Review: What a ride!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 26, 2014
Reviewer: Kris on behalf of I Heart BooksRating: 3  - 4What a ride! I snatched up the chance to review this book because I had never read a biker book and I take great pride in my claim to read pretty much everything! Challenge accepted.I feel very conflicted now that I have finished. I am keeping in mind that this is not a lifestyle I am familiar with so I let some indiscretions slide. For example the use of the word ‘bitch’ pretty much anytime the men were referring to, or even talking to, a female. I’ve never read a book where it was used so often especially by a club of men who claim to hold women in such high regard. Also, the amount of gratuitous sex; I love a sex scene as much as the next desperate housewife – I just don’t want a book comprised of A LOT of meaningless sex scenes. I want explosive sexy build up! – eek that sounds bad.One Ride follows the daughter of Hellion prez, Doll, as she is forced to go on a 4 week ride for her safety, with a man she barely knows and has the hots for. Sounds like a fantasy come to life. Only Tripp is far from perfect and fumbled more than once in my eyes. Still he has some redeemable qualities that end up saving him. Tattoos and long hair may have been his saving grace. I am a sucker for that.By 22% I was thinking that a lot of the narrative could have been better explained by using more dialogue. Don’t tell me, show me. I need more meat to my plot! Somewhere around 30% I was drawn in more, and getting very interested. 50% I had the shakes – “Oh gawd… he isn’t going to – no don’t do that! Please, NO! Shit, I wanted to like the guy, but that blew it.” I only kept going with the hopes that he could redeem himself in my apparently very judgmental eyes, because everyone else kind of just brushed this huge thing off. You’ll know the part I’m talking about… the hallway. In some ways, at the end, I had made up with Tripp. Forgiven, but never forgotten. AGAIN this may all be a part of the lifestyle that I just don’t understand and even so I’m not sure I want to understand it.To summarize:I DID like the book! There is a great cast of characters and an interesting life that you can pull many a great plot out of. It was fun getting pulled into club politics and learning about something new for me. The author obviously as extensive knowledge in the subject and it showed. If she doesn’t have extensive knowledge she faked it really well. Lol. There are many characters I’d love to see more of in sequels! There was also a lot of great, insightful lines littered throughout.My issues were the lack of dialogue, at times it felt like I was reading a manual for a biker club with a smattering of back story. I had my mashed potatoes and green beans, now where is that juicy steak? There was a lot of missed opportunity there. Also, there seemed to be a build up to this great conflict with some rivals that kind of just went away. From what I read at the end there is more detail on that in an upcoming book but I think this book could have borrowed some of that to make it a bit more exciting.I truly suck at summarizing. Sorry ‘bout that.