How to Belong with a Billionaire

I think regret is important. It’s how you learn to live with things instead of running from them.

Well, once again, I have a lot of feelings. And a lot of thoughts, about this book in particular, but also the trilogy as a whole. I think there's a conclusion I've come to: this entire story would work so much better if it wasn't a romance. Maybe it should have been simply a contemporary or, I don't know, something from the realm of literary fiction, even. Something with a focus on all the different way abuse and trauma can affect people, and those around them; a story showing the different journeys, and their intersections, and how sometimes you need to let go and walk forward. If this story was told that way, without following the necessary constraints of the romance genre, I think I would have loved it wholeheartedly. I probably wouldn't even be frustrated by Caspian over and over again, or at the very least my ratio of frustration to sympathy would skew heavily towards the latter instead of swinging wildly back and forth.

Because honestly, while this is very much a story about love, I don't feel like it's really a love story. I can't really buy the happy ending the characters got, because there's so much working against them, including the super different stages they're on. Arden has come such a long way from the first chapter of the first book, it's almost unbelievable. His is probably one of my favorite character arcs ever. Throughout this book in particular, he's been consistently moving forward, exploring life, facing the consequences of his blunders, admitting responsibility when he messed up, setting up his personal borders, and expanding an infinite amount of empathy toward others. Like, Nathaniel would have been trivially easy for Arden to villainize in his head on more than one occasion, but every time, even when rightfully blaming Nathaniel for certain actions and choices, Arden never forgot that this "other guy" who is hurting the person Arden loves with the purpose of fixing him is also a person with feelings and pains of his own. All in all, Arden is constantly on this upward curve where it's clear things aren't going to be easy, but they're going to be fine in the end. I loved reading about all of his relationships with other people who weren't Caspian: how he maintained his friendship with Nick, how he handled his fuck-up with Ellory, and his entire friendship with benefits with George. It all gave me the impression he was headed toward a good place, in terms of life in general.

Caspian, meanwhile... Well, the way Arden puts it at one point, "It kind of feels like there’s me, and there’s what he went through, but that’s the only thing that counts." I would rephrase it as, "It kind of feels like there's life, and there's what he went through," and Caspian keeps dwelling on the latter. Which is, looking at it outside the romance genre constraints/expectation/structure context, valid. He's been through some super bad shit. It never stopped haunting him. His abuser still shows up in his life all the damn time. I still feel like he's his own main problem at this point, but I'd be interested in seeing how he would approach solving it eventually... without Arden doing all the emotional and psychological heavy lifting. Even by the very end of the book, I don't feel like Caspian is anywhere close to the mental place where he should be for this relationship to work. He's only just beginning. Maybe he'll stop playing this "go away, but don't go too far; you make me so happy, I despise who I am with you; I'll give you everything money can buy, but I won't listen to what you're saying" game he's had going on for three damn books. Maybe. But I actually find it hard to believe that he won't start relapsing, or otherwise letting the trauma rule his life. I guess I'm placing all my hopes on Arden's plan to find that queer-friendly, kink-friendly therapist, because yeah, Arden, you're completely right, the two of you can't do this alone.

Honestly, the first 75% or so of this book were so heavy, there were pages that were painful to read, and I still, for the most part, loved reading that big part because it felt genuine. The characters were steadily growing apart, to the extent that they were in each other's life at all, and painful as it was, it felt like the right trajectory somehow. Maybe they should have grown apart, for a good long while, and then met again when they were in more similar places. Instead, the last ~25% happened, and where the previous part of the book felt genuine, this last act was just so... contrived? Artificial? Like, from the moment the side plot with Arden's father popped up, I just felt like this was a hastily plotted fix-it fanfic written with a purpose to fit the genre convention. Like the author was just sitting there staring at the page and thinking, "Okay, but how do I get them into the same room now? Maybe some really bad thing needs to happen. Is there something I can milk out of the previous two books? Oooh, that backstory about Arden's father, let's try that." Everything that followed afterward was like... in the same vein. 

Also, I am super angry that the villain was left unpunished, theoretically retains the power to intrude on Caspian's entire orbit, and what he tried to do to Arden was swept completely under the rug and Arden wasn't even allowed to process it properly because he needed to go deliver an epiphany to Caspian. Just... ugh. 

All those frustrations aside, though, I loved most of the time I've spent with this trilogy. Because of Arden, mainly. I get the feeling he'll remain my favorite character of all time. I also loved the bubble of people he surrounded himself with, the several trans characters leading happy and fulfilling lives, the kink positivity, the friendships, and Arden's mom and her partners (a big separate yay for poly representation). Also, Alexis Hall's writing is fabulous.