u/gaonussy

The Italy trip takes place in the span of 7 days and Conor literally folds by day 3 and was eating Maya’s 🐱 by day 4 and you mean to tell me that she’s apparently some desperate FMC that chases the MMC around for the whole book? 💀

By day 3, Conor’s possessiveness and jealousy over Maya shows once Lukas makes his guest star appearance, and he literally gives in to being intimate with Maya again right after that because he realized he didn’t want to see her with another man. It took buddy 3 days out of a full 7 to lock in and be easy like Sunday morning for her and I’m supposed to believe that Maya Killgore is a bad FMC? Conor’s walls were made of paper you guys 😭 imagine avoiding the woman you’re in love with for 10 months just to completely fold after 3 days of seeing her again.

The only reason Maya could be seen as a chaser is mainly because of the Edinburgh flashbacks. But even then, I can’t really deem her as a chaser when Conor literally admitted that he wanted to give her everything she wanted in Edinburgh and just f*ck her right then and there, so idk how I should see the FMC as a chaser when they’re both willing participants in this lmao.

If you think Maya was chasing him in Italy, you’re also wrong! The first 2 and a half days of the trip, Maya literally spends it fully believing Conor dislikes her and thinking he’s with Avery or Tamryn. Maya even accepts the fact that he might be with those women, and even behaves as a bit of a wingwoman for Avery during those times, swallowing her jealousy because she’s convinced Conor isn’t interested in her. She never chased him the first couple of days at all. The only thing she did was ask him multiple times for the real reasons why he ended their friendship 10 months prior. She just wanted communication and honest answers, that’s all. Just because she kept asking him these questions, that doesn’t mean it’s her pursuing him. Idk how pushing for honesty could be confused for chasing or pursuing, but apparently some readers confused it.

The book’s structure just makes it seem like Maya’s some desperate attention-seeking chaser because they keep flipping back and forth between past and present, and past Maya was more persistent than present Maya, and that’s why some readers believe she chases Conor. But when you think about it: She pursued him once when she was 20, and Conor literally felt the same way there. The second time when she was 22 during their last phone call, where he did actually admit some feelings. Then the week-long Italy trip they both gave in and pursued each other by day 3. Sis only pursued him 3 times in her life, 2 of which he’s literally a willing participating and feral, and I’m supposed to believe that that makes her desperate and a chaser? CONOR’S the desperate chaser, if anything! He’s the one scolding Maya to delete a man’s number and to not hookup with anyone else on the trip and always approaching her and following her everywhere just to say a whole bunch of nothing just to be near her!! 😫

(This is a long one, whoops).

You can say whatever you want about this book and about Maya Killgore. You can say that she’s a bad FMC because you believe she’s the chaser and that she’s too annoying and persistent and needs to stand up. But this is my hot take: after chapter 20, her persistency became the best part of the book and it was about time Conor’s restraint slowly came to a close.

By chapters 20-21, I started taking Maya’s side for the rest of the book. And I don’t say that to dismiss Conor or say that he’s wrong, because trust me, before those chapters, I was 50/50 between both Maya and Conor, understanding both sides and Conor’s valid concern about not wanting to ruin Maya’s life. (I will say though, I don’t like how some people perceive Maya as some burdensome pest that can’t leave Conor alone. I’ll never tell an FMC to leave the MMC alone when it’s the MMC that’s always initiating interactions, and Conor was Always. Initiating. Conversations.).

The reason why I started being team Maya from chapter 20 onward is because of Conor’s jealousy. Once Conor started being possessive over Maya, there was just no real reason to further see Maya as some persistent delusional chaser after that. For someone that constantly tells her to move on, the second it seems like she does, he’s immediately angry about it, but brushes it off as protection as if she needs it. From there on out, I honestly just stopped caring about Maya’s persistent behavior when Conor is quite literally being a possessive clingy hypocrite, so god forbid the FMC be a little crazy too afterwards. That’s why PSR really hooked me in after chapter 19, when both characters showed just how equally chaotic and relentless they can be about their possessiveness and persistence towards each other. It was fun to see honestly. Once Conor’s unhinged side showed, I thought okay fuck yeah, here we go, two unhinged main characters being insanely possessive of each other, let’s do this. It was nice to finally see that the MMC is just as unhinged as the FMC. It felt like the party finally started.

And did we all just forget that up until chapter 20, in the present, Maya fully believes that Conor doesn’t like her anymore? She literally tells Nyota in chapter 16 that Conor dislikes her. Nyota is insisting that Conor does like her, but Maya brushes it off and doesn’t believe it. Even in chapter 20 during the pasta-making class when Nyota tells Maya that Conor switched his plate with Maya’s after overhearing Maya talk about how bad her pasta tasted, Maya didn’t believe her. Plus, she spent the first 2-3 days of the trip believing that he’s into Avery, even accepting it and playing as Avery’s wingwoman at the Greek theatre and leaving them alone there (in which Conor literally told Maya that he didn’t like that she did that. Again, who’s the chaser here in this situation?)

When chapters 20-21 came around, I immediately wanted to dead the reviews that say that Maya is the desperate chaser in this ship. When she’s talking to Lukas, she has no idea that Conor is even watching until she turns around and sees how angry he looks from the bar. That’s the moment Maya finally realizes that Conor might still be into her after all. It took me 190 pages for me to realize that no, Maya is not as much of a chaser as she, and everyone else, thinks she is. She finally realized that she isn’t delusional after all.

I just couldn’t fault Maya anymore once Conor got jealous over Lukas in chapter 20, and confronted her about it in chapter 21. The only time I felt that Maya’s persistence should’ve been dialed back was in chapter 19 during the first sexual encounter flashback, but I guess AH couldn’t find any other way to create a tipping point of their newfound friendship. But any other scene of her persistence towards him during the trip post-chapter 19, I just couldn’t blame her any longer. He was literally demanding her to delete Lukas’s number and to not meet up with him. For someone that constantly tells her that they can’t be anything and that she should move on, I just didn’t have the heart to fault Maya for wanting him to just spit his love out for her already when he has the audacity to act jealous and possessive like that and try to tell her who she’s allowed to hook up with. I can’t see Maya as a desperate chaser when Conor is just as much of an obsessed simp as she is 😭 even worse tbh because his jealousy is worse than hers. I mean, he literally gripped her tightly and held her in place just to confront her about her conversation with Lukas and kept her in his grip just to scold her about how “unsafe” she was being with flirting and hooking up with other men, even though he’s never even witnessed her do that before.

When Conor got jealous over Lukas, he proceeded to insult Lukas. He insults every guy that Maya encounters, while Maya has always been nice to the women Conor has been acquainted with. I’m pretty sure Conor was jealous of Lukas about 4 times in the whole book. Lukas stayed on Conor’s mind for sure 😭 When Maya kept asking Conor why he doesn’t want her to meet up with Lukas, Conor’s only reason was that Eli wouldn’t approve, even though Eli clearly wouldn’t care. When Maya clocked Conor about him not being happy that she’s finally talking to a guy her own age just like he said she should, and Conor didn’t have a response to that other than to delete his number, that’s when I officially said: yep, let this woman be as persistent as she wants idc anymore lmao go ahead girl, ruin him. I gagged when Maya told Conor that he’s free to guard the door while she sleeps with another man 😭

Btw this is in no way a Conor Harkness hate post. I completely understand his reasoning to want to protect Maya because of how desperately he doesn’t want to be like his father who uses younger women. Conor has every good reason to want to be a responsible 38-year-old man and choose to not pursue his best friend’s 23-year-old sister, despite how incredibly in love he is with her. I understood his reasonings as well as Maya’s, up until chapter 20 when his jealousy and possessiveness started showing and his restraint started snapping. By then, I just couldn’t get behind the amount of people saying that they dislike Maya because of how desperate she seems and that she “needs to leave Conor alone” and “needs to stop bothering him” as if she’s some creepy burden to him? Right when Conor started being possessive over Maya once Lukas entered the scene, I had to take Maya’s side for the rest of the book. Every single time Maya told him to give her reasons why he doesn’t want her to hook up with someone, he just didn’t say why!!! I don’t blame Maya for being more persistent after that. At that point, I ate up the fact that BOTH main characters are persistent, clingy, desperate, possessive freaks! Lmao. The MMC can be a jealous maniac that tells the FMC who she shouldn’t hookup with, so hell, why not just let the FMC be crazy too? Some people act like Maya’s persistence is worse than Conor’s jealousy causing him to angrily tell Maya she can’t hang out with another guy. Three times, might I add.