Grease Monkey is a love story novella. The main character, Itzel, is on the
run, trying to escape her life. She has been tormented forever and is treated
as a business trading object. However, her car breaks down in the middle of
nowhere, where she meets Josh, who happens to have a workshop.
I can see this works for readers looking for a slow-burn romance. The
build-up to the two characters getting to know each other is good. The story is
well written and focuses heavily on how the characters feel. This is the
strength of the story.
However, I have read this many times before. It feels cliché; everything is
very predictable because it follows the recipe of a romance almost
part-for-part. Nothing is suspenseful, and the plot doesn’t feel unique. The
blurb also tells everything about the story, it’s a summary because everything
is there instead of a tease.
Some things feel like merely plot devices. For example, as mentioned
earlier, Itzel wants to run away, but she is fully aware that she is being
tracked. She is also fully aware that she could endanger someone’s home. Julio,
the villain, apparently builds an empire based on lies, but there are so many
holes and weaknesses in the empire that it crumbles just because of someone he
has been controlling his whole life. I would imagine he feeds the authorities
and even has the power to extort them. For someone who has made a living by
controlling others’ lives with extortion, blackmail, murder, and every other
shady thing for decades and is so powerful, it’s hard to believe that he is so
easily taken out.
The main problem that has been established since the beginning turns out to
be nothing, easily settled in a few sentences, literally. The villain is just
one-dimensional, the evil, bad man, while both main characters are idealistic.
The book works for those who are looking for a quick romance story. The
characters have good chemistry, the novella is well-written, fast-paced, and
has a feel-good, happy ending.
3 out of 5 stars
