Review: Had a Great Middle - But Had Some Issues with Beginning & End
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 28, 2014
Rating: 3.5 - 4 starsFirst things first, I really did enjoy this book. It was funny and Mal was one sexy beast. I liked it a lot, but it didn’t give me the same feeling that I got while reading the first book in the series. This book was entertaining and definitely kept me wanting to keep turning the pages of my Kindle, but I felt like it was a bit all over the place – sort of like Mal.I read LICK only a few weeks ago so the story and characters are fresh in my head. Maybe I’m wrong, but the Mal I met in that book is VERY different than the Mal in this book. When the heroine, Anne, first meets him, it is a whirlwind of chaos. For the first five chapters of the book Mal acted like a chicken with his head cut off – he is moving 100 miles per hour and half the time (strike that almost all of the time) I had no idea what was going on or what was coming out of his mouth. In all honesty, I was so flipping confused as to what I was reading. Does Mal have a personality disorder? Is Mal bipolar and have manic tendencies? Is this the same Mal that was in LICK or does he have a clone that I don’t know about? These were all of the questions that were going through my head as I was reading.All that being said, things (and Mal) finally calmed down and I began to understand what was going on. Mal needed a fake girlfriend and Anne needed help financially – cue fake relationship with Mal moving in with Anne. Okay with my head finally on straight I really did begin to get into the story. Mal is one of those characters that has diarrhea of the mouth and does not embarrass easily (or at all). I loved this about his personality. He had no filter and never knew when he was over stepping other people’s boundaries. He also had some of the funniest things to say as well. Midway through the story I completely forgave him for his behavior at the beginning of the book.I think every woman will be able to relate to Anne. Remember when you were a teenager and you had a favorite band, singer, actor, etc that you lined your walls with?!? Well imagine if you got to meet your teen idol and he asked you to be his fake girlfriend – AMAZE BALLS, yet awkward at the same time. Anne grew up worshipping Mal, even so far as getting jealous when he made out with a girl in a music video. So imagine her surprise when after meeting him, he is professing his love for her in a room full of people. She thought he was crazy too!!!I had a bit of a hard time with Anne in the beginning. She is the poster child for the term “doormat.” She is a giver, but never a taker and she does not know how to say NO. The oddest thing about the whole situation is that Mal was the one to point it out to her within the first 10 minutes of meeting her, yet no one else in her life ever said it to her nor did she ever realize it. And then Mal goes and does the same thing to her! But, ignoring that for a moment, it was a bit challenging to like being in Anne’s head. To her defense, I think I was still trying to figure out what was going on with Mal so I didn’t really have the time or energy to figure out Anne as well.But, like I mentioned before after the first five chapters, I really started getting into the characters and the story. I liked the banter between Anne and Mal. Mal pushed all the buttons Anne needed to be pushed. Anne may have put on a front with Mal at first – trying to show him that he didn’t affect her or that she was attracted to him – but Anne was not nave girl. She actually started standing up for herself and she embraced her situation with Mal with open arms. There was tons of sexual tension between these two and it was a really great build.The ending was a bit rushed for me. After Anne finds out the reason Mal asked her to be his fake girlfriend and that situation escalated, things got messy again. I feel like the middle of this book was where it was strong, but the beginning gave me a rough start and the ending left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Let me be clear though – I don’t believe this had anything to do with the author’s writing. I like this author – I like her humor and her writing style. For me I think the crux of the problem is the storyline.In hindsight, I feel like the reasons Mal wanted a fake girlfriend, although being understandable, never really made sense. Maybe they weren’t supposed to. Maybe it was just a way to show Mal acting on impulse, which is believable for sure. In fact, I think a lot of Mal’s actions when it comes to Anne were impulsive and came out of left field. I can buy that for sure. Here’s the problem, it is the heart of the story – so is this to say that the plot just never made sense?I’m left sitting here scratching my head and strumming my fingers again because I don’t know how to rate this book. On one hand I did enjoy it and I found it to be hilarious. On the other hand I found the characters to all have different personalities than when I met them in LICK (including David and Ev) and the story seemed to be only strong in the middle of the book for me. I’m rating this book 3.5-4 stars but I’m heavily leaning closer to the 4 star mark.Fans of the Stage Dive series will enjoy this book. I do recommend you read it. The title of this book fits Mal perfectly as the man does like to PLAY :)