Review: Anything You Can Do by R.S. Grey

Anything You Can Do
by R.S. Grey
February 2nd 2017
Kindle Edition
247 pages
Romance / Contemporary / New Adult / Adult / Chick Lit

Synopsis
Lucas Thatcher has always been my enemy.
It’s been a decade since I’ve seen him, but our years on opposite coasts were less of a lasting peace and more of a temporary cease-fire. Now that we’re both back in our small town, I know Lucas expects the same old war, but I’ve changed since high school—and from the looks of it, so has he.
The arrogant boy who was my teenage rival is now a chiseled doctor armed with intimidating good looks. He is Lucas Thatcher 2.0, the new and improved version I’ll be competing with in the workplace instead of the schoolyard.
I’m not worried; I’m a doctor now too, board-certified and sexy in a white coat. It almost feels like winning will be too easy—until Lucas unveils a tactic neither of us has ever used before: sexual warfare.
The day he pushes me up against the wall and presses his lips to mine, I can’t help but wonder if he’s filling me with passion or poison. Every fleeting touch is perfect torture. With every stolen kiss, my walls crumble a little more. After all this time, Lucas knows exactly how to strip me of my defenses, but I’m in no hurry to surrender.
Knowing thy enemy has never felt so good.

Rating: C – Okayed

Recently, I’m into nemesis-to-lovers trope – all thanks to The Hating Game by Sally Thorne which I totally adore so much that it went straight to my favorite romance reads. So I ended up recommending it to a good friend who recommended this book back.

What I Liked

The love hate relationship. This is one of my go-to romance tropes. If I’m in a reading slump and currently in the mood for something romantic, I make my way for this kind of books on my bookshelf. They almost always work. So this book was hard to pass for me.

The flavor of sweetness and sexiness. This is the kind of book that doesn’t disappoint because it meets your expectations. And what do you expect in a contemporary romance novel? Well, obviously some hot stuff and sweet nothings for you. The plot almost hit the right spot. Mind you, almost. The emails totally made me swoon!

The practice. It’s a plus for me that they’re both doctors because I don’t really meet a lot of contemporary romance or new adult characters that work in this field. Most of them are in corporate jobs – you know those men in Armani suits.

What I Didn’t Like

The first lovin’. In the wrong place at the wrong time.

Childish act. The main female character is a big joke to the point that, it felt like the male character had to redeem her at times. She was just petty.

This book was fun but I really can’t say that I enjoyed it that much. It met the basic requirements for it to be considered a good read but I guess, I just need something more.

Review: November 9 by Colleen Hoover

November 9
by Colleen Hoover
November 10th 2015
Atria Books
Paperback
310 pages
New Adult / Romance / Contemporary

Synopsis
This is a love story between a guy (me) and a girl (Fallon).
I think.
Can it even be considered a love story if it doesn’t end with love?
Mysteries end when the mystery is solved.
Biographies end when the life story has been told.
Love stories should end with love, right?
Maybe I’m wrong, then. Maybe this isn’t a love story. If you ask me…I’d say this might even be considered a tragedy.
Whatever it is—however it ends—I promised I would tell it. So without further ado.
Once upon a time…I met a girl.
THE girl.

Rating: B- – Liked

After reading November 9, I will never question Colleen Hoover’s writing again. I still believe she’s a brilliant writer or rather storyteller. I’ll hand down give her that but she’s still not on my must-read authors.

What I Liked

The plot. The story of Fallon and Ben is quite amazing.  In all honesty, November 9 is an epitome of a contemporary romance. I’m not sure if my readers have noticed but I love contemporary reads. Overall, the plot sits well with me if only the details were left out. In fact, I am in love with the idea of November 9, that one special day out of a whole year for that one special person – although insta-love leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too. The whole concept was enough to capture my curiosity making me grab the book in an instant. I just really have some issues with the characters – like how I felt for Ugly Love’s characters too – and the plot twists.

The quotes. This novel is overflowing in quotable quotes – as if Hoover was trying to spoon feed me with life lessons. Well, I gladly opened my lips, ate the words and digested every letter. How I wish the characters learned from these words though. It would’ve helped their development.

What I Didn’t Like

Fallon. My level of distraught for the main characters is out of this world. I feel like Fallon has a mild case of beauty dysmorphia. I would have understood where she was coming from for she lost almost everything including her life but her way of thinking for me was just wrong. It was deliberate and of course, I knew that but there’s something that doesn’t sit well with me. She was a girl with a superficial and self-centered way of looking at herself which might have rooted from her dad’s upbringing and her previous career as a teen star. It showed how shallow and obsessed she was with her looks. To tell the truth, I felt quite uncomfortable and somehow a bit offended reading her first chapters. Fallon had a way of making me feel as if being ugly is the worst thing that can happen in a person’s life. I have my own set of flaws and have times when my self-esteem isn’t that incredible, and this novel brought me back to the times I am overthinking and uncomfortable with own skin. Her outlook in physical beauty and her “struggle” to improve her own self-esteem didn’t leave an inspirational message to me.

Ben. Ben was way worse than Fallon. My first impression of him was he’s an eavesdropper. The worst kind at that. He felt he needed to butt in some family’s or girl’s business. Next, he’s a pervert. I mean, if I was Fallon, I would’ve called him out for sexual harassment. Although I know that might have been called overreacting, my point is Fallon should’ve reacted something instead of standing still with her eyes closed doing nothing in that one instance. But damn she did nothing because she was obsessing of how he was making her feel, she was overthinking of herself or just the fact that he was a ‘definitely cute’ guy feeding her with ‘inspirational’ words or ‘compliments’ (man, she was like a girl hungry for a guy’s attention). He had this tendency to be controlling and demanding. If a guy pushed me to do things that I wouldn’t have wanted for myself to do on the very first day we met, well let’s say he would’ve gone out dateless. To tell the truth I really do have a bunch of issues with Ben and Fallon. To wrap up my feelings for them, let’s say I was really beyond annoyed. But I’m flashing a quick double thumbs up for Amber and Glenn. They were the cutest couple in this novel.

The plot twists. The plot twists were twisted – see what I just did there? – twisted in ways I perceived them almost as mockery. I wasn’t able to predict what was happening particularly with Ben. My prediction was way more realistic but maybe not worse (I’ll admit, I thought he was a druggie or a pusher who had been in and out of rehab). Given that I wasn’t able to predict some things about Ben, it doesn’t imply that I believe that the plot was very carefully planned and thought of. For some reason, I think it wasn’t. The coincidences in the novel were just so unbelievable.

Dragging read. I believe that dragging the whole story was really unnecessary. There were twists and turns here and there and they weren’t really that good because I felt they were absurd, may be illogical and just plain ridiculous to some point. I just felt like the five years could’ve been three. But I still enjoyed reading the novel anyways.

I believe a lot of readers can go past the issues I personally had with this book because Colleen Hoover’s storytelling makes up for what I think was lacking in the whole novel. I still recommend November 9 to readers, particularly to CoHo’s fans.

Review: Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

Ugly Love
by Colleen Hoover
August 5th 2014
Atria Books
Kindle Edition
337 pages
New Adult / Romance / Contemporary

Synopsis
When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she doesn’t think it’s love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.
Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.
They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.
Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly. ?

Rating: C – Okayed

Ugly Love took me by surprise. I thought this was another Fifty Shades inspired book after watching the movie teaser off Youtube. I read some comments and I noticed that there’s quite a bunch of people complaining that the teaser’s quite different to the book. But it’s not the movie teaser that really piqued my interest, but the actor to play the main character *drum rolls, please*, Nick Bateman. I don’t know if you already know but on my previous post, I’ve mentioned my (huge) crush on him. I mean, this is Nick Bateman we’re talking about. How can I resist? So at about one in the morning, with an iced coffee by my side, I started reading Ugly Love and finished it in one sitting.

What I Liked

Class A writing. This book was beautifully written. That’s not something I’m going to question now.

What I Didn’t Like

Self-respect. I can’t see what she really saw in Miles aside from he’s a looker (but I get it, with Nick Bateman on my mind, I definitely get it). His looks screamed sex and consequently, that’s the only thing he can give and the only thing she can get and nothing else. Even though she believed she deserves better, she let herself sell short. Seriously, a bottle of self-respect for Tate won’t hurt. She definitely needed it for she was so obsessed with Miles for the wrong reasons.

Overly melodramatic. Miles is unmistakenly hot but he’s too unrealistically melodramatic. Yes, what he went through in the past was beyond hurtful but it’s been years, and though he was left broken, there must have been some time where he could’ve started to move on with his life. He should’ve gotten over himself. And I can’t endure with how he was so in love (actually I think he’s just obsessed which looks quite absurd given that he was not a 12-year-old boy when it all happened) with Rachel. Bleh.

Time jump. I’m not into the author’s continuous ‘jumping from past to present’ way of telling the story. I only want my flashbacks on the prologue. I can tolerate one or two within the chapters but more? Nope. That’s just my preference, though.

At first, I didn’t get what was so appealing about this book (even though my friends tried to convince me to read this and every other novel written by Colleen Hoover). I just didn’t get why they were so excited about the upcoming movie. I was apprehensive with Ugly Love, but in all honesty, now I finally get why there’s a book hype going on with this novel.

Review: Confessions Of A Virgin Sex Columnist! by Kay Marie

Confessions Of A Virgin Sex Columnist!
Kaitlyn Davis (writing as) Kay Marie
May 18th 2015
Paperback
222 pages
Romance / Chick Lit / New Adult

Synopsis
My name is Skylar Quinn. I just moved to New York with my best friend Bridget, and I have a confession. Well, more than one. Okay, quite a few really. Fine, here goes!
Confession #1: I’m a sex columnist. Hold on, that’s not really the confession. You see, I’m sort of a virgin…sex columnist.
Confession #2: I’m kind of in love with Bridget’s older brother, Oliver. No, I was. No, I am. Wait, was? Am? Crap.
Confession #3: I’ve been avoiding Oliver for four years. Or I was until today, because he just moved in. Yes, you read that correctly. He’s my new roommate. So that night we’ve both been pretending never happened, well, we might not be able to keep it a secret any longer.
And trust me, this is only the beginning.

Rating: B+ – Loved

I have a confession to make: I truly adore the Confessions Of A Virgin Sex Columnist!.

What I Liked

Not a smut. First thing I’ve got to say is don’t be misled by the title. Although, it is very catchy and it successfully grabs potential readers right away, keep in mind that this is not a sexy read. There’s just no explicit sex scenes and it’s a good thing that there’s none of it in this book.

Light. This book is a light read with a hint and twist of romance.

A fun read. But there’s more to the Confessions Of A Virgin Sex Columnist! than the eye-grabbing title itself. The story was slightly predictable but very fun and jolly and the characters and plot were realistic (well most of the characters are).

The characters. They weren’t silly. I didn’t have the urge to dislike them (and slap them, I’m kidding) at all. They are mature and they simply act like their age.

Skye. The book was written in her POV and I like the way she narrated the story. I was able to follow the story through her eyes pretty easily. And because of it, I enjoyed reading the book.

What I Didn’t Like

Ollie. He’s not really ‘my man’ – you know. He’s a great guy, great brother but great romantic interest for Skye – probably not. I’m not super thrilled about him. I mean, I slightly am because he’s just the ideal boy-next-door but being the older brother of the best friend, is not the ideal guy for me. I’m not saying Patrick, the potential suitor turned boyfriend, is the better man for Skye but he was really nice (his sister – not so much). He was too good to be true which is exactly why Skye chose to let him go.

The ending. The end of the story went pretty fast. I was like, “Wait what? That’s it? Where’s the epilogue. I need a freaking epilogue!” but then, hey, I found out a second book is on its way. I’ll be sure to pick up the sequel the second it’s out.

Confessions Of A Virgin Sex Columnist! is something that I will surely recommend. The title might weird some people out but I will say, just give it a try and be ready to enjoy this sweet romcom story.