Review: Not quite what I expected but I did like it
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.What I Loved:• The bantering back and forth between the characters.The “girls” discussions and the “boys” discussions as well as the lovers talking to each other.• The story line – lovers to friends to lovers.What I didn’t Love:• The strong language – too many f-bombs and other cursing.I expected this to be a “romance” vs an “erotic romance.” I’m not offended by strong language (I read ALL kinds of books); I just didn’t expect it in this book based on the description I read before starting it. A lot of it seemed really unnecessary. Again, I don’t mind that kind of language if I know to expect it up front. A lot of the sex scenes read more like something I would have expected in an erotic romance. Based on the description I read before getting the ARC of the book, I just didn’t think that’s what this book was going to be.What I found confusing:• How sometimes a character was called by their first name and other times by their last.I really had a hard time with this – especially at the beginning. Josh’s best friend (and Carissa’s former lover) was at times referred to as Reed and others as Fletcher. It may have just been me but I really had a difficult time knowing who was being talked about during a lot of the dialogue. I’m used to male characters often being called by their last names but, for some reason, in this book I just got really confused. I may be mistaken but I don’t think I had this same confusion with any of the other characters.The secondary characters were interesting enough for me to want to read their stories in future books in this series, but this book also stands-alone and has an HEA.In conclusion, I did end up enjoying this book more than not. I would recommend it to others – as long as there was a mention in the book synopsis about the strong language. In my opinion, the language could be toned down a bit without negatively affecting the characters at all.Additional information: I originally reviewed this on Goodreads 2/7/14.  Now that the book is officially published I am pleased to see that the author has added a warning about the strong language in this book.