vysed

I'm torn. There are small parts of this book I really liked - it was only like 5% of the book. The other 95% was instantaneous orgasms. Not even kidding. In the course of 24 hours the only thing she stopped "O'ing" for was to change locations - but the car ride was full of more "O'ing" so that probably shouldn't count either. Oh, and she was a screamer. I hate when they scream. I mean realistically - 90% of the people who read this book are women over a certain age who have probably had sex - a bit. And gotta say, I don't believe anyone is screaming or nearly going comatose from the Os. Ya know? Too much just makes your story ridiculous. And all the good parts get washed away.

Parts of their back and forth, wishy washy conversations actually made my head spin. Like, I got dizzy and a bit nauseated from the walls literally spinning around me.

PS. That was not an exaggeration. They meet - they start having sex - she becomes an O machine, he goes slightly psycho and then they split up and you have to read book 2.

Wanna know the bad part? I am actually going to read book 2.

And for the coveted, or not so coveted, worst book of the year award? We have a contender. From the very first paragraph - The characters come off as a group of badly cast CW pilot, should have been cancelled after first season, I have no faith left in the next generation, who in the hell is currently running the world, no wonder I never leave my house anymore, bad actors.

it was just a bad story. So bad. And evidently, there are sequels. 

For book 3 of my self-challenge, I got A Man Above Reproach. Not gonna lie, I was hoping it was a P&P spinoff. But, no. It started off good. I was in to the idea that was laid out in the first couple of chapters. The characters were presented and I was forming them in my head - but then I fell in to the trap of the ol' bait and switch.  

Sometimes when I'm reading, I wonder if the author really knows what they are writing, or if they start writing and just go where ever the story does - even if it turns in to a completely different book. The characters were set up and presented in one light but then after about 25% in they just became completely other people. 

Example one: in the beginning the lead male's best friend is described as the heir and next marquess. And that is mentioned more than once. Then we find out he is the second son. Then he mentions again that he will be the marquess. Either this was an error on part of the author or bad editing or whatever - I gave up.

The female lead is set up as one type of person and then all of a sudden she becomes someone else - totally. Like literally, a completely different person.

I am not explaining it correctly. I'm still half asleep anyway, but the point being, you can't just go baiting me in with one story and plot and characters and then switch them when you're 1/4 of the way in to the story. 

I'm flouncing at 25% because life is too short for badly written books. Oh, and because I was curious, I checked who allowed this atrociousness to be published and it seems it is from Amazon's little publishing venture. aka the self -publlished books with betas who pretend to be editors. I can't blame the authors when these books go so wrong. I blame the "editors" because it is their failure that the book make it through to, for lack of a better term, publishing.

This book is #2 in my book challenge. (Randomly picking books from my kindle to read without first reading the posted reviews or the summary). I really liked it. I was hesitant at first because YA and I were on a break, but it was really good. 

I cried a few times. I had back flashes to my own teen years more than a few times. I was a little disappointed with the character, Char, but after sighing and pulling up my big girl panties, I realized that was the way his character had to be. It would not have worked if it went any other way. Elise was written remarkably well because for a character that I had so little in common with, I felt like we shared a lot anyway. 

So, I just went back to GR to see how everyone else rated this book. And it has almost all 4 and 5 star ratings. That would have scared me if I looked there before reading it. I may have went in to it thinking I would hate it based solely on that. 

In the Going in Blind Challenge, I'm two for two. Liking this idea more and more.

Per my last post, I started this book completely blind. No previously read reviews and I didn't refresh my memory on the summary. I mean, I had an idea by the title but it was so very different, and better, than I expected!

I should preface by saying that I have a weird fascination with courtesans in general. Dangerous Beauty is an excellent movie and you all should rent it. I grew up in Las Vegas and a few other cities and for a while when I was little we lived in a "motel" that had a lot of residents who were street girls. Not necessarily as classy as the whole courtesan idea but still - I think I had a very weird education by age of 5. FYI - fishnet stockings should not be worn with jean shorts. Even hookers know this! Just sayin'.

Anyway - this book... it is told from the point of view of a dwarf. The courtesan's companion and business partner. It had a lot of history in it and the author did a ton of research! It was very well done. Nothing grammar wise to complain about (it's not new adult nouveau fiction, it's actual historical fiction.) It's not a romance novel. It doesn't have any sex scenes. It's just the life and times of a courtesan and her dwarf.

And I liked it.

Of course I did. Work has been slammed this week so it took longer to read than normal. If I didn't like it, work would be slow and I'd have nothing else to do but try and read it. HA HA.

ANYWAY.. that is book one of my "blind challenge" - nine more to go. Will spin the scroll after work today and start the next book without reading reviews or the summary.

So this one kind of took a few weird turns. Things that should not have worked sorta did and things that were supposed to make sense were a little bit lame. I do love that book 4 is the Chase character and all throughout books 1-3, I was clueless. I didn't get it. But when I did. When I figured it out. I had to go back to books 1 and 2 and look up some parts because... well, I did not see that coming. 

A definite improvement over the last book. 3.5 stars. I really liked Pippa. The banter between her and Cross was so good sometimes. I am a bit tired of the whole "I'm not good enough for you" & "I don't deserve you" crap though. But it is historical rom and we are talking about men who are supposedly in need of rescuing. A good woman can change a bad boy and all that. I know. Don't roll your eyes. It's my own fault I like this sh... stuff. 

Not the book, but the way my brain works. See, I go in prepared. I read all of my friends' reviews on the book. Then I read the public reviews, but I skip all of the 5's because people who are not my friends usually don't know what a real 5 star rating on GR means. (Yeah, I said it. Usually. Not always) I skim the 1 stars, I focus on the 2s. The twos seem honest. So, I read them and I go in prepared.

Then I find that what I thought I would not like, didn't affect me the same way it did a lot of other people. 

I did not agree with the way our "hero" treated Pen. I thought Penelope was a little bit of a rug in spots and totally should have just punched him. Once. One good black eye... but otherwise, I enjoyed the book.

This book was not so good. The writing fell back to pedestrian at best. Nothing new or quipy, so blah blah blah. I think the Collins family should have stopped at 4 kids because the fifth book was boring and I'm not going to read about the last two at all.

As for the series itself, up to this point, it wasn't anything exciting but the smexy times were usually written well. They became a little repetitive and boring by the fifth book. The females became more annoying as the series moved on and the men became overly mushy. I felt like I was in a fucking jewelry commercial or something.

Deciding now if I should cleanse my reading pallet with a hist/rom or go on with the other chic lit series I have. *going to hit the posted reviews first and see what I feel after that*

The last book was not the beginning of the end. This book was better. Killian is the sibling lead and his story revolves around a menage. It was well done. A bit cheesy on the dialogue in some places, but hey, what do I know. Maybe people really talk that way.

They handled the coughDELICATEcough parts of a menage with patience but I'm still confused as to why every woman in every book is an orgasm machine. I'm sorta jealous. I mean, not just one, but multiples... every time. Constantly. From a look or touch or whatever. Ha.

And now I'm moving on to the next sibling. I have 3 left.

So far we've had a BDSM story. A virgin meets rock star. A protective man with a hard to win over stubborn girl with no brains. A threesome (woot woot), and next, book 5... looks like an older woman/younger man.

This was book three and it was about the character I was most interested in. sadly, it was a let down. This sibling had a bad storyline and the love interest was a stupid idiot. ugh, I know that's harsh, but in the beginning of the book when in the process of leaving her husband he beats her so badly that she almost dies. She runs off to LA for a year and has the lawyers handle all the divorce stuff. Flash forward 11 some months. Her ex husband isn't in prison. Why? Whatever. She gives him her cell number. Tells him where she's staying. Meets with him. Wonders why in the fuck she is waking up tied up in his basement while he tries to rape her... Uh, hey, stupid idiot isn't sounding so harsh now is it? How about a year ago you press charges and send his ass to jail? How about if he does get out, you get a restraining order? How about if not that, you stay the fuck away from psychos? GOD I HATE WRITNG REVIEWS ON MY IPAD BECAUSE I CANT GET TO MY GIFS EASILY!!!

anyway, going on to book four. Looks like a threesome... Let's see how this big Irish family does with this? i hope the author just wrote the last book while suffering a dehabilitating bout of sickness and phoned it in. 

Usually in a series, the books all have a similar theme. Like, if the first one is BDSM then all of them will be. So, I was expecting some more of that after the first book. But nope, that didn't really happen.

This series is shaping up to be about each individual child in the Collins' family. And, refreshingly, they're not "all" big closet D/s 'ers. (Although, the sisters do seem to like their booties touched. Whatever, I ain't judging. LOLOL)

Book two takes the cliched rock star meets unknown girl and falls in love story line and again, did a pretty damn good job with it. I was fully expecting the over the top annoying dialogue and misunderstandings and annoying female. Instead I got an entertaining way to spend a few hours. I zipped through this book fairly quickly and am falling in love with all of the Collins family.

I had a hard time trying to decide if this series is chic lit, erotica, or new adult.

In my opinion it sorta fits all three. The reason I was torn was, well, to be quite honest, it was so damn well written. I haven't read very many new adult books that deal with D/s that are well done. They usually go way off base and turn things in to a big cluster fuck of non consent and/or bastardize the whole BDSM scene. This book did NOT do that. It was a bit light, and there wasn't really any conflict or major angst - so again - I'm hesitant to call it new adult. Also, I think these characters were a bit too old for the new adult genre. It seems like NewAdult is becoming teens with sex. (aka young adult on 'roids)

I moved on to, chic lit. I feel comfortable leaving it as chic lit, but it does have an over abundance of dirty words for the normal peace, love and misunderstanding genre. My sister in law reads chic lit; but I would not be comfortable rec'ing this book because it is too risque for her. And God would smite me, or something.

So, that leaves erotica. It would probably be erotica-lite, but hell, it was good to read it after the huge let down some other books were last year. I'll continue with the series and see what happens...