Review: unfortunately not for me
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 2, 2013
I’m not too sure how I feel about this book. It was recommended and the blurb intrigued me so I decided to give it a chance, since it was on sale too. I really wanted to like it but I found myself wanting to drop it more than once. I even skipped a few pages at some point (which is something I don’t usually do) and I kept reading because I hoped there would be a happy ending that would save the rest of the book.The plot itself was good; I liked the idea of the chance encounter and love at first sight. The drama throughout the book with the unexpected twists added some angst to the love story. The writing is good and it was clearly well edited, so the reading flowed well and easily. The dialogues are very well written and feel real, with a little slang here and there since the characters are in their early twenties. However, what spoilt it for me was the fact that there was way too much sex and strong language and it kind of annoyed me after a while. I don’t want to sound like a prude, because I’ve read other books with sex scenes and I don’t mind as long as they’re not too graphic and they’re somehow important for the story or have a specific reason for being there. At some point I found that the sex scenes in this book overshadowed the main story and some of them made no sense in relation with the plot or did not add anything to the story (e.g. why would I want to read a very graphic description of Joe and Geraldine since she won’t be in the story after that? Maybe it was meant to prove the one-night stand kind of behavior Joe had but then again, did it need to be so graphic? It could’ve been summarized saying he went out with her, took her home and left immediately afterwards – point taken without the need of the whole sex scene and we could move to the next scene about him and Callie. If there had to be such scenes if we needed to read about how he consoled himself with other women since he couldn’t have Callie, I guess it would’ve made more sense to get them with Emily, so she’d be introduced before she entered the story at the point she did. Anyway, this is only my personal opinion and how I would’ve written it; I mean no offense to the author).All in all, if most of the sex scenes were cut out, leaving maybe the most important ones between the two main characters, the book would probably be half its length but it would still be a nice read. I personally think I would’ve liked the book much better without all the very graphic sex scenes.Although the characters were well described and felt real, I couldn’t relate to them. I found myself liking, disliking, loving, hating and liking again Joe throughout the book. He isn’t the kind of book boyfriend I like, but at some points he was kind of cute in spite of his tattoo and womanizer behavior. Still, I didn’t feel a connection with him, or with Callie for that matter. I actually liked Su, Saffron and Adam better, even if they were only side characters.I don’t know if I’ll be reading the second book in the series, since I read it’s about Dane and I really didn’t like him as a character.I’m really sorry I didn’t like this book, because the plot had great potentials and I thought I was going to love it.Nevertheless, if you don’t mind reading books with lots of sex scenes and strong language, you may end up loving this book because, at the end of the day, the love story between the two main characters is nice and intense.