Review: Not my kind of book apparently.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 23, 2013
Okay, I have to say that this book was a train wreck for me in a lot of ways. When i read the synopsis, it sounded like something I'd really love - I'm a sucker for emotional stories where one person has a secret - but this was one case where the story just didn't really live up to the premise in my opinion.The synopsis summarizes the book relatively well, so I'll just jump right in to what I did and didn't like about the book.What frustrated me:Skylar is every man's dream.Skylar has to be one of the most unbelievable characters ever. She's in her early twenties and has never had anything even approaching a relationship before (and is, of course, a virgin), yet pretty much every man in this book is either immediately head over heels in love with her or lusting after her to the point where they can't control themselves and they feel the need to try to rape her (really - she is almost raped in this book FOUR TIMES by three different men). Apparently Skylar is magically hot in a way that drives notorious playboys to forget all other women and fall hopelessly in love (that happens with two different men) and who drives men wild with her mere presence. But, this magic either suddenly manifested roughly when this book started or Skylar is just completely oblivious to the attention she's always gotten. At any rate, Skylar has never been interested in anyone before Sebastian comes along, and she is instantly in love with him when they meet (and him with her).Sebastian.For most of the book, I was completely frustrated with Sebastian. I get that he wants Skylar, but he doesn't think he deserves her (and doesn't think it could ever work between them) because he killed her parents. But for some reason this gives him some sort of multiple personality disorder - one moment he's kissing her and he can't stay away and the next moment he's yelling at her or treating her ridiculously coldly. This wouldn't have been quite so bad if it hadn't happened repeatedly (over and over and over and over again) and hadn't gone on for SO long!!! By three quarters of the way through the book, I just wanted to strangle Sebastian and send Skylar off to a psychiatrist who could help her analyze why she wanted this insane man in the first place. Really - WHY would she want him? Because they had like one or two nice dates before he went whack-o? I just had no sympathy for them and couldn't figure out why I was supposed to want them to be together.Too much focus on sex.This book is pretty much all about how much Sebastian (and every other guy) wants to have sex with Skylar and about all the ways they do have sex once they get to that point. Oh, and how Sebastian plans to forget about Skylar by having sex with anyone else he can find. Then there are a couple of subplots thrown in (yep, the main plot actually feels like more of a subplot). This book is true erotica with very explicit sex scenes and lots of talk about sex in between. If you're a regular reader of my reviews, you know that I'm fine with explicit sex when it doesn't overshadow the plot, but that was not the case here.The positives:The last quarter of the book.The last quarter of the book was actually much better than the first three-quarters. Once Sebastian stopped acting like a maniac and actually gave Skylar a reason to care about him, I found the story much more palatable. I was once again waiting for the climactic moment when Skylar would find out Sebastian's secret, which added a sense of actual conflict to the story (rather than the contrived conflict in the first three quarters of the book). There was also some suspense built with a couple of the subplots of the book. The problem was that, by the time I got to this point, I was already thoroughly frustrated and didn't really care about these characters enough. It was a case of too little too late for me.Unfortunately, this is not a book that I can really recommend unless you're up for pure erotica and don't care about much else. I give it 2/5 stars.***Disclosure: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given. All opinions are my own***