Review: Interesting Characters and Plot...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 5, 2013
Tragically Flawed follows Riviera Benson, a talented mural painter running away from her abusive past and attempting to move on with her life. After fleeing from her sadistic boyfriend Riviera finds herself in a small rural town where she meets Benjamin Shandon, owner of Shandon Homes. Shan see's Riviera's potential and after encouraging her to leave her evil vindictive boss Marsha Sue, he offers her a place as his lead painter at Shandon Homes and soon falls head over heels for our leading lady.I had to sit on my review for Tragically Flawed for a few days and process the story and what wanted to say about it. There are some really great things about this novel. I love Riviera. She's bright, beautiful inside and out, and she's a survivor. Her character is well thought out and incredibly realistic.I think A.M. Hargrove does an amazing job of showing the reader how the life Riviera has lived and the personal horrors she's overcome shapes the person she is. It was so hard reading what Jasper did to her and the detail actually made my stomach turn, but that is just a testament to how good of a writer Hargrove is. I didn't just read what happened; I was there, in the moment with Riviera experiencing her horror with her.But seeing how she picked herself up out of the situation and got away from him, well it was just a really amazing message being sent to people who might be in the same position as Riviera. There's always hope. I also really liked Shan and I felt his backstory was solid and gave him valid reasons for why he was the way he was in the story.That being said, there are also some things that felt wrong to me. Riviera has been abused most of her life and while I absolutely believe women or men that have been victimized can get their lives back and be intimate with people in a healthy way, I felt like the physical part of their relationship happened way too quick.We see Riviera being scared of Shan when she first meets him because he has a temper when it comes to things being done correctly and really she just caught him at a bad moment, but even after they got to know each other and as the readers we can see the attraction, I still felt it was too soon. And then on top of that, after the first time they were together it was Riviera that started initiating sex all the time.She becomes this aggressive sex fiend and while I'm in no way against some smut (gotta love the sexytime) it just felt wrong to me, like it shouldn't be happening and it actually took a bit away from my enjoyment of the story. After a while I actually started skimming the sex scenes and sort of skipping over them.Another thing I would have loved to see is some expanding on Riviera's roommate. She seemed so helpful and like she had her own story to tell, but at the same time she seemed to have two different personalities, one really serious girl and comforting friend and another who was constantly talking about sex acts with a victim of sexual abuse. That also felt off.All in all I did enjoy the plot of the story and it was well written. Seeing Riviera overcoming the odds and dealing with her past was really great. Knowing that she was going to get to be happy after everything she went through was really great and I would recommend the book just for that.