Throttled

Y'all - I'm here for a good time, not for a long time. This is ALL vibes.

I've never read anything even remotely similar to this type of romance. I mean, F1 racers, really??? Yet I totally ate this whole thing up. I loved the dynamic between Maya and Noah and actually enjoyed how the story progressed with there being a few days between some chapters and a few weeks between others. It made it feel more organic to me to see them struggle with their feelings across time instead of magically becoming a couple within a week. Exploring Maya's relationships with Santi and Sophie was so fun and definitely a needed break from the tension in her interactions with Noah.

Is this going to become my favorite Lauren Asher series? No, probably not. show more Will I gorge myself on the rest of the books in this series? You bet! show less

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5
🌶🌶/4

❤️ Formula 1 driver & cocky playboy (Drives for a fictional team that is Ferrari-esque)
🖤 FMC is his teammate’s sister
❤️ Dual POV
🖤 High-tension racing & teammate rivalry dynamics
❤️ Forbidden Love / Secret Hookups
🖤 Reformed Rake
❤️ No third act breakup!
🖤 TW: emotional / mental / physical abuse by a parent to child (in the past and present)

This was a very fun start to the series. We get a look inside the grueling pressures and schedules, along with the glitz and glam of the Formula 1 life. Noah and Maya have undeniable chemistry and this is definitely a story of a reformed rake meets a woman who definitely knows better... but wants the bad boy anyway. On a more serious show more note, it's also a story of self acceptance and learning to set important boundaries, especially with abusive family. We all deserve to be loved and seeing Noah learn that lesson with Maya, alongside learning to reject family whose only goal was to hurt him or use him for something was a beautiful journey. show less

Listen: Is the Dirty Air series erotica? Yes. Is it factually correct in every aspect of F1? No, but it’s done an excellent job capturing the spirit and following the calendar season almost precisely as it was pre-COVID. And it covers the basics of basics to the sport. But one thing it covers well is mental health and the characters. Throttled is an excellent introduction to the series and hooked me into reading the other books. This is why I’m reading/annotating them a second time now I have the physical copies.

The whole Formula One background setting was pretty unique in this genre, so props to that. Noah, the male protagonist, was pretty cliche, tho. He is a typical filthy rich bad boy with parental issues, and he changes his entire outlook on relationships when he meets Maya (not sure why tbh, as she doesn't really stand out except for her drop-dead gorgeous looks). I liked that he went to therapy - he clearly needs it for how he behaves with his one-night stands. The chemistry felt a bit forced, like why was she thinking nasty during basic conversations (or maybe I'm too vanilla for the lifestyle)

Having read Lauren Asher's other series, and it ending soon, I figured it was also time to jump into her Dirty Air series. I was not disappointed. I like Lauren Asher's writing style. I have next to zero interest in F1 racing, but the way she weaved it into the relationships between the main characters and their friends made me a bit more interested in checking it out. Noah's the cocky playboy, and Maya's the sister of his rival/teammate. My only complaint would be that it felt a little long and some of the things I would have expected to get more time spent on them were wrapped up quicker vs things I thought would be short were drug out. Overall though, I will be continuing the series and seeing where their friend group goes.

Going into the book, reviews by other readers said that the main character is a Charles Leclerc type who drives for the red team. However, Noah Slade, despite his connection to this universe's "red team" seems more like the Max Verstappen type. It is not a dig at either driver, but the backstory gives more Max with the controlling and demanding father.

Other than that, suspending your belief and knowledge of the actual sport is necessary to not work yourself over small inaccuracies or inconsistencies. Once that is done, then the book is quite enjoyable and fun.

It's a quick, easy read with romance tropes that are tried and true but in the fast-paced and glamorous world of Formula One.

This was fine. Good enough that I will likely continue this series (even though the later books are all really long) but not the most entertaining thing I've ever read.

The thing I noticed first that bothered me in this book was the dialogue. It felt very stilted, clearly the type of dialogue that is made to give information to the reader rather than sounding like actual people talking. A major sign of this that also shows up in this book is when a character tells another character something they would almost certainly already know. It's a very clumsy way of explaining things to the reader and I found it distracting here. There's some other moments here where I found some of the writing to be clunky in a way that took me out of the show more story.

The relationship in this story is between Noah and Maya. Noah is an F1 driver for Bandini (which is just fake Ferrari if the iconic red is anything to go by) and Maya is the sister of Noah's teammate, Santiago. It's a pretty typical bad boy, good girl set-up. Noah was fine but definitely nothing special. Maya was very boring. I felt like we never learned anything about her beyond her vlog, which we didn't even see that much of. Because we never learn that much about Maya and her personality outside of F1, it made it hard to see why Noah would fall in love with her. I also just didn't like how protective Maya's brother is of her. She's an adult and those sort of plot lines always bother me.

There's plot around the F1 season but honestly not too much. A lot of stuff is predictable but not in a way that I minded. I liked the racing stuff and honestly I wanted more. There was some moments of the plot that seemed weird to me like when Maya sees Noah's dad slap him and then they don't discuss that at all but overall this was a very easy read that was well paced for the most part. Nothing in the plot took me out of the story and I was able to read this pretty quickly.

I thought the writing was pretty good aside from the dialogue, which is why I'm okay with continuing with this series. I'm a little concerned about the fact that all of the next three books are nearly 600 pages because I find that to be a bit long for a contemporary romance and might be a sign of having a lot of unnecessary filler. However, I'm hoping I'll enjoy the female leads of the other books more (though the next book is Sophie's and I'm not sold on her yet) and therefore enjoy the other books more. show less