Archives

Love in all the wrong places- Book one in the LA series

Dec25

Love in All the Wrong Places (Love in L.A.)

Synopsis

Annie has been unlucky in love her whole life. She decides to try to find someone by posting an ad of Craigslist.

She meets Gabe, a real estate agent. When that does not work out, she meets Nate, a social worker.

After these two guys, she is left wondering what she is doing wrong because both relationships failed.

By 85% of the book (I have a Kindle so I do not know page numbers) , she meets Casey, a dancer (not the exotic kind).  The book ends with him asking Annie on a date.

Opinion

I was so distracted by the cover that I missed the fact that this was not a complete story. It ends with a cliffhanger.

But since that was my own fault, I am not going to downgrade my rating on that.

Here is how I describe the main characters of the book **WITH SPOILERS**

Gabe – Douche who breaks it off with Annie to go back to his pregnant girlfriend

Nate – Flake who disappears after their first time together

Annie – Desperate to be in a relationship that she makes a lot of bad partner decisions. Most importantly for Annie, she needs to stop sleeping with these guys on the first date. She is so sure that the relationship is going to to work and when it does not, she is surprised. This girl needs to stop jumping in bed with every guy that smiles at her. If she would take the physical part of the relationship out of the equation, then she could spend quality time with the guy and get to know him.

Annie wants to do online dating but somehow paying for a reputable dating service seems more desperate to her than posting on Craigslist. Talk about twisted logic. Give me e-harmony or match.com over Craigslist any day. Ok Cupid is probably better than Craigslist and my friend said there are a lot of creepers on there too.

This book was not romance. It was plain old fiction. In my opinion, it reads like a few “Sex in the City” episodes mashed together.

Three strikes against this book as a romance because (1) it is not complete (2) Annie is not someone I liked (3) no hero is clearly identified. I feel sorry for her because she was not in any emotional position to be in a healthy relationship. She needs to grow and mature. Maybe she will in the following books in the series, but I am not willing to bet my time on her character evolution. I am more of a cut-my-losses-and-run type of girl.

Should you buy? Pass unless you like reading about women having lots of one night stands while trying to figure out what went wrong the day after.

 

Red Hot compilation – MEGA review time

Dec20

Red Hot Obsession (10 book compilation)

I cannot rate the whole book with one rating because the ratings for the stories varied greatly. Plus, there were a few that I did not even waste my time reading. Most are full length novels- meaning between 100-200 pages. I bought the whole collection on sale for 99cents one weekend. I thought that if only one book was entertaining, that was still a good price.

These are the books that I thought were worth reading ♥♥♥

That First Kiss (Night Calls Book 2) (J.C. Valentine) – favorite book of this whole compilation. It was not anything outstanding but the story was cute. Piper and Tate have a quickie is a club bathroom (ick!) Friday night and find out Monday morning that they are working together. Oh joy! As you can imagine, hilarity and much sexual tension ensues. (writing a post about this one later)

His Wicked Games: A Cunningham Family Novel (His Wicked Games #1) (Ember Casey) – Lily has staked out Calder’s mansion because she wants to force him to honor the agreement his father made regarding a donation to their non-profit organization. Calder is not moved, but then decides he will play a game where the winner takes what they want. They are both dealing with some things.

In the Meh category ♥♥

 

Stories in the compilation that I did not Read ♥

 Layers Deep (Layers Trilogy Book 1) (Lacey Silks)– no happy ending until book 2 – at least the author had the consideration to tell me before I spent my time reading it. Thank you Lacey Silks!

His Indecent Lessons (Sky Corgan)– synopsis: Professor’s carnal knowledge lessons with a student. My opinion: Not for me. I tried to read it but the heroine was annoying and immature sounding. She was a college student so that probably has a lot to do with it. The professor’s lesson (the one scene I read as I tried to finish) sounded clinical instead of romantic.

Sorority Pledge Collection: Steamy Books 1-5 (Sorority Pledge Saga)(Daizie Draper) – six novellas and no happy ending until book 10? I’ll pass. I’m not buying another 4 books for a potentially lackluster story.

Billionaires in Disguise: Rae (Complete Series, Episodes 1-9): A Romance Novel(Blair Babylon) – synopsis: Part one of the story about a college girl romance with billionaire. Started reading it but did not finish because (1) the last 3 books (see above) were strike outs (2) I was tired of reading first person point of view stories and (3) the heroine seemed to be making some unwise choices. On a separate but kind of related note, I read another book by the same author (part of the same Billionaires in Disguise series) and I was indifferent towards those characters as well.

So this is how I felt for most of the compilation.

That was fine though because from an economical point of view, I spent 50cents each on two books that I liked. I got 8 mostly rubbish books but I choose not to focus on that.

Structure in Your Writing?

Dec10

For all my writer friends…

jenowenby's avatarJens Thoughts

Regardless if your writing consists of an outline or fly by the seat of your pants, structure is a must in writing plot, characters, dialogue and more. However, when someone says, “outline” to me I’m immediately thrown back into grade school hell with roman numerals! In fact, I think it has scarred me for life!

I’ve pondered the idea for a while, and my fellow writers and readers have talked to me about writing a full-length novel based on “Tears in the Sun”. But, when I’m writing about deep issues such as mental illness I have a tendency to get overwhelmed on where to start. I have the opening figured out, but what next? Then my mind begins to spiral with What if? What if? What if? So, I spent eight dollars to help get my thoughts organized and build a story. I did not say outline, just organized. The…

View original post 38 more words

13 reasons why – Jay Asher

Dec10

Thirteen Reasons Why – Jay Asher

Synopsis

Clay reviews cassette tapes recorded by Hannah, a girl he had a crush on in school. She also recently committed suicide. The tapes are an explanation of the 13 people who had some connection to the reasons why she decided to take her own life.

Clay uses the tapes as a guide, walking around town to visit the places where events critical to Hannah’s life happened.

Opinion

First, I must explain why there is no rating for this book- reading this book was way out of my comfort zone. If I had rated it, it would have been low but in way I did not think that was fair to the story. It was a struggle for me to get through this book. But not for the reasons you might think. The story is told from the POV of Clay and Hannah. At times it was difficult for me to determine on the kindle if the words were italicized which would indicate Hannah’s narration (this book is probably best read in paperback).

As for the story itself: I guess the moral should be- Be kind to one another. Being mean and insensitive to a person can lead to their suicide.

While I think it was the author’s intention to create a series of incidents that caused you to feel sorry for Hannah, I was less emotionally moved. It annoyed me that Hannah kept choosing to associate with self-absorbed, egocentric, catty, spiteful, vindictive, obnoxious people. She identified these qualities in them but continued to put herself in situations that allowed them to hurt her feelings as if she was overly optimistic that they would rise above their own catty behavior and be better people. I believe that she kept toxic friends to be able to use them as an excuse for her own self-inflicted behavior.

There is no doubt that Hannah was a victim of an insidious form of bullying. However, that is only part of the story. She was also very immature and displayed some of the same qualities for which she demonized her fellow classmates. In the end, I think her suicide was less about what others did to her and more about what she allowed to happen (that statement will make more sense if you read the book).

Most of the people Hannah’s list were jerks. In the whole book, I felt sorry for 3 people

1.    Hannah’s parents – they lost their child. They were already having financial problems. Now they have the added stress and guilt that their child committed suicide and they do not really know why.

2.    Guidance counselor – he was not in a position to help Hannah because by the time she talked to him, she had already made up her mind what she was going to do. She gave him such cryptic answers that only a mind reader would have been able to discern what she was trying to say. She was expecting a miracle solution (probably involving time travel to undo what had been done) instead of pragmatic reality. It was not fair of her to blame him.

3.    This person will remain nameless (read the book and you will understand who this person is) – this person is one of the few characters of the story who was not a horrible person deserving of a life-long guilt trip.

 If so many people had not raved about this book, I would not have given it a second glance. While not my cup of tea, I would classify this book as young adult fiction recommended for teenagers. My only worry is that this book glamorizes suicide as a melodramatic way to have the last say to all those who you perceive have wronged you in some way.

I do hope that those who identify with the feelings that Hannah exhibited understand their own personal responsibility in making sure that someone knows exactly how they feel without talking in code or hoping that someone is going to read between the lines to hear what they are saying.

The conversation should be about open, honest communication before taking drastic measures such as taking one’s own life.

 

A matter of choice – Nora Roberts

Dec5

A Matter of Choice ♥♥

Synopsis

James Sladerman (Slade) is a detective sergeant that was picked for an undercover assignment to look after the Commissioner of Police goddaughter. Her antiques business is suspected of being part of an international smuggling ring. Since he is a writer, his guise is that he is going to stay at her house temporarily to do some writing.

Jessica Winslow is the daughter of a prominent New England family and is oblivious to the fact that someone is using her business to smuggle illegal goods. The suspect is someone she trusts and her life is soon to be in danger because of it.

Opinion

This is one of my least favorite books by Nora Roberts.

Jessica’s main fault was that she was so dumb and oblivious to all the signs that someone she trusted betrayed her.

As hard as I tried, I did not like Slade. Slade was so bitter over everything.

It was as if he was mad at the world-

  • mad because he had to take care of his family and could not work in a job he liked
  • mad because his novel had not been sold
  • mad because Jessica’s family was rich
  • mad because he was attracted to Jessica
  • mad because he had to protect her when he wanted to be far away from her

 This comment from Jessica sums it up, “ I realize you might think differently, but you don’t go to hell for being kind.”

I cannot understand how or why Jessica fell in love with Slade. He was sullen or yelling at her most of the time. Even when he declared his love, he sounded angry about it.

His attitude killed the romance for me.

Additionally, consent in this book was not straightforward enough for me.

“ ‘No. This isn’t what I want’

Yes, yes it is, her eyes told him even while her hands pushed him away”.

Ick. I am more sensitive to this issue because so many women get raped when they say no, but the attacker says that they were saying yes with their body.

I do not care what signals a man thinks her body is giving him. If a woman says “no”, then the man should stop.

Should you buy? Only if you are a die hard Nora Roberts fan and have to read every book she has published. Otherwise, pass on this one. It is dark, the heroine is dense, and the hero has too many issues.