Review: Better than Jagged, but still..........
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 7, 2014
So. Just finished Kaleidoscope.  Kristen Ashley has been one of my favorite "go to" authors for some time.  Kaleidoscope was (thank GOD) better than Jagged, (I still haven't recovered from that let down) but still did not have the power to pull the reader in that previous books have had. I want to be pulled into the story, I want to feel the angst and anger and I like to see these alpha men have to work for their women. I want to feel as though I actually know these characters, as I have in Ms. Ashley's past work. I like Kristen's Alpha men, and I was looking forward to Jacob finding "the one".  I was glad Jacob found his Emme, but he sure didn't have to work very hard for her.  The storyliine around Emme's past issues and the storyline around Jacob's current case were just.......boring. no great plot or drama. Emme went from strong and assured to a basket case.  And Jacob's ex, the manipulative and evil Elsbeth..... there was opportunity for some drama in that storyline that was just passed up, a real non-issue. She had "changed".  I say this:  It is NEVER, EVER accceptable for a man in a serious relationship to sneak around behind his girl's back to meet with a former lover.  And on the pretext of what??.....that he had to "prove" to himself that he wasn't himself somehow flawed by falling in love with a "bad" person??? really??? self-serving much???  I wanted to see him grovel a little and at least admit to Emme it was a "dick" thing to do, knowing he hurt her, but instead the author has Emme apologizing to him for it, as if it is somehow her fault!  Then Jacob had the nerve to suggest that Emme re-connect with this ex-friend that had not only betrayed and hurt him and her current husband, but had betrayed Emme's trust as a friend, by telliing Jacob Emme's secret from her past.  Are you kidding me??  In Ms. Ashley's last two books it seems she goes to great lengths to make some of the villians in the story end up as just poor misunderstood victims of circumstance.  Can we not work so hard to redeem everyone?  Some people are just bad,  some women are just manipulative bi**hes.  That's life.  I get that Jacob is a genius ..... but really, could he not admit to being wrong, even if he had to do it in his own "alpha" way.  All in all - it was just okay.  It was better than "Ham and Cookie" but it sure wasn't up to Kristen Ashley's previous standards.