A sharp and deeply felt debut about art, ambition, and the connections that both inspire and undo us.
Parker Navarro’s debut novel was meant to define his career - until critic Selina Chan’s blistering review made it the flop of the decade. Four years later, his new book is his shot at redemption; for Selina, reviewing him again is a professional risk she can’t refuse. When her second takedown ignites a viral feud, both their fortunes shift overnight. But as the literary world feeds on their public sparring, a quieter dialogue begins - one that challenges everything they thought they knew about success, sincerity, and each other.
Both incisive and tender, Bad Words lays bare the costs of creation - the pull between ambition and integrity, the vulnerability of being seen, and the unexpected closeness that can grow in the space between critique and care.
When words can make or break us, how do you stay true to what matters most?
Parker Navarro’s debut novel was meant to define his career - until critic Selina Chan’s blistering review made it the flop of the decade. Four years later, his new book is his shot at redemption; for Selina, reviewing him again is a professional risk she can’t refuse. When her second takedown ignites a viral feud, both their fortunes shift overnight. But as the literary world feeds on their public sparring, a quieter dialogue begins - one that challenges everything they thought they knew about success, sincerity, and each other.
Both incisive and tender, Bad Words lays bare the costs of creation - the pull between ambition and integrity, the vulnerability of being seen, and the unexpected closeness that can grow in the space between critique and care.
When words can make or break us, how do you stay true to what matters most?
Title: Bad Words
Author: Rioghnach Robinson
Publisher: St. Martin's Press/Macmillan Audio
Expected Publication Date: October 6, 2026
Review:
Thank you to Macmillan Audio, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this title in audio and ebook to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I have to say, I had very high hopes for this book given the blurbs from Emily Henry and Carley Fortune as they are some of my favorite romance writers. My expectation was very high once I saw this as part of the marking plan. And the premise of the book sounded totally intriguing to me (enemies to lovers rom-com). This is also my first book by this author and I'm always excited to find new authors I might love. But this book fell flat in so many ways.
First I'll address the audio, since I did both audio and ebook for this one. Katharine Chin and Major Curda did an ok job with the narration. I enjoyed her voice much more than I did his. But given the story, how the pacing was, and the large number of text messages, emails, and IG posts that were narrated, I just did not enjoy the book in audio. It's so hard to listen to those things and truly understand it all without getting lost with every @ and email address or person's name via a text thread. Hearing all those headers prior to the messages took me right out of the story. It was actually exhausting and painful to listen to it. I don't think it's fair to truly rate the narrators on this book alone and I'd have to listen to other books by them to truly see if I like their production.
Now let's move on to more of what I thought about the story. I am honestly not sure where to even begin as I don't have much good to say about this story. I enjoyed the idea of the premise: critic versus author and all that goes along with that potential relationship. I will say I felt the tension between the two characters in the way it was intended. Reviews are never for authors and, in my opinion, authors should never approach any reviewer with their thoughts on how that reviewer perceived their work. I've seen that go bad many times, to the point of stalking in some instances!
That's about the extent of anything I might have liked about this story. The plot had lots of potential but there were so many other things wrong with this book, I just didn't care about the plot anymore.
The pacing is extremely slow. I don't mind a slower pace as long as the scenes move the story forward. But this book just kept harping on the same thing: author is mad at critic for their review, critic believes she doing her job and doesn't care what author thinks. While this is the main theme, it never changes. The characters don't grow or learn or anything. They just fight and are nasty to each other the entire time.
That being said, I didn't like either main character at all. Parker is whiny and self absorbed and Selina is just nasty. Now we do get some information at the end of the book that might explain their personalities but given the pacing (and length) of the book, these sub-plots really should have been introduced much earlier in the game. But overall I found it hard to connect with either character and I honestly didn't care about their story or their relationship. Their development was severely lacking and they felt mostly surface level to me.
One of the main points the critic, Selina, makes about Parker's books is they are too wordy and don't move anywhere. Robison should look at her own writing and perhaps tweak it just for this reason. The narration is extremely verbose with over the top descriptions (I do not need to "see" every single room these characters enter) and lots of publishing industry jargon which is definitely confusing for someone who is not immersed in that industry. This book definitely felt like it was written for those in the publishing industry given how much it focused on that aspect of the characters lives.
Finally, the romance, where was it? Again, I don't mind a slow burn but we get nothing until about 85% into the book. No chemistry, no build up, nothing. I truly didn't understand why they would even be romantically involved at all. They hated each other for a majority of the book and I didn't see any inkling that they might find the other attractive or be falling for them in any way. The romance really took a back seat, as if they author realized towards the end that she forgot to write that part at all and just threw it in and rushed it to fruition. If you're going to market your book as a romance novel, it better be one of the main points of the plot.
Overall I felt like this was more literary fiction than a rom-com (I found nothing funny in the book at all; didn't even laugh or giggle once). A book needs to know what genre it wants to be and stick with is, this did not do that. I found it repetitive and underwhelming. And I constantly found myself checking to see how far I'd gotten only to be disappointment that it wasn't as far as I thought. There is some solid writing here, but the story doesn't truly reflect what I see as potential for this author. I'm hesitant to read anything else by her in the future. Now, looking at the reviews, I do see I'm a minority here which makes me feel like I read a totally different story than most. Having Henry and Fortune's blurbs on this book make me feel like they didn't read what I did, or didn't read the book at all. Those blurbs combined with the enemies to lovers romcom aspect of the marketing will do this book a huge disservice by trying to pull in those who love romcoms and disappointing them with what is definitely literary fiction.
Author:
RÍOGHNACH (pronounced ree-uh-nock) ROBINSON grew up in North Carolina, studied economics at Kenyon College, and now lives in New York City. Her books for young readers, including Lambda Award winner Come Home to My Heart, are published under the pen name Riley Redgate. She has also written for WEBTOON and The Onion, America's Finest News Source. You can find her on Instagram at @rioghnachrobinson. Bad Words is her first adult novel.
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