I was literally groaning out loud when this story fell into what I would like to describe as stupid and juvenile misunderstanding between the two young men. Zack said it himself ... “It’s like one of those bad teenage dramas where the whole plot could be fixed with two minutes’ worth of honest dialogue”, he said to his neighbor.
Up to that point, I thought Hotline was pretty good. New-to-me author, Quinn Anderson, offered a different take of an MC working in sex industry. Actually the words "phone sex operator" in the blurb were what drew me in to request the ARC from Riptide ... and I've enjoyed what Ms. Anderson wrote about Zack's job. It was pretty detailed -- and even if the whole role plays and phone sex didn't do anything to me, I thought the fact that these operators could whip out scenarios and acting on them on the spot was pretty awesome.
Since the book was solely told from Zack's point of view, as a character, I found him to be 'alive' on pages. I loved his personality, and I loved reading about his friends. Unfortunately, I didn't get the same impression about John. John as a character was still a bit mysterious to me. So yeah, he was a law student, and he was rich ... but that was it. To me he was flat and rather undeveloped. I felt that I got more connection with Zack's friends and neighbors compared to John.
Which was why I thought that latter conflict was stupid and it ruined my overall reading experience. I already wasn't impressed with John and the budding romance, so when faced with what John did as well as how they got to that conflict, I was ready to bang my head on the table (but I don't want to injure myself *lol*).
Oh, one more thing ... I thought that Anderson didn't follow up the problem that Zack had with his parents. His parents appeared once, they had painful dinner conversation, and they were just gone. I would love to get some kind of resolution for that particular matter.
The good thing though, I thought Anderson's writing style fit me :). This book was long, but I wasn't really bored. I'll keep eyes on her future titles. I heard that she would have a second "Murmur Inc." book; I'm going to check that one for sure.
The ARC is provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an exchange of fair and honest review. No high rating is required for any ARC received.