Finally after four books, I got to follow the story of the character I loved since the first book. If you haven’t read my previous reviews for this series, I recommend starting here first:
In the first book in the series we got introduced to main side character Gerard Gibson aka “Gibsie”, that I just fell in love with and hoped he would get his own book. Finally in Taming 7 we follow his story along with Shannon’s bestie Claire Biggs as the FMC. This book falls easily under friends to lovers, so if that's your thing, you will likely enjoy this one.
Unlike the previous four books, where books 1 & 2 together made up one total story for Johnny and Shannon and 3 & 4 made up another whole story for Joey and Aoife, Taming 7 seems to cover Gibsie and Claire’s story in just one book. Initially, I was hoping for two books since I so excited for this story, but I will admit it was done well in just one and didn’t really need two books. I’ll admit that it got almost too repetitive with some of the plot points.
I think this was partly due to the fact that this story was more one sided where the focus of the conflict/plot was with Gibsie. Unlike in books 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 where each MMC and FMC had their own struggles they were dealing with, I found Claire’s plot line weakest of the FMC’s compared to Shannon’s child abuse and Aoife’s teen pregnancy. Her main plot conflict revolved around unrequited love, being sexually inexperienced and dealing with her best friend being a terrible person, nothing really special for the average teenage girl. I would even argue that I enjoyed the other side characters and found them more interesting and more of a focal point since Claire fell flat. I even enjoyed Lizzie and Hugh arch as a couple since it was a more complex story than Gibsie and Claire.
I will say though, Gibsie’s arch was great. His plot struggles were the main focus of this book and was done really well. We see him deal with his past grief and other trauma’s he’s endured and how it impacts his relationships with his friends and family, Claire obviously also included. His story carries the whole book since it also feeds into a lot of the other characters side stories like Lizzie’s. After reading this book, it seems to be setting up Lizzie, Hugh and Katie’s arch next.
Overall, I enjoyed this story and finally reading about Gibsie and even happy it was contained to one book. It helps push the overall timeline forward since the previous four books covered the same time frame. It wasn’t my favorite book in the series but still highly recommend!
Rating: 3.5 ⭐️ / 2.75 🌶️
Format: Audiobook/eReader
Till next time! Keep reading below for my review with spoilers included :)
***SPOILERS BELOW***
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Okay, so I found Gibsie’s story heartbreaking and a really great character arch. There was so much complexity between dealing with the death of his father and sister so young, to his years of being raped by his step brother, which fed into getting groomed by an adult at his school. There were moments where I cried and just felt heartbroken for Gibsie, especially after so many books of seeing him so fun loving and hiding everything away. The chapter with Gibsie and Johnny after he finds out and Johnny telling Gibsie how he loves the bones of him was such a well written chapter and arguably one of the best in the book.
Everyone deals and processes trauma differently and we have seen Gibsie’s funny, golden retriever character persona thought the series and it was interesting to see it switch and Claire become the golden retriever in their personal relationship because she is the only one who knows about some of his trauma (but even then not the whole extent of it). He literally sleeps with her every night because of his night terrors and she is the only one who makes him feel safe. It just helps build the friends to lovers dynamic of their relationship.
While I mentioned earlier that Claire’s character fell flat for me, it was interesting build up in the book for Lizzie. Lizzie and her scenes with Gibsie felt repetitive but since it was limited to one book, I’ll give it a pass to build up the conflict. It was more just dealing with Lizzie’s constant anger rather than anything related to Gibsie. I was hoping once she found out, there would be some sort of amends between her and Gibsie, but for her to continue to not believe him and be mad and split the group seems like a weird decision, but I’m guessing at this point will be the main topic for the next book. I also am intrigued to see how Walsh will deal with the Lizzie/Hugh/Katie triangle.
Also need to note how much I enjoyed the Patrick has been getting more involved into the story! I am guessing they will set him up in the next book after the Lizzie/Hugh/Katie story so definitely am now looking forward to that!
Would love to know what you think of the book, so feel free to comment or message!