Review: Looking forward to the next one more
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 23, 2013
3.5 STARSI'm not easily squicked out by taboo topics (I survived Tabitha Suzuma's Forbidden -- yeah, that one should've come with a shirt) and this one has squicky written all over it. So of course I'm gonna bump it up my TBR and hey, the author's name is hyphenated and all distinguishy... must be a good one.Well, yes and no.Caroline married the man of her mother's dreams at the age of 19, now at 30, she is the domesticated wife of a military physician whose concept of 'wife' is stuck in the 50s. She develops a relationship with Sebastian, the seventeen year-old boy who endures an abusive family, whom she meets in a military base. The book focused more on Caroline finding self-worth and I guess Sebastian functioned more as a catalyst to this road to her realizations. I liked that about it, that there was an actual underlying plot behind the provocative May-December affair. And how everything happens in the restrictive environment and rigid lifestyle of a military base.It actually started really well and seemingly effortless. There were disturbing moments but not disturbing enough to not be curious where their story is going. The author doesn't fall prey to usual turn of phrases and her words suited the atmosphere she was trying to create. I liked that. But as the chapters progressed, and the sex (OF COURSE the sex) scenes piled up, I realized the writing wasn't anything to write home about. Except that it wasn't bad. Plot development was pretty slow... I think I was falling asleep beyond the 50% mark. I think s*** hits the fan a wee bit too late. The ending was abrupt, but I liked how it doesn't feel like the author was being held at gunpoint to make it a series (Ches won't be getting his own book, thank goodness): it actually felt like it was written as a series.One thing I did find interesting was how the author obviously made an effort to make the sex between an ingenue and a married woman realistic. Sebastian wasn't miraculously epic at sex even when he's a virgin and he wasn't still several sexytimes after. She also went to some unchartered territories in terms of the sex scenes that were both refreshing and hilarious.I'm actually looking forward to the next book even if this was far from a perfect read for me. Sebastian in this book sounded VERY young and Caroline had immature moments as well. I'm curious how much their characters would've evolved ten years after.