a disaster and a screw up and stupid; when he’s helped her, it’s always been grudgingly, and something he’s held over her head. It is so heart breaking that Eden calculates that into all of her plans -- how she’ll have to earn extra money to prove to Dan that she’s stable, the lengths she’ll have to go to to get his help with anything at all. Even with something as desperately needed as getting custody of Ben.
The only -- ONLY -- okay thing about ANY of this is that it leads to two of the best scenes in the book, both of which are Dan finally getting his nose rubbed in what a douchebag he is.
In the first, in the midst of a massive blow-up (in which he thinks Eden is a prostitute -- something he never asks her about before assuming), he accidentally hits Jenn. Now, it is 100% an accident. But Eden does not see it that way. They grew up in abusive household, and she sees it as a continuation of that cycle. She moves to take care of Jenn, and she absolutely calls Dan out on it. Even if this is the first time he’s physically harmed Jenn, he is verbally abusive (to Eden, not Jenn, but yeah, he REALLY IS). The screaming and name calling are ALSO part of the cycle they inherited from their parents, they ARE abuse, and if he doesn’t actively work on being better -- by admitting he DOES have a problem and DOES need to actively stop himself from being abusive -- then yes, he WILL turn into their father. Eden in that scene is so wonderful (and actually, so is Izzy, immediately thereafter -- he helps Dan process and realize Eden was right, in one of the first scenes they’ve shared where they don’t fight). Dan is left reeling, realizing he’s not quite the guy he wants to be, and shocked that maybe Eden is kind of sort of right about something.
Second, at the emotional climax of the book (which significantly precedes the action climax, but oh well), Eden finally confronts her mother and step-father, with Izzy, Jenn, and Dan in tow. Her mother calls her a slut, accuses her of lying about having been raped, and refuses to listen to anything she says. Eden finally spills the whole story of what happened to her during Katrina, when she was raped by her brother-in-law (and others) as she attempted to find the insulin Ben needed to survive. Her mother still doesn’t believe her, but for the first time ever, Dan listens to her, and Dan does believe her. He also realizes that she never told him the truth because he wouldn’t have listened, and that he has been truly, genuinely awful.
Those moments of catharsis are incredible and why I love this book so much. I’m glad figuring all of that out was part of Dan’s arch. But it doesn’t change the years of awfulness, or the super icky dynamics of his relationship with Jenn.
Jenn, for her part, is incredible. She’s sensible and smart and she immediately sees that Dan is being unfair to Eden and tries (ineffectively) to call him on it. She embraces Eden and Ben as siblings. She helps Dan figure out how to communicate with Izzy in a way that doesn’t involve anyone punching anyone at all. She is a wonderful person, who, frankly, deserves better. I know it’s a romance, so happily ever after really means it, but man, if I knew them in real life I feel like I’d always be slightly worried about her.
III: The rest of it.
So the book actually does have a plot beyond “Izzy and Dan want to punch each other, then want to punch each other slightly less.” Basically: Eden is trying to find a way to gain custody of Ben, but her mother and evil step-father want to send him to a pray-away-the-gay camp. That pulls Izzy, Dan, and Jenn into everything. Meanwhile, Ben has just run into a girl named Neesha, who, it turns out, is an escapee from an international sex trafficking ring, and she’s on the run, in hiding from her former captors. As she gets tangled up with the Gillmans, her captors track her down, and end up going after our cast of heroes, too.
At the climax, Jen, Eden, and Ben have been kidnapped by baddies, and Izzy and Dan have to save them. Which is pretty great, as it involves the captured crew (Eden in particular) being plucky and daring, the dudes being badass, and a random phone cameo by Jules (and a hilarious aside in which Izzy earnestly explains he would follow Jules into hell, awww). Meanwhile, Neesha is camped out in Eden’s apartment with a gun, and when one of her captors (and her rapist) comes after her, she kills him. That is also a great moment.
I will say this: while the book is not super plot-heavy, it shows just how much Brockmann improved at what she does over the course of this series. For one thing, the Neesha stuff, while extremely dark, feels less like the writing is exploitative or titilating than some of the earlier books. (I’m thinking of the first serial killer book in particular, which read like a particularly gross episode of SVU or something, and to a lesser extent the various rape and abuse plot lines in the third book.) And, while plot light, it also still manages to marry the action sequences to the emotional arches fairly effectively. Yes, things are relatively settled between all the couples before Eden and Jenn get nabbed -- but it was Eden’s attempt to save Neesha that led to Izzy finally having his realization about how much he loves her. Throughout, it’s the various pushing and pulling with Ben and the parents that draws people together and drives wedges between them.
But what’s really worth nothing about the book is this: at its core, the romances are both secondary to the familial aspect. Yes, it’s the resolution of two relationships that have been building for awhile, but it’s also about the relationship between Izzy and Dan, and about the Gillman clan finally getting some peace. It ends not just with two couples in love, but with a whole family coming together, which turns out to be a lot more powerful, emotionally.
So yeah, despite thinking Dan is The Worst and Izzy is sketchy, this does actually remain one of my favorite books in the series. What a lovely note to go out on.*
* Aside from the ongoing saga of short stories. STAY TUNED. :D
BROCKMANNISM TALLY
BROCKMANNISM TALLY, SERIES LONG EDITION
THE END.
Now Eden’s back, and she’s on a mission to rescue her teen brother, Ben, from their abusive stepfather. Even if she and Izzy can prove that their broken marriage is still in one piece, winning legal custody of Ben is a long shot. But they’re not alone: Danny and his girlfriend, Jenn, offer to help, and he and Izzy agree to bury the past and fight for Ben’s future.
As they plan their strategy, Izzy and Eden grapple with the raw passion that still crackles between them-while Danny and Jenn confront new depths in their own rocky relationship. But events take a terrifying turn after Ben befriends a girl fleeing a child prostitution ring. When the young runaway seeks refuge with Eden and Izzy, her pursuers kidnap Ben-and a deadly standoff begins. Now they must all pull together like never before and strike back, swift and hard, to protect their unconventional little family and everything they hold most precious.
YOU GUYSSSS. I love this book. The fact that I read it way out of chronological order -- it was either the first or second non-Jules centric book I read -- is why, despite the fact that he is often super skeezy, I still ultimately really like Izzy. This was a much better first impression than his actual first appearance. Or second appearance. Or… you get the idea, though he suffers upon discovering the full context. But more importantly: the romances in this book take a back seat to the fact that it’s about family. AND I LOVE STORIES ABOUT FAMILY.
I: Izzy and Eden
II: Jenn and Dan
III: And all the other stuff
I: Alright, so. Per above: when I read this book without the full context of Eden and Izzy’s relationship, Izzy came across pretty well as a guy who was half-heartbroken and trying to help Eden out while also emotionally protecting himself. He’s funny, kind, and protective (but not remarkably not overbearing about it). And while even on that first readthrough I was a little bit like “DUDE, stop complaining about how sad her miscarriage and her trauma are FOR YOU,” he overall came across well and I dug him.
On rereading… well, look. He’s still improved vastly from INTO THE STORM and his other early-ish appearances. He’s not super-skeezy. He is super exhausting (OH MY GOD IZZY, YOU CAN JUST CALL THEM “DAN” AND “MARK” YOU DON’T NEED TO CALL THEM “DANNY DANNY BO BANNY” AND “MARKY MARK” EVERY SINGLE TIME ahem) but I’m willing to go with that. But where he runs into issues -- which I know now is part of a pattern, which is why I noticed it -- is that he still frequently thinks “This is super duper wrong” and does it anyway. Except this time, he not only thinks “this is wrong” but he also thinks “and I’m so hard done by because of it, woe is me.”
It goes like this: Izzy goes to see Eden in Vegas, trouble occurs, and they’re thrown together despite his plan to leave and go be a sad sack back in San Diego without her. But they end up making out by necessity and then have sex, and he decides: 1) yep, having sex with her is a bad idea because this will never be the relationship I want; 2) I’m gonna do it anyway and just try to ~harden my heart~ and pretend I don’t care; 3) WOE IS ME, THIS IS SO HARD. Through practically the whole rest of the book his internal narrative is that this is terrrrible it’s so haaaaard waaaaaaah, OH MY GOD, SHUT UP, IZZY.
And speaking of OH MY GOD, SHUT UP, IZZY: having actually read INTO THE FIRE, this readthrough made the aforementioned issues where he complains about how Eden left him after her miscarriage REALLY AWFUL. Like, they were bad enough in the first place, but: she had a painful, nearly fatal, miscarriage WHILE BEING HELD CAPTIVE BY TERRORISTS, realized that the man she’d married largely by necessity and barely knew DIDN’T BELIEVE SHE WAS RAPED, and he then had to leave the country and she was alone, SO YEAH, SHE LEFT, SHE GETS TO DO THAT, WHATEVER WAS THE RIGHT THING FOR HER WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO OH MY GOD, SHUT UP, IZZY.
Ahem.
And yet! Those feel like fairly minor points in the grand scheme of the book. That last all caps bolded anger is actually only one or two (gross) moments, and the undercurrent of whininess is balanced out by Izzy, on a whole, still being very charming and fun to read about. The fact that this book also delves into his relationships with other people -- Dan in particular, Ben to a lesser extent -- helps, too. I’ll get to those in a bit, but for me, they really do round him out as a character and make him way more tolerable. And he gets what, in retrospect in this series, is a really important beat for a protective hero to experience -- the moment when he realizes that even though he’s terrified when Eden does impulsive things to save people, he also loves her for it, and trusts her instincts. (Cosmo got this beat. Nash got this beat twice, for some reason. Sam also got this beat and it was great -- then lost it again and it was a disaster. Ric never got it in the first place and that’s a huge part of why I loathe him so much.)
So that’s Izzy. And Eden? Eden is wonderful. And not just because, when Izzy finally gets all “woe is me” out loud, she snaps at him, “Sorry for all the inconvenient great sex I’ve been inflicting on you.” Heh.
I’d say Eden is great because she’s plucky, but plucky doesn’t feel like nearly enough. This book reveals the extent of everything she’s lived through: sexual harassment since she was a little girl; rape at the hands of her step-brother during Katrina as she tried to save her little brother’s life (and implied rape in the aftermath as she tried to get to the Superdome); molestation from her step-father and harassment from teachers and other adult men in her life; gang rape while drugged. She’s given up on even telling people about the bad things in her life, because through all of this, she’s also learned that no one believes her - her own mother believed the crack-addicted step-brother over her, and wrote her off as a slut. The whole family, Dan included, did the same - except Ben, the youngest of the Gillmans. (Gillmen?) She’s been fired from jobs for complaining about the harassment, and she gave up on low-wage work like fast food because of it. So instead, she’s decided fuck it, and become a stripper - it’s good money, it’s exploiting men who would exploit her otherwise, and at a decent club with decent security, it’s as safe as she’s ever been. (So: still not very.)
Through all of this, she has maintained her sense of humor, her attitude, and her ability to love and care about people (particularly, but not only, Ben). She does her best to pretend none of what she’s been through matters, and that she doesn’t care what people think - when actually, her family’s rejection has hurt her badly. She knows Dan thinks she’s a fuck up, so she’s never even told him about what happened during Katrina, because she’s certain he wouldn’t believe her (and he probably wouldn’t have pre-book, tbh). And when Izzy think she’s lying to him and stealing from him and she finds that out, she is genuinely devastated. But she pushes on, because she has a goal, she has things she needs to do, and at the end of the day, people may hate her or write her off, but no one, NO ONE, will stop her.
EDEN ♥♥♥
Her goal, of course, is to save Ben. Greg has been abusing him and is planning to send him to a pray-away-the-gay camp, so she returns to Vegas (after spending six months or so in Germany with her father, who is estranged from the rest of the family) to save him. She gets the job stripping so she can save up enough money to 1) pay back Dan everything she owes him, and 2) support herself and Ben, with the hope that 3) Dan will agree to take custody of Ben (their mom would give it to him, but never her) if she can pay for Ben’s expenses. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get Ben out of Greg’s clutches and off to where he’s safe.
But it isn’t just Ben - Ben has befriended Neesha, an escapee from an international child prostitution ring. Eden doesn’t know what’s going on, but she does know some seriously bad people are looking for Neesha, and when she spots them, she risks her own life to save Neesha’s. She does it impulsively and without thinking of the consequences, because as far as she’s concerned, saving people who are helpless is just … what you do.
Which in turn leads to finally wrapping this section up: Izzy and Eden as a couple. As mentioned above, Izzy does get that same moment as Cosmo, and I love it. He realizes he loves and respects Eden for taking risks to help people. He loves all of her, and he finally learns to trust her, and finally FINALLY FINALLY actually believes her when she says how she feels, instead of assuming she’s only manipulating him, or only means something in the moment it’s said. Eden, for her part, doesn’t have as much learning to do because she’s already awesome, but she does finally accept that Izzy loves her and not just having sex with her. Together, they are a really fun, dynamic, hilarious couple.
And alright, fine, it is probably worth noting their pretty extreme age difference - about eleven years - and that their relationship started out with some seriously messed up power dynamics, given how desperate Eden was. This book doesn’t have the same feel and brings them to much more equal footing. Eden is still desperate, but no longer willing to count on anyone except herself, so it feels a lot less like Izzy holds power over her by virtue of being her savior. And the age difference itself doesn’t actually bother me much. (Worth noting: my parents had a 20 year age gap, so my view on that might be a tad bit skewed.) It does make me wonder what’s going to happen when Eden continues to mature and grown up and Izzy … stays Izzy, BUT this is romance novel land, so presumably that will never be a worry and they will live happily ever after forever. And I’ve gotta say, I do love the glimpses into their HEA that we’ve gotten from the short stories.
II: OH GOD, WHERE DO I EVEN START. DAN IS STILL THE WOOOOOORST.
So at the beginning of the book, Dan nearly dies. Jenn, upon getting this news, immediately forgives him for the shitty things he said in the previous book and decides to screw the whole taking it slow thing, and basically upends her entire life to take care of him. Not just as he recovers from the injury (though, that too), but as things blow up with Eden and Ben, she takes an extended leave from her job so she can go fix everything for him.
And I do mean fix everything. She fixes all the problems in his life, and she fixes him. And it doesn’t even come across as “look what a manic pixie dreamgirl!” she is. It just comes across as her doing literally all of the emotional labor as well as logistical and domestic labor for him, while he pretty much continues to be an asshole manchild, in a way that is terrifyingly true to life in ways I don’t like. I am just so grossed out by that dynamic and it is SUPER gendered. Trufax, I am actually fine with the human disaster/loving fixer dynamic in m/m - I mean, hello, Robin/Jules and Adam/Tony - and I suspect I’d be fine with it in f/f (though I haven’t run across that). And possibly, if done well, a lady disaster and gentleman… uh, gentleman. But as soon as you drag in all the retrograde gender dynamics that have her lovingly cleaning up every mess he makes, while he puts in zero effort, I am just OUT. JENN, YOU ARE TOO GOOD FOR THIS.
Among other things, it’s Jenn who figures out all the logistics and legalities they need to adopt Ben -- she contacts lawyers to get advice, she comes up with the plans, she makes sure Dan and Eden and Izzy are all on the same page. She schedules appointments and gets people to them on time. As more shit goes down, she readjusts and reconfigures until they’re all, once again, ready. And this readjusting doesn’t just mean figuring out a plan. It means drastically changing her entire life: quitting the job she worked so hard at in New York and marrying Dan out of necessity so they can make a better case to CPS to get custody of Ben.
I will say, much as I hate to, that I have to give Dan a tiny modicum of credit -- he does offer to be the one to make the sacrifices, career-wise. He’s willing to leave the navy and find work in New York, so she can continue her life there. She’s the one who won’t hear of that and actively decides to move to San Diego so they can make things work. But, on the flip side, from the second Dan finds out that it would be easier to adopt Ben if they got married, he obsesses over it. Jenn puts it off as long as possible, finding other solutions, until they have no choice left. It seemed very clear to me as a reader that yes, Jenn does want to marry him - but she also wants it to be because he loves her, not just because she brings a whole bunch of solutions to the table. Dan never notices that, he never assures her that at the end of the day he’s eager to be with her and not just to ensure he’s got her help. He absolutely uses her, and she goes with it because she loves him, but it makes me so, so, so uncomfortable and unhappy as a reader.
And then there’s the fact that Dan is a verbally abusive asshole.
Not towards Jenn - THANK GOD - but he absolutely is towards Eden. He is 100% convinced that she’s a copy of their sister, Sandy, a drug addict who’s been in and out of rehab several times. He’s also convinced Eden is a slut, and calls her that, repeatedly. In fact, he has ever since she was first introduced. He knows she lost her virginity at 14; he’s believed every lie and rumor about her since. He never talks to her about them (except to berate her and refuse to listen if she tries to defend herself). He makes it very clear he thinks she’s a disaster and a screw up and stupid; when he’s helped her, it’s always been grudgingly, and something he’s held over her head. It is so heart breaking that Eden calculates that into all of her plans -- how she’ll have to earn extra money to prove to Dan that she’s stable, the lengths she’ll have to go to to get his help with anything at all. Even with something as desperately needed as getting custody of Ben.
The only -- ONLY -- okay thing about ANY of this is that it leads to two of the best scenes in the book, both of which are Dan finally getting his nose rubbed in what a douchebag he is.
In the first, in the midst of a massive blow-up (in which he thinks Eden is a prostitute -- something he never asks her about before assuming), he accidentally hits Jenn. Now, it is 100% an accident. But Eden does not see it that way. They grew up in abusive household, and she sees it as a continuation of that cycle. She moves to take care of Jenn, and she absolutely calls Dan out on it. Even if this is the first time he’s physically harmed Jenn, he is verbally abusive (to Eden, not Jenn, but yeah, he REALLY IS). The screaming and name calling are ALSO part of the cycle they inherited from their parents, they ARE abuse, and if he doesn’t actively work on being better -- by admitting he DOES have a problem and DOES need to actively stop himself from being abusive -- then yes, he WILL turn into their father. Eden in that scene is so wonderful (and actually, so is Izzy, immediately thereafter -- he helps Dan process and realize Eden was right, in one of the first scenes they’ve shared where they don’t fight). Dan is left reeling, realizing he’s not quite the guy he wants to be, and shocked that maybe Eden is kind of sort of right about something.
Second, at the emotional climax of the book (which significantly precedes the action climax, but oh well), Eden finally confronts her mother and step-father, with Izzy, Jenn, and Dan in tow. Her mother calls her a slut, accuses her of lying about having been raped, and refuses to listen to anything she says. Eden finally spills the whole story of what happened to her during Katrina, when she was raped by her brother-in-law (and others) as she attempted to find the insulin Ben needed to survive. Her mother still doesn’t believe her, but for the first time ever, Dan listens to her, and Dan does believe her. He also realizes that she never told him the truth because he wouldn’t have listened, and that he has been truly, genuinely awful.
Those moments of catharsis are incredible and why I love this book so much. I’m glad figuring all of that out was part of Dan’s arch. But it doesn’t change the years of awfulness, or the super icky dynamics of his relationship with Jenn.
Jenn, for her part, is incredible. She’s sensible and smart and she immediately sees that Dan is being unfair to Eden and tries (ineffectively) to call him on it. She embraces Eden and Ben as siblings. She helps Dan figure out how to communicate with Izzy in a way that doesn’t involve anyone punching anyone at all. She is a wonderful person, who, frankly, deserves better. I know it’s a romance, so happily ever after really means it, but man, if I knew them in real life I feel like I’d always be slightly worried about her.
III: The rest of it.
So the book actually does have a plot beyond “Izzy and Dan want to punch each other, then want to punch each other slightly less.” Basically: Eden is trying to find a way to gain custody of Ben, but her mother and evil step-father want to send him to a pray-away-the-gay camp. That pulls Izzy, Dan, and Jenn into everything. Meanwhile, Ben has just run into a girl named Neesha, who, it turns out, is an escapee from an international sex trafficking ring, and she’s on the run, in hiding from her former captors. As she gets tangled up with the Gillmans, her captors track her down, and end up going after our cast of heroes, too.
At the climax, Jen, Eden, and Ben have been kidnapped by baddies, and Izzy and Dan have to save them. Which is pretty great, as it involves the captured crew (Eden in particular) being plucky and daring, the dudes being badass, and a random phone cameo by Jules (and a hilarious aside in which Izzy earnestly explains he would follow Jules into hell, awww). Meanwhile, Neesha is camped out in Eden’s apartment with a gun, and when one of her captors (and her rapist) comes after her, she kills him. That is also a great moment.
I will say this: while the book is not super plot-heavy, it shows just how much Brockmann improved at what she does over the course of this series. For one thing, the Neesha stuff, while extremely dark, feels less like the writing is exploitative or titilating than some of the earlier books. (I’m thinking of the first serial killer book in particular, which read like a particularly gross episode of SVU or something, and to a lesser extent the various rape and abuse plot lines in the third book.) And, while plot light, it also still manages to marry the action sequences to the emotional arches fairly effectively. Yes, things are relatively settled between all the couples before Eden and Jenn get nabbed -- but it was Eden’s attempt to save Neesha that led to Izzy finally having his realization about how much he loves her. Throughout, it’s the various pushing and pulling with Ben and the parents that draws people together and drives wedges between them.
But what’s really worth nothing about the book is this: at its core, the romances are both secondary to the familial aspect. Yes, it’s the resolution of two relationships that have been building for awhile, but it’s also about the relationship between Izzy and Dan, and about the Gillman clan finally getting some peace. It ends not just with two couples in love, but with a whole family coming together, which turns out to be a lot more powerful, emotionally.
So yeah, despite thinking Dan is The Worst and Izzy is sketchy, this does actually remain one of my favorite books in the series. What a lovely note to go out on.*
* Aside from the ongoing saga of short stories. STAY TUNED. :D
BROCKMANNISM TALLY
- USES OF THE PHRASE “SOUL-KISS”: Only once, and that’s actual when Izzy gets knocked off his feet by an explosion and ends up “soul-kissing the pavement.”
- COUPLE WHO KNEW EACH OTHER IN HIGH SCHOOL AND/OR SHE’S HIS FRIEND’S SISTER: Izzy and Eden, still, assuming you can count Izzy and Dan as friends...
- PREGNANCY SCARE HE SECRETLY THINKS IS HOT: Hahaha YEAH, Dan and Jenn sort of forget to use a condom on their wedding night and then decide not to and Dan is SO TURNED ON by the idea of her getting pregnant.
- SEX AT AN INOPPORTUNE TIME AND HE CAN’T PULL OUT BECAUSE REASONS: Izzy and Eden get all gropey in his car at one point and his watch gets stuck on her skirt when they try to jerk away from each other because Dan has walked up.
- SOMEONE HAS THE FLU/FOOD POISONING/OTHERWISE VOMITS FOR NO REASON: No flu or food poisoning, but vomit galore. Dan throws up after he accidentally hits Jenn; Ben throws up due to some diabetes/kidnapping complications; Greg throws up because he’s super wasted and gross.
- JAY LOPEZ SHOWS UP, EXPLAINS THAT HE’S A MEDIC, AND VANISHES AGAIN: Yep! He is conveniently on hand for the first scene when there’s that explosion, then vanishes for the entire rest of the book.
- JULES: Phones it in, helpfully leaking FBI info he knows Izzy and Dan will abuse. I mean, why not? That’s nothing compared to helping Nash fake his own death and whatever other nonsense he got up to before this.
- SAM AND ALYSSA: Absent
BROCKMANNISM TALLY, SERIES LONG EDITION
- SOUL-KISSES: 18, or at least, 18 kisses (or non-kisses) that are variants on it - soul-kisses, soul-sucking kisses, soul-shattering kisses...
- COUPLE WHO KNEW EACH OTHER IN HIGH SCHOOL AND/OR SHE’S HIS FRIEND’S SISTER: Eden and Izzy, Ric and Annie, Ken and Savannah (college, close enough), and Tom and Kelly. With bonus shout outs to Jenk and Tracy (though they never actually happened), and Hannah and Murph, who a had similar vibe. (And I know this one comes up in at least one of the short stories, too.)
- PREGNANCY SCARE HE SECRETLY THINKS IS HOT: Jenn and Dan (actually get pregnant), Sophia and Dave (actually get pregnant), Izzy and Eden (CLOSE ENOUGH considering how sexy he finds her pregnancy), Ric and Annie, Max and Giina (actually get pregnant), Molly and Jones (actually get pregnant), Robin and Patty (have a scare), Nash and Tess, Sam and Alyssa, Stan and Teri, Nils and Meg, Sam and Alyssa again.
- SEX AT AN INOPPORTUNE TIME AND HE CAN’T PULL OUT BECAUSE REASONS: Reconfiguring this slightly to inopportune or otherwise embarrassing, you get Izzy and Eden, Jenn and Dan, Decker and Tracy, Sam and Alyssa, Ric and Annie, Max and Gina, Sam and Alyssa again, and Tom and Kelly
- SOMEONE HAS THE FLU/FOOD POISONING/OTHERWISE VOMITS FOR NO REASON: There are only two books without some form of vomiting.
- JAY LOPEZ SHOWS UP, EXPLAINS THAT HE’S A MEDIC, AND VANISHES AGAIN: The only books where Jay does not get to show up and be a medic are FORCE OF NATURE and BREAKING POINT, it turns out.
- JULES: After his introduction in book two, Jules is only absent from FLASHPOINT.
- SAM AND ALYSSA: Are only absent from this final book - in every other book they are at the very least referenced in passing.
THE END.