confused romance | The Opinionated Woman's Musings

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.

Big girls do it series 1 – 4♥ ♥

1 …do it better

2 …wetter

3 …Wilder

4 …on top

In this series of books, Anna is a stylish, curvy size 18 but lacks self-esteem. She cannot understand why not one but two sexy guys would be attracted to her when there are smaller sized women available. Anna bounces between physical relationships with both men.

Opinion

There are two guys in this series: Chase is a singular and rock star who is interested in Anna. Jeff is Anna’s DJ partner and also love interest.

If the author had stopped at the end of book one and gave it a decent ending or epilogue, I would have rated the book higher. There were several things that were negatives for me.

Love triangle
She sleeps with two men in alternating books. Put very simply: I do not like that. This book seems to be about lust and physical gratification instead of the physical intimacy being an expression of love. If she loved the first guy, why jump in the bed so quickly with another guy? If she fell in love with the second guy, why bone the first guy again? Maybe she should have taken a timeout to decide who she wanted to be with.
I felt sorry for her instead of connecting with the romance. It is obvious to the reader that she is bouncing from man to man because of her lack of self-esteem. I am a strong believer in monogamy. THAT being said, if she wanted to bed hop, let it be because she was decisive enough to know that she wanted multiple partners, not because she was constantly doubting if a man could be attracted to a woman with substantial curves.

I initially bought this book set because the main character was a plus size woman. I am not a size 2 skinny person (or even a size 6) and I thought it would be nice to read a story about a woman who look somewhat like me. That is why I was disappointed with her self-esteem issues. All too common in stories with plus size women, the main source of conflict in the book is the woman’s lack of self-esteem. Why can’t there be more stories with confident women wear their weight is not an issue?

Overall, I think this book set is like a car accident. As annoyed as I was with the items that I mentioned above, I continued reading. I think I thought it would get better. It was as if I cannot look away. Hence, the car accident analogy.

If you want a series that is all about trashy lust (I refuse to call this romance), this is for you. In all other cases, take my word for it and pass on this one.