Meteorologists in love? Well, don't get too excited. Let's just say I would've had a better time sticking to my favorite weather blogs than whatever the heck I got here.
I have a lot of words to describe In Stormy Weather, but if I had to pick just one, it would be excessive. Everything is just so over the top—the characters, the romance, the storm chasing, the working in a male dominated field, even the spicy scenes. At some point, you have to wonder if subtlety is indeed dead or if this book was just out on a personal mission to kill it.
Where to begin? Quincy is a meteorologist in a field where literally every single other person is a guy (at least according to this book). And every time she has an interaction with them, they immediately look down on her and disparage her because she's a woman. Now, I'm a girl in STEM, so I know what it's like to be a female working in a male dominated field. But how can there not be a single male ally out there for Quincy except the love interest?
And so we start into what can only be described as slavish ass kissing on the part of Sebastian for the entire 400 pages of this book. Every time they get together, he calls her amazing and brilliant and resilient and yada yada yada. Like, I get it, girl is accomplished. But no real person talks like this unless they're aiming to be sycophant of the year.
Speaking of compliments taken too far, we also have Quincy's two BFFs. Every time the three girls are together, they first have to take turns complimenting each other on how amazing and successful they are, before we can move on. Like come on! How do these poor souls ever find the time to exchange any useful information, when they need to preface every single exchange with many platitudes of greatness?
This book was primarily written in dialogue form. It must take up at least 95% of all prose in here. But just because something has the potential to be banter doesn't mean it succeeds. The majority was so bland and, quite frankly, an obvious attempt at filler that I often caught myself losing focus and skimming, just to get to something good. You add to that the never ending reassurances between the characters on how successful and awesome and badass they all are, and you can see how this starts to feel like a slog.
Back to meteorology for a second (the main reason this book caught my eye). It is a science of predictions, so everything comes with a rate of confidence. But the way this book tells it, it's all black and white, and the only two people in the entire world who can make the right call are Quincy and Sebastian. And they do so by taking a millisecond glance at the data, followed by Sebastian goading Quincy into being a "badass bitch" and telling their discoveries to the world. As if having your lover "believe in you" is the only thing you need to be good at your job.
And don't even get me started on the spicy scenes (long to the point of cringey), page length (also long), the incessant Truth or Dare (inserted into every conversation), Quincy's credentials (having millions of followers on social media, which was brought up again and again), and the storm chasing (putting oneself and one's partner and potential rescuers' lives in danger, just to "prove" oneself). Like, have mercy!
Obviously, this book does not believe in the concept of subtlety. It has the bones of a good romance, but it was firmly buried under a tsunami of "rah rah go Quincy you're a girl" messaging that got real old real quick. And if someone's really that educated and accomplished and they still have to put their lives in imminent danger over and over again just to make themselves believe it, then probably the right place to work through that is in therapy and not through their lover and their friends complimenting them to death.
So there you have it. I probably would've had more fun just reading weather blogs, which I will go do right now.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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