It’s here! It happened! It’s the final review in the One Night in South Beach series! I can hardly believe it. I grew to love these characters so much, and to love Christopher’s writing even more. I can’t WAIT for more books by her! I have another in my arsenal for later this year, and I’m pumped about it. But I digress – let’s get to this review!
In All Hours, grumpy Joaquin Delgado tears his rotator cuff on the same night that his abuela was trying to hook him up with Maya Pascual’s brother Felix. Joaquin is super not interested in the flashy younger man, even though he’s hot and can totally cook. But Joaquin thinks he’s too fucked up to love anyone, and he’s too busy with the restaurant anyway. But then he’s sidelined for weeks following corrective surgery for his shoulder, and his abuela does exactly what he hoped she wouldn’t – she got Felix to cover the restaurant for him while he’s out of commission.
Felix Pascual has always had a thing for Joaquin, but he’s figured that Joaquin didn’t feel anything back. But then they share this steamy kiss in the walk in cooler and Felix knows it’s on. But Felix has some baggage from a trash ex-boyfriend, and he’s not sure Joaquin isn’t going to use him and abuse him in the same way. But… it sure seems like Joaquin’s feelings are real… and Felix’s feelings are definitely real… so what could possibly keep them apart?
DUN DUN DUN.
3 Things I Loved
- Joaquin. I LOVE A GRUMPY HERO. You know this about me! And Joaquin is one of the grumpiest! But he’s smooshy on the inside, just like I like them, and he’s aces at calling Felix on his shit. I loved their dynamic.
- Felix. He’s a bit flashy and a bit much and exactly what Joaquin needs in his life. For sure. I was hoping he’d get his own story, but we had to wait until THE VERY END OF THE SERIES for it!
- The siblings. This book was filled with touching moments between Joaquin and Felix and their respective siblings. I love healthy adult sibling relationships in books. Christopher does an excellent job of balancing the story while also filling in side characters to round out the story.
Dislikes/Problematic Content
As with all the books in this series, it’s pretty diverse! And this one is an M/M romance, so it’s even more so. It was really well written, very natural to read, wasn’t fetishy or anything like that – which is sometimes (unfortunately) seen in M/M romance written by women. I didn’t think that was the case here, but correct me if I’m wrong!
Content warnings – homophobia. This is mostly in Joaquin’s memories of his father in his childhood. Thankfully, Mr. Delgado stays the fuck out of this book. There’s also just memories of a lot of abuse in Joaquin’s childhood, and some manipulation and abuse from Felix’s ex-boyfriend. It’s not QUITE as heavy as Night and Day, but parts of this are still pretty heavy.
The only thing I really disliked was Lola in this one. Sorry… I know that I’ve loved her in the past, but having her find ALL THREE OF HER GRANDCHILDREN THEIR FOREVER PEOPLE is super unrealistic to me. Maybe she’s a Cuban bruja or something, idk, but it got a little tired in this book. That’s just my opinion though!
Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:
- Red = DNF, I hated everything
- Orange = Ugh, no thank you
- Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
- Green = This was good!
- Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
- Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!
I really enjoyed this one! It was the perfect ending to the series. I’m going to give All Hours a GREEN rating! I liked it a lot, but I think the Lola stuff bothered me more than I realized because I just can’t give it a higher rating than that! Sorry, fam.
Happy reading! And finish a series, if you can!
Snark & Squee 