Throttled by Lauren Asher
Blurb (on back of book): Maya
Noah Slade is a Formula 1 legend in the making.
Focused. Unapproachable. Ruthless on and off the track.
A man with walls higher than the Grand Canyon.
And my brother's new teammate.
I want more of the prince who disguises himself as the villain.
My only issue? He's considered off-limits.
Noah
Maya Alatorre is a forbidden temptation.
An ambitious post-grad I should stay far away from.
And chaos wrapped with a bow.
We're a ticking time bomb about one wrong move away from exploding.
I want to trip the wire, detonating together in passion and pain.
Because in the end, all's fair in lust and war.
Throttled is a steamy standalone romance in the Dirty Air world. Recommended for mature audiences.
MY OPINION: **
I was SO excited for this book and this was honestly the let down of the century.
I am a Formula One fanatic. I LOVE watching the Grand Prix races every Sunday at 5AM and sacrificing my sleep schedule to see my favorite drivers win. I have a favorite driver (Oscar Piastri, though Charles Leclerc is a close second) and a favorite team (McLaren/Ferrari) and a favorite team principal (Toto Wolff). So when I learned that F1 romances are a real thing I just HAD to pick up a copy of it.
This was devastatingly awful. I do plan on continuing the series because I've heard it gets a hundred times better in books 3 and 4. However, this was just embarrassingly bad. The author definitely at this point knew basically nothing about F1 because there were so many things she forgot. This was also my first Lauren Asher novel so I'm not sure how I feel about her writing completely yet because I've heard her billionaire romances are far better, but so far, I am not a fan.
Things this book forgot/messed up concerning Formula 1:
The formation lap! Even the most rookie of F1 fans should know that every race begins with a formation lap to warm up the tires. It simply is not lights out and away we go with no previous lap to ensure that the tires are warm enough to be driven on. It was a blatant error that I couldn't ignore.
Cars cannot just magically drive on two wheels as they skid past another car. I'm sure maybe in the past that was possible but now it is so incredibly rare due to the engineering and aerodynamics of the car. It was hilarious the way this book acted like this was normal.
The people on the radio... It should really only be the team principal and maybe one of the head engineers talking to the drivers but for some ungodly reason, the entire world was yapping to our main character the entire time.
A 1.8 second pit stop is so funny because that was the new world record McLaren got this season. This book literally was like "that was a pretty fast pit stop" and called it a day. Be for real.
Why were they spraying champagne before the winners were even announced??? You don't even need to watch the race to know that this is not the correct order.
I will give Miss Lauren Asher the benefit of the doubt. A sports romance isn't going to get everything about the sport correct given that it's focused on the actual romance. However, this was all just so funny to me because the romance aspect wasn't even good.
Noah was so aggravating. He was definitely a Charles Leclerc potentially Max Verstappen type of driver but he was such an awful love interest. He had daddy issues and I get that but he treated Maya like shit. He was definitely obsessed with her (as he should be) but he acted like he was the hottest man alive who could bag any woman in his line of view and it was very distasteful. I think I've reached an age where this manwhore trope is overdone and uninteresting to me. I think there's a way it can be done where it's not aggravating but this one just made it sound SO misogynistic. I did like that he ended up going to therapy because that is a great message to be sending out.
I didn't really see any connection between Maya and Noah. Something about it was missing. Maya herself aggravated me. She was a shitty sister and a bad friend. I didn't like her at all and so that ruined my perspective on the relationship between Noah and Maya, two characters I strongly disliked. Justice for Santiago. Imagine inviting your unemployed sister to come with you and live the glamorous life of an F1 racer only for her to fall in love (apparently) with your rival and keep her relationship a secret for the duration of the season. That's wild.
I don't know. This book was not for me. I am going to finish the series and decide from there if I want to read the billionaires series Asher has put out but as of right now, I am very disappointed. The other drivers sound fun to read about though so I'm excited to see their stories unfold.
Main Character: Maya, Noah
Sidekick(s): Friends, family, other drivers, etc
Villain(s): Rivalry, secrets, toxicity, etc
Romance Elements: This was a romance novel (sports romance).
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