Review: Overall Rating: 2.5 stars- I wasted HOW many hours reading this crap?
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 1, 2014
I received a copy of Bet on It from Net Galley as an ARC. I was pretty excited about it because Cheryl is an Australian author and who doesn't love Australian men? Yum? Unfortunately I found the book a little lackluster, along with our hero, Seth.Honestly, I probably should have stopped after the first 3 chapters. I was already less than impressed with our cast of characters. In fact, my first note of the book was at 2% and simply "misogyny.""Women's work, Andrew huffed now as he took one last look around the cottage. For a week he'd been doing the cottage housekeeping as well as his usual role of managing the cellar door, alongside the myriad other administrative jobs he dealt with every day."And this was one of the GOOD guys. I guess. I mean, three brothers all bet to see who can get our heroine, Gabrielle, in the sack first. Classy. Truly. They all seem to feel a *little* bad about it, but not terribly. And even by the time we get our HEA, no one seems all that remorseful about having acted like neanderthals. They seem sorry she's upset, but not really about what they DID.I just didn't feel an emotional connection with any of the characters. My favorites were really the brothers' dad and housekeeper. Considering they were C characters, that's just not the way it should be. Gabrielle is likeable. Probably in a book where the heroes were... well, heroes... I'd have liked her even more. She's not prone to hysterics, seems reasonable and fairly funny. I just think she has crappy taste in men."God your appetite back then?""I could eat the crotch out of a low flying duck."Even the smut was boring. I messaged Megan at one point "50% and they haven't even kissed yet." That's a lot of book w/o any action. Even when they did finally have sex (around the 86% mark) it was tepid, at best."It's my birthday and I should get what I want on my birthday."It wasn't a bad book. The writing is coherent. The story is probably realistic enough to actually happen. The editing is good. I just felt more dread about having to read it than anticipation in getting to read it, and that's just plain sad. I wish that I could recommend this one, but I think another book would be a better use of your time.Smut Factor: 2 stars- Plain vanilla, no sprinklesCharacter likability: 2 stars: I wouldn’t kiss this character with someone else’s lips.Storytelling: 3 stars- It could happenWriting and editing quality: 4 stars- Well done!