User blog:7GSTF/A rough start to 2023 - A review of 2021 and 2022's worst books

A rough start to 2023 - A review of 2021 and 2022's worst books

After a massive return to form in the latter part of 2021 and most of 2022, I was expecting a change in the writing culture at PB. Preferably for the better. I wanted them to boldly step towards writing excellent GOC stories that focused more on characters, universes, plotline, scenes, emotional payoffs, etc. However, this year has already gotten off to an embarrassing start. The only reason this year still remains a year to look forward to - COP 2 and BOLAS 2. The books which preceded the two of these were excellent and were appreciated by all of PB’s reader base. Hence, these are the two sequels which are most vital for the future. However, instead of building on some excellent momentum which they had built up, they chose to instead tread the safer and drearier path. A host of female MC books are the result. The second warning was an obvious one. The book titles. For some reason, PB thinks that their app devolving into a smutty, sex crazed mess is a good idea. On occasion, it has decent or good results. The Bachelorette party for example is an example of crazy and sexy done right. Shipwrecked gets a few things right but many things wrong too. I was fearing the worst with the downturn in quality, and I was proven right. It turns out that The Nanny Affair, Baby Bump, Untameable, Wolf Bride and Surrender weren’t the worst that PB had to offer. Up next, First Comes Love and Roommates with Benefits. Seriously?! PB could’ve taken their time and chosen to write an excellent work of fiction. Instead, we get another hot mess of smuttiness and sex crazed loonies. These books achieve nothing apart from the bottom line. It is a high price to pay for profitability. What PB is doing here is dooming their credibility as a company. They are or will be paying a very high price for disappointing their reader base. Let me go over their previous disasters of the past couple of years and explain why their present turn to the dark side is far more dangerous than one would assume.


 * 1) The Nanny Affair - The first and worst of the offenders. The entire trilogy is written by a person who clearly doesn’t understand good writing. The person clearly understood money making writing, or rather - loot box writing. This is a book which is reminiscent of what would happen if EA owned PB and had loot boxes in the game. Every goddamn chapter had a sex scene. Why? Money baby! Money!!! No emotional importance was given to any of them, and as a result, there was little to look forward to. This book had two of the shallowest characters ever written by PB - the MC and the LI. What these two saw in each other confounded me. Absolutely ridiculous in every way. The forbidden love trope is akin to a dead horse by the start of the second book. In the third, the MC is so annoying and indecisive, that I genuinely considered not finishing the book. There are really no redeeming factors as far as writing quality is concerned. This book hits all of the wrong notes on its way into oblivion. The fact this story was an affair all the way through leaves a bitter aftertaste. It almost promotes adultery and illicit affairs, and there is never a feeling of legitimacy to this relationship, even after the relationship is declared as an official one. The LI is sometimes over possessive and at other times very distant from the MC, preferring to keep the affair as an illicit one. There is no steady progression either with the behaviour changing at random times. Therefore, there is no logic or consistency in this half baked mess of a story. This was truly the start of their nadir, and honestly, the bad feelings that it evoked have never truly disappeared (for very good reason).
 * 2) Wolf Bride - Two of the most controversial LIs ever. The male LI in particular can come off as predatory, dangerous and vile. But hey, he is handsome, so it is okay, right??? Hilarious hypocrisy. The female LI only becomes an LI later on in the story, and she feels equally possessive of the MC. This story is filled with toxic relationships which feel wrong and dangerous. These relationships and the characters reek of insecurity. Clearly, there is something very wrong in the way that they are written. The villain is rather pathetic, and in trying to make a grey narrative, they run into the problem of making a grey villain. The villain in this story is rather weak and is disposed of with ease, making for an unsatisfactory ending. This story also pushes unnecessary sex scenes onto the reader, making for an uncomfortable experience that leaves much to be desired. This story was quite disappointing to say the least, but the bad points of this story were magnified in the other offenders listed here.
 * 3) Baby Bump - I am convinced that PB was playing a prank on me with this abomination. This embarrassment was filled with plenty of cliches, paper thin characters, and some of the most unlikable LIs ever.  This book lacked both common sense and logic and quickly devolved into a pregnant belly rubbing book. The dysfunctional relationship between the MC and the two LIs, one of whom was the children’s father is on another level. The three of them keep thinking about the same stuff on widely varying planes of understanding. This book is extremely shallow in the way it treats most of its characters. The dialogue is often extraordinarily bad. Some of it is also horrifically insensitive, which wouldn’t really be a problem, but for the fact that PB prides itself on being a ‘woke’ company. The irony is, that their mediocrity hasn’t really changed or transformed over the years. This is a book series that couldn’t have ended sooner.
 * 4) Surrender - PB officially got the fanbase to surrender after this book. This was a project meant to appease the fanbase who were part of the BDSM community. It ended up offending everyone’s sensibilities. Lust is the only emotion in this book. The characters are so addicted to sex, they might as well be attached at the hip by the end. This book didn’t portray the BDSM community well, according to the BDSM community. The extremely possessive and crudely behaving LI (better than WB but not by much), put many readers off. The rest of the fanbase was put off by the ever increasing smut in PB’s stories. The fact that this book received a sequel, while Phantom Agent, Distant Shores, Nightbound, MW, etc. didn’t tell a tale of its own. A ridiculous story. Very little to like here. Absurd characters. This is another book that would have been panned even more, if it wasn’t saved by better books being released alongside. It doesn’t mean that this book is any good though. It caters to the reader who reads with their brain turned off. This book, like the others on this list, is nothing more and nothing less than a diamond mine, which is the worst fate that any PB book experiences.
 * 5) Untameable - While the warning signs were present in Shipwrecked, the book still had a semblance of a story and a relationship. This book has none of that. A truly toxic romance between the two leads is put for for our torture. The relationship between the brother and the MC is laughable. Nothing is relatable, and everything goes to shit - pretty quick. This book was all about humans behaving like horses, in matters pertaining to sex. There was literally no end to their horsing around. The LI often believes that sex will resolve all matters, regardless of what the problems are, or might be. Another nail in PB’s writing coffin. This got a sequel too. It tells you a lot.

After these Wattpad-esque writing efforts, fit for the gutter, you can’t blame me for being pessimistic when the 2023 lineup was first announced. The books that they announced feature no imagination, no effort, and no heart. They are either thinking with their genitals or only focusing on their bottom line. Either way, a dastardly result. The titles reek of smut and cheapness. The low effort, maximum profit writing is really wearing me down. I had hoped PB would at least supplement these low quality damaged goods with good books on the side, but it seems that the first 3 or 4 months of 2023 will be without any real good writing from PB. They have thus lost much of the trust that they had built back up with LOA, COP, WTD, and to an extent - TPA. One hopes that BOLAS 2 and COP 2 later this year will put an end to this nonsense, but I have to wonder… What do they have planned after? If it is more smut, then I may very well consider simply rereading old stories and ignoring all of the new ones completely. I can’t be bothered anymore. However, if they do have a stroke of inspiration and get better stories out, then I am absolutely fine with it. Please don’t keep writing stuff like KOD, GG, RWB and FCL and expect us - the fanbase - to be pleased with your product. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER PB!!!

From,

A jaded reader.

Yours,

7GSTF.