KIERAN’s Reviews > There's Something Fishy About My Boyfriend > Status Update

Given our heroine's reaction, it's clear that Ms. Duke understands that the behavior of most, if not all of these parties, is incredibly toxic.

On some level, she seems to understand that women acting out on their jealousy is just as bad as men acting out on their jealousy.

So why doesn't she seem to understand that Paulette's behavior is neither funny nor cute? Or that she shouldn't turn it into a running joke?

So, Ms. Duke later describes a very toxic situation between two married couples: Mimi and Tony, and Vinny and Joanie.

Mimi apparently slept with Vinny because Joanie "had her hands all over Tony". There is no word on whether or not Tony consented to this.

Tony later hits Joanie by accident because he meant to punch Vinny out of anger for this.

Hannah even calls Paulette's sister "stalkerish" and thinks said sister is "creeping on" Wills. And yet this toxic behavior is waved away because "family" and because "Paulette has a big heart."

No, Paulette is insecure, gullible, and arguably, pretty toxic towards Wills. Wills seriously needs to dump Paulette and this book needs to stop treating this behavior like a joke. Because it's not.

You would think that most adults, after someone has made MULTIPLE false claims about an SO's infidelity, would learn to ignore anything that someone says.

Not Paulette. For some reason, every time her sister lies about Will (Paulette's boyfriend) being unfaithful, Paulette immediately believes this woman every single time, and has to be guided by her friends back to reality.

And now here is where the book is going from a 4-star to a 3-star.

One, I don't really like how Hannah pressured Xander into showing his fish tail in front of her friends right after promising to keep his secret. Two, I also don't really like how Paulette's (she's the Greek-American friend) unfounded jealousy like a running joke.

I don't like how five minutes after promising to protect Xander, she immediately ropes her friends into the secret.

But hey, at least she doesn't blab it without Xander's permission. She invites them over so Xander can have the agency to do that himself. Hannah has that decency at least.

I love that Xander's human disguise is so bad. Like, he straight up says "practice" when talking about walking, gets excited over chairs, and states that chicken tastes "just like haddock".

The only thing keeping Xander's cover from being blown is that his host/the female lead doesn't believe in magic.

The friend group has not gotten too terribly diverse-aside from a Jewish guy, that is. Apart from Rita, it's mostly a bunch of white people as far as I can see.

We've also got a British guy and a Greek-American woman who acts like someone right out of a soap opera.

Hannah (the heroine) should probably tell her small business association about the people that want to buy the B&B.

Also, I am not sure how, exactly, Xander is supposed to have learned both carpentry and plumbing (he's stated himself that there isn't a lot of wooden things under the sea).

But I'll allow it for the plot.