Book Details
Title: Tight Quarters
Series: Out of Uniform #6
Author: Annabeth Albert
Genre: MM Romance
Length: 300 pages
Publication Date: July 9, 2018
Format Read: Kindle
This book was not provided free
Review
Warning! This review will contain spoilers!
Don’t hate me. I believe this book is the weakest of the series. Now, I am not sure what happened. Maybe a part of me, seeing that Book 5 was less than Book 4, maybe my perception would be that this book would be worse. And it was for me. Let’s get into why.
Bacon, Navy SEAL Sniper. Has a minor injury that his team leaders don’t feel comfortable with, so they put him to babysit an embedded journalist.
Spencer, popular journalist, gets embedded with Bacon’s SEAL team.
Right away everything feels forced. These two characters do not click, they don’t get along, Bacon wants to be with his team, etc. Yet, the author throws in that they are attracted to each other. It just doesn’t play right to me. I generally don’t have a problem with age gap, but for some reason this one seemed unnecessary. Which seemed to be a theme in this book. Unnecessary.
Scoring
Characters: 4 / 5
For the most part, the characters were fine. I loved Bacon. I’m just not sure this story needed him to be with Spencer. I think a majority of my problems come with the story, and less about the individual characters.
Story: 3 / 5
The ending really saved this book for me. Let me break it down.
The beginning of the book felt like a slog. I was having problems connecting with Spencer, and then the forced proximity with each other, with Bacon not really vibing with Spencer. When they got to the part with the mission, and Bacon getting to work in his element, I got more into it.
Then they had to go do this whole dress up dance party storyline that just seemed from out of the blue, and it felt so different from the rest of the series and the book that it just took me out of the story.
Then we got to the problem with the book. Spencer chose the book over Bacon. However, I am not really convinced how the book would have even mattered? I don’t remember the author going into too many details, but it’s not like the book was about his time with Bacon’s unit, more just how the military treats they’re injured? I don’t know.
I like a good HEA, and while it reads more like we got a HFN in this ending, I liked to see that they resolved their differences and are, eventually, getting married. I do wish the author would have added another epilogue showing an epic proposal, which was promised, but never carried out on in the end.
Writing: 5 / 5
Once again, Annabeth Albert delivers. While I have my problems with the story, it had nothing to do with writing style or quality.
Romance: 3 / 5
I just didn’t see much. They hated each other, for the most part, and went right into sex. And it just seemed more of a series of hookups than romance. The ending is where the romance came out.
Steam: 🍵🍵🍵
Average steaminess. I can’t think of anything that stuck out. They went right into sex without the romantic build up of other books in the series.
Overall: 3.75 / 5
I don’t count the steam level in my final score, because how graphic and detailed sex scenes don’t determine how much I like the book.
Final Thoughts
While this book follows the same sort of recipe that the rest of the books in this series follow. To me, it just failed to miss its mark. I didn’t get that build up of romantic tension. It just more felt forced, like here are two attractive people, they are now together. Which is a shame, because I really loved Bacon, and I want him to be happy. The end may allude to that, we also didn’t see a nice proposal and wedding.
I also feel like the weird cirque du soleil wanna-be orgy birthday party was a weird addition that just didn’t fit or vibe with me in this type of story. It felt like I was reading a book from an entirely different series.
If I am being entirely honest, I almost set the book down. But because it was Bacon’s story, and I wanted to finish to get to the next book, I had to power through it.
I had to read some other reviews on this book to see if I was alone in thinking this, and while others felt the same, more still liked it. So if you have been a fan of the Out of Uniform series up till now, I would still recommend reading. Maybe you will have a different perspective than me. Let me know what you thought of this book.
Tea Suggestion
I had an iced green matcha tea. And like the book, there was just something about it that I did not like. I’m sure it was the restaurant that I got it from, as the rest of the meal was unsatisfactory as the tea. I only mention this, because it was the same feeling I got from reading this book.
Thanks!
Thanks for reading my review of Tight Quarters by Annabeth Albert. If my review inspires you to read it, let me know! If you have read the book, leave me a comment below or on any of my socials letting me know what YOU thought of it.
Until next time, enjoy a book and a drink.
