Book Review: The Dating Bender by Christina Julian

Here I am, on my knees in front of the Trevi Fountain, hoping like hell the legend is true. That the fountain gives you solace and love by a mere toss of a coin.

Why am I here, exactly? Let's see...

It started with my parents telling me to get married. Of course, being the good Catholic girl I am, I did.

Needless to say, that marriage nosedived, and my parents weren't exactly happy about it.

Newly ditched and shamefully disowned, I decided to follow the advice of Babs, a tart-of-a-mentor, who offered me a job in Colorado.

Her advice? Sex...and lots of it.

The temptation of freedom, to do whatever--whoever--I wanted was too damn strong for me to say no.

And that's how it all started. The men, the sex, the journey...

The dating bender.

Because everybody deserves a do-over.

 

You know how when you're driving down the road and you see an accident off to the side and you tell yourself not to be one of those annoying rubberneckers and then you find yourself looking anyway as you drive past? That accident is this book for me. I knew I shouldn't finish it but I'm no quitter and I just had to see if it could redeem itself. To put it nicely, it did not. This review is going to be rough and I'm going to try super hard to behave and be constructive with my criticism. But it will be difficult.

I was approached by someone to read this book ... it wasn't the author and I'm not entirely sure who she was ... the author's rep or a PR rep or something. Anyway, I was intrigued when I first read the blurb and I wanted to know more. But I'm going to be super honest right now and tell you I don't know where in the blue bloody blazes this blurb has come from because it doesn't even sound like the main character, Samantha and part of it doesn't go with the book. As I was getting this review together, I reread the blurb and what the hell ... I had to double check that I had the right book info because it did not match up to the book ... I mean seriously, W.T.F. Let's go to the 3rd sentence in this blurb ... it talks about the parents telling Samantha she needed to get married ... um ... in the book, it is made VERY clear in the VERY beginning that Samantha is getting married to ESCAPE her parents. That is really said quite a few times and I remember zero times that her parents were on her ass to get married. I could be wrong. Maybe her parents harped on her over and over but all I remember is the parents being uncaring douchecanoes and telling her they were going to disown her if she didn't do exactly what they wanted.

So she goes from that super healthy relationship with her parents saying ugly things to her constantly and immediately jumps into a super healthy marriage with a dude that I don't even think she knew well. Which would be fine, IF THAT WAS EXPLAINED. She seemed in love with him and totally sure about marrying him. Sheldon seemed like a nice dude and then he stops talking to her for months and treats her horribly? I mean come on. Unless the dude you're marrying is a sociopath, they wouldn't change THAT much after you get married. Yes, people change after they get comfortable in a relationship but to pull the stuff that this donkey, Sheldon, did? No. I doubt it. But then again, Samantha and Sheldon barely had a relationship at all. Not that you get the chance to find out that they didn't have a relationship with the way this book's timeline jumps around.

That's another thing. A distinguishable timeline is absolutely non-existent with this book. The author skips days, weeks and even months. And then the reasoning for the jumps from the main character are as flimsy as her marriage. There needs to be a REASON to skip 6 months. Hell, there should be a reason to skip even a week. Readers don't want stuff skipped over unless there is a payoff in the end from that skip. If the story is enriched by the skip, I'll take that. I'll even take it if the character slipped on her brother's cousin's dog's uncle's hat and she was in a coma for a month because she landed on a stack of Harry Potter books and knocked her head on a Monopoly box. I don't care what the darn reason is, just give one the readers a reason that does justice to the storyline. 

This is the last thing I'm going to say and then I'll get off my soap box and the lovers of this book can take a moment to go grab their voodoo dolls and name them after me ... this main character ... Samantha ... I'm 98% sure she has never had an original thought in her entire life. She quotes magazine articles and tv shows like they are the damn bible and she worships them at an alter in her garage. I don't know if Samantha spouting off every five seconds what some nobody wrote on the pages of Cosmo or some other nonsense magazine is supposed to be endearing but it wasn't. It was irritating. It made me want to light my Kindle on fire. 

I don't know why this book has enraged me so much. Maybe it's because the time I invested in what I thought would be a good book ... but this isn't the first time ... maybe it was the relationships or the lack of entertainment I found in the book. Who knows. It is probably a combination of things. I should ask someone at Cosmo why I didn't like this book. Or write in to Dr. Oz. What am I thinking, Oprah probably knows ... I bet she'd tell me why I didn't like this book and why I prefer the outside of the TicTac to the inside.

*I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

Available: August 22nd, 2017

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Book Review: The Corner Office by Katerina Baker

Tara Johnson's sacrifices are about to pay off: a senior executive at thirty-five at a Fortune 500 company, she's one of the two finalists in line for a Managing Director position. Unfortunately, her rival of fifteen years, the charming, infuriating Richard Boyd, is just as qualified, and unlike her, he's willing to cross pretty much every line to get what he wants.

Of all the things Tara stored in the attic to make it to the top, it's her personal life she misses the most. That is, until she starts a steamy affair with sex god Aidan, her direct report. Interoffice relationships with a subordinate can mean the end of a career, and when Richard finds out, it's the perfect opportunity to take his high-heeled nemesis out, especially since he's still nursing a grudge against Tara for rejecting him years ago.

But Tara's increasingly domineering lover has his own dark secrets, endangering more than just her career. As her liaison spirals out of control, salvation will come from the man she always thought she hated, and perhaps the only one to truly understand

 

It's been a long time since I've given a book only one star. As ridiculous as it sounds, rating books is something I take pretty seriously and I don't like the idea of being all lackadaisical about it because occasionally, reviews do get read and they do influence other book lovers. Basically, I don't just toss around one-star ratings for the fun of it. 

First off, I didn't like the characters. Any of them. I didn't like Richard, I won't even get into Aidan and I kind of hated Tara with the fire of a thousand suns. I couldn't find even one redeeming quality about her that I could connect with. She's super wishy-washy and if that's how she was intended, that's one thing. It's another thing entirely when the author didn't intend for her to be full of hot air ... which I think is actually the case. This chick is all of woman's equality. Which is all good! But you can't be for women's equality and then knowingly get sexually harassed for over a decade by a coworker. It just doesn't make sense. Why have your character be contradictory like that? I mean if you want for women to be equal in the workplace, why would you sit by and just put up with this dude telling you to go have a threesome with him? There are tons and tons and tons of things that Richard said that Tara just brushed off and it just doesn't fit. 

Speaking of Richard ... the reason that Tara and Richard don't get along is the most flimsy and non-existent reason I've ever heard of. And that's because you're not really given a reason. You're told these little snippets of situations that if Tara would just take half a second to get over herself, wouldn't even matter. Aside from the sexual harassment, it's like playground stuff ... equivalent to hair pulling and pinching in elementary school. It just showed the immaturity in both of these "executives". 

Then there was this one part about how tattoos are taboo and basically it is said that if you want to have an important job and not have to ask people if they want fries with that, you can't have tattoos. There was this long winded story about a CEO (or some other acronym) that flew to another country in shame just to get his tattoos removed. Really? That is not the case out here in the real world and that story was absolutely ridiculous and not accurate to how things actually work. 

I really didn't have time to really dive into this book. The reason is because I was wading through all of the ridiculously long inner monologues from Tara that the book just dragged. It would have taken me another 500 pages just to get interested with the way this story was going. It was rough for me. More than rough. Not a fan. 

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

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Book Review: Blind Trust (A Novel) by Felisha Antonette

Loving someone has never been so deadly.

Valerie Harper has one assignment, one mission. Assassinate her mark and everyone he loves. But what happens when she finds that she loves him too?
Her instructions are simple; do not fraternize with your target, observe at a distance, and never engage with the enemy. However, as things take an unexpected turn in Val's world, these simple instructions begin to change.

Refusing to be a puppet, Kyle Shultz walks away from his old life and settles into the college routine. But the life of a student is more difficult than he imagined. Making friends and attending parties are as foreign a concept as showing a target mercy.

The lines between the state of the job and the affairs of the heart are blurred as Valerie and Kyle’s worlds collide. 

With a maze of enemies and hit lists to navigate, will these two young adversaries proceed wide-eyed and alone into the fray? Or will they blindly trust the feelings they can no longer ignore?

 

This is the first book that I've read by this author and unfortunately, it's probably the last also. It wasn't any one thing that didn't do it for me with this book. It was a varied combination of basically every aspect of the book. Honestly, I didn't even finish the last 60 or so pages because I just wasn't invested in the story and I didn't really care how it ended. 

One of my biggest issues was with the conversations between the many characters in the book. They didn't seem authentic - they were stiff and the wording was sometimes weird. At one point, I even wondered if the author was from a different country because maybe something was literally lost in translation. Unfortunately, that wasn't the explanation ... well ... unless Arizona seceded from the union and they were able to establish their own language in the last 3 or so years. 

Right along with the conversations comes the inner dialogue for the characters. This was also dry and stiff and because of that, I felt like I never really got to know the characters. It was almost like the book was being written from an unemotional pov. Which would be fine ... but that wasn't established within the story and it just doesn't make sense. Now this isn't a direct quote but let me give you an idea of how the story read: He was mad. He stomped his foot. He didn't like what was going on. He was so mad.

Like I said, that's not a direct quote but do you kind of see how you read it in your head with that monotone, robotic voice?!? That is how the book sounded in my head with every single word. Is that the author's fault? Not necessarily. But I'm pretty sure my inner reading voice isn't broken because as I type this and talk in my head, I sound pretty awesome. This robotic read issue could very well be me. But that doesn't take away the fact that the book just fell extremely flat for me. 

I thought that the plot trudged along slowly. I think that my attention would have been captured if it had moved just a bit more swiftly. Basically, this just wasn't the book for me. The characters didn't grab me, the plot didn't grab me and I didn't even care enough to finish the book (which hardly ever happens, btw). On to the next one. 

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

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Book Review: This Time by A.J. Warner

Alison Scott never believed in such things as destiny or fate, but she did think that everything happened for a reason. So, when her life and marriage crumble before her eyes, she picks herself up out of the rubble and forges a new way.

Ethan Glenn worked hard to build his life, never taking time to really live. When Alison crosses his path again, sparks soar, sexual fantasies collide with reality, and Ethan wants more. He wants to be her everything.

Brought together by the destruction of their pasts, their hunger for each other could be the very thing that destroys them.

What happens when distance and circumstance threaten to stand in the way of this love? How do they cope when all that they want is everything time won’t let them have?

 

Before I even get into my review ... I seem to be the only person that read this book who didn't enjoy it. I've also never read anything by Warner, so I didn't really know what to expect. All of that being said ... I didn't expect to not connect with this book. And "not connect" is putting it nicely. 

To be blunt, I found the book cheesy. The conversations were cheesy, the story itself was cheesy, everything was cheesy. It didn't feel realistic in the least. It was also dry. I didn't fall into the story, it felt forced upon me and again, nothing was realistic. Actually, at one point, I even noted that "It's like the Sahara up in this shit". Apparently, my grammar goes to the wayside along with my language when I get irritated with a book. One of my biggest pet-peeves is when conversations are stiff and forced. In no way did I see any of these conversations happening in real life. 

I'm not sure if it was the stiff dryness that was the kiss of death for me on this one or what but I wasn't even halfway through the book and I felt like I didn't really know the characters. I didn't understand their motivations or wants or needs or even just the crux of who they were. 

I was already irritated with how things were so completely boring and then by the time I was done with the book, I was just pissed. I felt like I invested myself and then got nothing in return. Now like I said at the beginning, I'm basically the only person in the entire world that didn't like this book. So take my review with a grain of salt and try it out for yourself. 

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

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Book Review: A Merciful Death (Mercy Kilpatrick #1) by Kendra Elliot

FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land—and off the grid—in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event. But the crime scene details are eerily familiar to an unsolved mystery from Mercy’s past.

Sent by the FBI to assist local law enforcement, Mercy returns to Eagle’s Nest to face the family who shunned her while maintaining the facade of a law-abiding citizen. There, she meets police chief Truman Daly, whose uncle was the cave man’s latest victim. He sees the survivalist side of her that she desperately tries to hide, but if she lets him get close enough to learn her secret, she might not survive the fallout…

 

Before I really delve into this review, I need to tell you that I'm in the minority with my feelings on this book. Almost 1800 people have read this book as of right this moment and it's rated at almost 4.5 stars. So my one star rating is ... not common. 

After I finished this, I was a little surprised to find out that this was a romantic suspense. I mean, I must have known that at some point because I picked this book and romantic suspense is my favorite genre. But I completely forgot and this book didn't remind me with how it was written. I didn't get romance ... at all ... I mean there were parts ... but this wasn't the kind of romantic suspense that I'm used to, maybe. 

Or I guess it could be the fact that this book couldn't keep my attention. That's not a good thing. I shouldn't look forward to putting the book down. And I did. A lot. Now this book wasn't badly written, it just read very dry to me. The conversations were extremely stiff and almost robotic. The further I got into the book, it wasn't just the conversations that I found dry. It became everything. And once that hit ... it was all downhill from there. 

I didn't enjoy even one portion of this book. I didn't like Mercy or Truman and I couldn't have cared less what happened to them in the past or what was going to happen to them or if they were going to get together or what happened with the case that they were working on. This was just not a good fit for me this time. 

* I received this book in exchange for an honest review *

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Book Review: When It Hooks You (The It Series #2) by Nicki Elson

Three dates. It was only supposed to be three dates—he was only meant to be a fling. I didn’t want to feel all of this for him. And I certainly hadn’t counted on him keeping such a deal-breaking secret from me.

Till death is too long for Trish Cerise. The twenty-seven year old receptionist is tired of men asking for her forever when she just wants to keep things light and fun. World-traveling businessman Adam Helms steps off the elevator and into her life with his own reasons for keeping relationships at a safe distance. Together, they’re destined for the most glorious short-term romance in history…until they break their own rules and Trish learns something about Adam she wishes she never knew.

I know a future with him is impossible, but how do you break away from such an intense, consuming, heart-crushing love when it hooks you? ~Trish

 

I haven't put a book in my DNF pile in a LOOOONG time. Unfortunately, this one is at the top of the pile of those few books. Here's the thing, everyone has books that they don't enjoy. It happens to us bloggers also. But not too often. And usually, even if I don't like a book, I'll still finish it because you never know ... sometimes, just sometimes, a book will redeem itself. This book just didn't have that potential for me. Reading this was almost like nails scratching a chalkboard. That's not a good sign. 

I don't think that it was the writing but it WAS the characters. So I guess it was the writing. Trish was absolutely infuriating. She thought that she was a gift to mankind and let me tell you ... she most certainly was NOT. She was annoying and irritating and I've never hated a character that I was supposed to love before. You don't go into a book thinking that you'll hate the main heroine. That shouldn't happen. Don't get me wrong ... there are heroines within literature that you're supposed to not like. Trish wasn't one of those. I think that readers are supposed to love her or at least understand her a little bit but negative. Did not happen. 

And then there were the dudes in the story. I couldn't keep track of them at first! Holy crap!! Slow the hell down, woman! There's nothing wrong with dating around but this lady was a serial dater. And a tease. Again, infuriating. See ... I was talking about the abundance of dudes and I was brought back to Trish again. Damn. I hated her character. And honestly, I don't really care about any of the other characters either. Her besties are non-entities basically, they just take up space and I couldn't tell you one thing about any of them and the same goes with the dudes. Thank goodness I'm not being quizzed on them because I would totally fail.

I don't know if this is how all of Elson's characters are written but I'm okay with never finding out. I will not be reading another book by her. She's just not the author for me. But she is for some other readers. Sometimes you just don't click. And we didn't click. No where near clicking. 

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

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Book Review: Buh-Bye, V Card: Naughty New Adult Box Set (The Undergrad Years) by Avery Aster

 Do you remember your first time? Relive falling in love, get naughty, and be good at being bad with a bad boy with the Undergrad Years mini-series. We've packed the box with the best in new adult, erotic romance, and contemporary romance.

The box set includes Love, Lex (Undergrad Years #1)  Yours Truly, Taddy (Undergrad Years #2) XO, Blake (Undergrad Years #3) and a bonus erotic romance novel Unscrupulous (Manhattanites #1).

More specifically ... 

This summer, I’d planned to celebrate my eighteenth birthday in Europe with my fellow Manhattanites—Taddy Brill, Blake Morgan, and Vive Farnworth—until I caught my boyfriend screwing my mother. According to the police report, this vomit-inducing incident happened around the same time I’d supposedly blown-up my mother’s penthouse. Like I’m walking around Soho with a stick of dynamite in my Louis Vuitton purse—not! Now, my besties and I are in jail.

Officer Ford Gotti, the Harley-wheelin’ biker cop who arrested us, keeps sticking his perfectly-sculpted nose into my case. His inked body is jacked like a superhero, and he says I can trust him. He wants me to fess up. I won’t. Not again. Why should I? My friends and I had a previous stint in juvie that nearly destroyed us. I gotta protect them and keep my mouth shut. Right? —Lex Easton, women’s studies major, motorcycle enthusiast, and virgin. 

 

I received this box set from NetGalley and I was really excited to jump in and see what this new adult romance collection was all about. I'll be honest, I only made it about halfway through the first book and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't turn another page, I could read even another word. I. Was. Done. I had to put it down because I totally checked out.

This is my first and last book by Avery Aster. Sometimes I'll give an author another shot if I was a bit on the fence about the first novel that I read by them but I wasn't on the fence this time. I was over that fence and four states away. It did not go well. Unfortunately, this is not going to be one of my gushing reviews. This one is going to be rough. 

  

From the very first sentence in the first book of the set (Love, Lex), my stomach just dropped. The book is just all over the damn place. I couldn't keep up with what was happening ... it was like a tweaking hummingbird just flitting from one topic to the next. It caused a serious case of reading whiplash coupled with a healthy dose of disinterest. It reads almost as if it's a jumble of thoughts that weren't fully explored and with each disjointed sentence, you're just pulled further into this vortex of confusion. 

It sure as hell doesn't help that this book is written using the urban dictionary for every other word. Everything is in such heavy slang that was uper-cray (did I use that correctly?) and nothing was jelly (again, I don't know if this is the right context, I had to Google this shit to see what it meant), forreals (this has to be another language altogether). I just wanted to grab my Kindle and scream, "SPEAK ENGLISH, I WANT TO READ YOU!!!". Yes, I understand that the book is written from the POV of a 17 year old. Got it. But she sounds like a damn idiot. Maybe that is what the author is going for. Who the heck knows. But it helps if the reader can comprehend what in the hell is going on and in order to know what is going on, we need to be able to recognize more words than just a handful every couple of pages. 

I absolutely ABHORRED the main character, Lex. She is a self absorbed, neurotic teenager and the way she talks is what is wrong with this generation. I'm not that old and I remember using slang when I was growing up but at least you could still decipher the English language when we talked. She's also crass and immature. You should enjoy reading about people that are different than you, not get annoyed. 

Since I'm talking about characters, the whole beginning thing (I'm not giving away anything that isn't in the blurb or the first chapter) with the boyfriend was just asinine. So this dude is staying in a relationship with Lex but refusing to have sex with her because she's overweight. I call bullshit. No sexually active teenage boy is going to say no to sex when it is being offered up on a silver platter because a chick is ten pounds overweight and then go play hide-the-salami with her coked out, has-been mom. Give me a break. It's just not believable. 

There were also these news articles or statements, I'm not totally sure what they were at this point. Anyway, they were weird because they weren't needed and it drew your attention away from the story as you are trying to figure out why they are included. There were also this dream sequence that literally lasted page after page after page ... it was to the point where you forget that you're reading a dream. I don't know if that is what the author was going for and she was trying to show how off in Lala Land this girl was or what. 

Most authors of YA or New Adult books are in fact, well over the age that they are writing about. There's nothing wrong with that. But there is a problem when it feels like you're insulting that generation with over-usage of nonsensical terms and phrases. Our son is 13 years old and I've been to tons of school functions where hundreds of teenagers are and I've NEVER heard kids use this much slang and improper grammar.

Ugh. I'll get off my soapbox. Let's just say that it was not the book for me. The truth of the matter is, if I had the option to give it no stars, that's what I would have done this time. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading New Adult romance novels (or any romance for that matter) and I most certainly will not be picking up another book by this author. Total miss for me. 

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

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Book Review: Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) by Sylvain Neuvel

An inventive debut in the tradition of World War Z and The Martian, told in interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles, Sleeping Giants is a literary thriller fueled by a quest for truth—and a fight for control of earthshaking power.
 
A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

 

I started reading this book at the end of August 2015. I can't even describe how excited I was to get my hands on this book. And when I started it, I really thought that Sleeping Giants was going to be THE science fiction novel that would really get me into this genre. But after reading this book on and off for eight months, I've got to call it. I just can't read one more page. Reading a book shouldn't feel like a chore but this one definitely did.

The format is interesting ... it's a grouping of system logs, interviews, journal entries, news articles. Apparently, there are other books that use this same format, but I've never read one. And honestly, I thought that I would have a hard time reading a book that was formulated like this but it flowed really well. I was completely entranced with the whole idea. At first. Then the further that I got into the book, I felt more and more disconnected from the story. You're getting to know the characters throughout the entire thing because you're reading their thoughts and feelings in the journal entries but after a while, it just wasn't enough. I really didn't have any connections with any of the characters after about a quarter of the way through the book. I mean, the characters were witty and memorable but just because you remember something doesn't mean you have any ties to it.

This book is intelligently written. It honestly reads as if it actually happened and you're just picking up these documents and reading them. But at the same time, I kept getting the feeling that I knew the story from somewhere. There were quite a few times that the story would remind me of a TV show or movie that was out ... mainly The Whispers and Pacific Rim. Authors draw from other works all of the time but usually, I can't pinpoint what they are so quickly and vividly. But this time I could. And then I couldn't get those two shows out of my head as I read Sleeping Giants.

This genre just isn't for me. I've tried repeatedly to get into it and I just can't. This book was just not what I thought that it was at first. I just loved Sleeping Giants so very much when I first started. My husband was very tired of hearing about this book. And then my interest tapered off so quickly that it was staggering. I wish that it had not ended up that way because I thought that the beginning was pretty badass.

If you love reading sci-fi, you'll probably love this book. I'm not totally sure it's for people who don't enjoy reading this genre ... it's very detailed and may not keep your attention ... which may have been the issue for me. All I know is that I tried repeatedly for a lot longer than I usually give books. If I put it down twice, I'm just done but I kept hoping that things would change. It just wasn't meant to be this time.

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

Available: April 26, 2016

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