An Offer He Can't Refuse

I was excited based on the premise, but I was bored within the first few chapters.

The book is marked as gay romance, but there are chapters from the female best friend's POV, as well as her mother. While that's against the norm, it could have been a refreshing change of pace, but I didn't feel their POVs added anything to Sebastian's story, and they were a slog to read - especially the high school flashbacks. The entire first several chapters are more backstory than anything, even the mother's backstory from decades before, but there's no real setup to make you care about it.

The dialogue was expository, stilted, and rarely sounded natural. It really feels like there are two completely different plots that were meshed together, or at show more least that Viv and her mother's stories overshadow Sebastian's, and it would have worked better as two interconnected books. Within the first five chapters I know more about Vivianna and her mother and the feud with Vivianna's love interest than I do about Sebastian.

Dom and Sebastian were the only characters I found remotely interesting enough to care for their POV, but even their chapters were slow. Very little action overall, and even then it's all passive or broken up by pages of more backstory or internal prose. Sorry, but I gave up by chapter 10. show less

A Promising Premise That Lost Its Way

I received An Offer He Can't Refuse through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program and was genuinely excited—the blurb promised satire, heart, and a gay Brooklyn baker caught in a fake engagement. The opening chapters had potential, with a tone that felt quirky and self-aware.

But as the story progressed, the narrative lost focus. The character I was most invested in was sidelined for extended detours into his best friend’s life—and then her mother’s. The plot became increasingly scattered, and the language at times felt crass and off-putting. I tried skimming to reconnect with the original arc, but ultimately had to mark this as a rare DNF.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to read an indie show more title with such a bold premise, and I hope future works from this author find a clearer emotional throughline. This one just wasn’t for me. show less

I received an ARC from Librarything in exchange for my honest opinion.

I give this book 3 stars.

When I first started the book, I was a tad confused but eventually figured it out.
This book is a multi-point of view book set in New York city.
Overall I enjoyed the story but found pieces of it a bit clunky. I also found a few areas problematic.
Examples include Big VIV being called that because of her chest, when personality, wardrobe and hair could be used instead, seb not talking to his roommate about his feelings and instead poisoning him with an allergen(which is extremely dangerous), ViVi throwing her best friend under the bus and just deciding ruining his life is less important than protecting her peace.
Those are some of the things show more that stood out to me but there were others where I questioned if everyone was ok or not. I overall enjoyed the story and thought Dominick and Seb were cute as a couple, though I wish we had focused more on them then on the others and their backstories. I also liked once Vivi grew a backbone and put in boundaries with her mother, her arc was nice. I feel her story with Nico could have been a separate book.
The multi-pov threw me off at first but eventually got used to it. I think if one or two Povs were removed or condensed into their own chapters, it would allow for better flow.

If you enjoy a tropey book featuring a MM and an MF relationship with a side of friend betrayal and miscommunication, An Offer He Can't Refuse is the book for you.

Just a warning that this book contains tropes like star-crossed lovers( times two), fake engagement, surprise pregnancy, second chance romance, secrets, first love, instacrush, instalove? possibly, off-limit crush, small found family vibes, forced closeted character, lovers to enemies to lovers, and honestly, probably a few more.

IF you don't like some of the tropes or there is a hard no trope listed above, I'd recommend reading something else. show less

An Offer He Can’t Refuse is a delightful romcom with a creative storyline, super backstories and well-developed characters - a perfectly fun, made-for-TV-worthy escape! It has sequel (one can only hope) written all over it! If you miss messy, if you like laughing, if you love Love, then this is the book for you.

I admit I skimmed a lot of this book, but after about 30%, I couldn’t really get into it. There were too many POV characters, and it really didn’t seem like the description matched the reality in this book. There was a lot going on, much of it didn’t need to be there, and all of the characters are very wishy washy. It didn’t know if it wanted to be about Vivi’s relationship or Sebastian’s, or even about Big Viv’s relationship with Deena. I can’t see who this book is for, because it was all over the place.