SoBe

So, I'm only 7% in and I can't read any more...a few details don't make sense and you get both characters pov's, which I usually love, but they're not labeled so if you're not paying attention it's easy to get confused.

Mostly though, my issue is with the writing style...I could probably get over my first two issues, but I can't connect with the books voice and I'm getting more frustration than enjoyment from reading this so I'm saving myself the headache and stopping now.

It might just be me though, so if you're considering this! May I suggest, if possible, to read an excerpt, and see if it works for you, before making a decision either way?

So I've read Jordan Silver titles before, so I sorta kinda knew what I was getting into with this one, and I knew not to take it too seriously....but having said that, the h, for a good portion of the book, cusses all the damn time. Seriously like every other word! To be fair, I curse too, quite a bit really, but this heroines' excessive bitches and fuck yous , and assholes ....gah! She was just so over the top and....tiring really.

Then there's the Hero who's less alpha and more asshole...honestly, there were a few times I think the word " abusive" would've fit better.

And then keep in mind these two main characters are supposedly in high school, but this is no where near a YA title. Disregard their language and you'd think they were much older adults....immature ones, yes, but adults none the less.

So, 2 ish stars, maybe? ...I was going to say at least I finished it, but now I'm debating if that's really such a good thing.

Oh side note: if bad editing jobs offend you, that's another reason to stay away from this title! And look at the cover! They don't even look like teenagers!!

So Hard as Stone...I'm gonna say a solid 3 stars for this one ( I seem to be plagued by these lately!) ....I actually liked the first half better than the second, I liked how things were set up, how characters were intro'd, and that we seemed to be more in the Hero's head, more than the heroines. 

Then the second half happens...everything after the heroine finds out what the hero was hiding, from that point on, it just didn't seem to work for me, and it felt like I had to push myself to keep going, 

Let's see, my issues:

The H lies to her and the heroine forgives him within a day. Now this is a loooong book, so when I was reading it, It actually felt like it took forever for her to give him a chance to explain things,( iirc, it may have taken a quarter of the book, for them to actually get to the point where they talk things out, but really, everything for the most part is resolved within 24 hours ) so while it felt slow reading it, IMO still happened too fast.

The sex scenes...seriously, they were fucking long :p Maybe I just wasn't In the right frame of mind to enjoy them, but they seemed to take up a good chunk of the story, and, iirc, there weren't all that many of them! To be honest, I got bored, and I skimmed most of them. 

Two secondary characters: the spritely aunt, who make sure everyone knows she's "old not dead," irritated me, I just think I've seen this type of character too often, so it was hard not to be annoyed by her, and then there's the assistant to the next book's hero, she name dropped quite a few designer labels within a very small amount of space.. D&G, manolos, prada, etc...I just wanted to tell her to get over herself. I think this chicks the heroine to first 'Estate' series title ( also by Sarah O'Rourke) which means I'll be staying clear of that book. Seriously, I sorta wanted to smack her.

Also, there's a gang rape survivor in this book ( there's, iirc, only vague descriptions for said rape in this book, but if it's an issue for you, you might wanna skip this one) who seemed to be way too accepting of the hero, way too early on, it just didn't mesh in my head...shouldn't she have been the most wary? 

And like I said before, this is a looong book, and while I am usually of fan of lengthy stories, this one actually felt long....it just seemed to drag, the closer I got to the end. 

Anyway, it wasn't a bad book, just not my bag me thinks. 

On a side note, I'm Sorta peeved about the next book, Abel and Patience's, we got a preview of it, at the end of this one, and it doesn't sound half as interesting as I'd hoped :( can you say boo-urns?

Keep in mind, I've read maybe one, possibly two books in the Sea Breeze series. Having said that, Abbi Glines Hold On tight, was a decent enough read, let's say, 3 ish stars. The main characters, I think were new-adultish, or at least the heroine was, I don't remember how old the hero was, but I think he was mid 20's. 

Also so this book uses flashbacks...some I thought were necessary, some I dint see the point of, other than to make the story longer.

Anyway, I, for the most part like AG's writing style, ( at least in this book) but my main issue was with the Hero....dude was kinda slutty....anytime he wasn't with the heroine, her kid, or his parents, he had his hands down some random girls pants, up her shirt, or his tongue shoved in her mouth...and this was after he reconnected with the h!

And how the heroine is okay knowing that one of her coworkers, as well as her boss screwed him? Yeah, that's beyond me. I mean It's one thing to know your guy has been with other chicks, it's another to run in to said chicks, every-freaking-where, let alone work day in and day out with them! Gah! 

So the synopsis for Project Genesis,  does a piss poor job of telling you what the book is about, ( and to save you the trouble of scrolling/looking for it, I'll paste it here:

Vin Michaels gave up a lot when he “volunteered” for Project Genesis: a career, a normal life and a budding romance with the career-minded Helen Scott. But what else was he supposed to do when the government offered him no other option?

When a surprise attack on Earth brings Helen back into Vin’s life, he realizes he has a bigger fight on his hands than just getting rid of aliens, because his connection to her couldn’t be denied or brushed aside. But after Vin dumped her without explanation, Helen’s guarding her heart against the Alpha Squad team leader.

With a battle brewing on both fronts, Vin wonders if he’ll ever win either of them.

So, okay, yes the H joined some super secret government program, but we don't get any details!  Iirc, we don't even know what the deal was they made, or why it needed to be made! That all gets skipped right over, and were thrown in the deep end. And we get very few details about the project and its' results. Or about the aliens. Or about the governments knowledge of said aliens.... I want world building, dammit, how is that a hard concept for so many authors to understand?

And the hero spends very little time trying to win the heroine back...no he spends most of the book pushing her away, but simultaneously trying to hold on to her....it actually got irritating , dude couldn't make up his fucking mind, and she had to live in the limbo of his indecision.

*Sigh*.. I sorta wanted to kick her for not even trying to move the hell on... Additionally, I'll readily admit I had a tough time liking the h...she actually says she blames her mother for being poor...seriously?! I think the author seriously should have invested in more inner monologues and introspection with her mc's, because bits like that one seriously need some s'plaining!


And okay, maybe it's just me, but it felt like a lot of this story was told, and not shown... Too much info dumping if you ask me, and I just couldn't connect. I think the only reason I kept going was because it ( only loosely) reminded me of Independence Day  but it's turned into such a disappointing read, dammit!

Oh and It pretends an emotional heaviness that's just not there...liked there are moments between the characters, where the author, I can only assume, wants us to  think are supposed to be all heavy, and meaningful, and angst ridden, and emotional,  but they're really not. If anything they, much like the majority of this book, are pretty damn shallow.

Oh and we finally do get some info regarding the top super secret military stuff, but it's at the end of the book....can you say too little too late? Maybe if we'd gotten this info earlier than the h, I'd have been okay, but by the time we get it, I no longer gave a crap. And if I did give a crap, I still would've been disappointed because said info was pretty vague...and left more questions than answers.

Now to be fair, and despite my bitching, this wasn't a bad book per se,..it just got the shit luck of being another book at the ( hopeful) end of a train of sub par reads I've been beleaguered by lately  ....if you're not looking for a lot of depth, but instead are okay with a quick easy read, you'd probably like this, it's just not what I was looking for, so 2 to 2.5 stars.

Having said all that, in the name of full disclosure, keep in mind a few things:
1-It's nearing the midnight hour, and I've been awake since about an hour before sunrise...And as it's nearing summer, here, that means, it has been an impossibly long day. And I'm beyond exhausted. So please take everything I mentioned with a grain of salt and please forgive typos and any other errors. 

2- I still have like 20ish pages left to go, but I'm pretty sure my "review" will stand as is. if there are any glaring things I have to mention, I'll come back, k?

Okays. So...I'm sorta torn on on how to rate Relatively Famous. One one hand, I was entertained, so....yay :)

On the other, in regards to the H's identity, the h misses some very easy clues, that she really shouldn't have. Also she seems to get over things a little too easily, and the storyline with her dad was only barely touched. Oh and it's all from the heroines point of view, where as I prefer reading dual perspectives. Lastly, while the book doesn't have a major cliffhanger, it is left open ended....we get to a certain point in their story, and when it just ends.......

So yeah...altogether it was an alright read I did find it hard to put down, but those irritants I just mentioned really irritated me, so let's say 2.5 to 3ish stars.

on a side note, I'm really not feeling this cover :( 

Hmmm....it was okay... Ish. Well,  once I got past the fact that the H didn't really get interested in the heroine until she was literally the last chick on earth (seriously, how does the h, find this flattering of all things?!)....oh wait, it wasn't til after she lost quite a bit of weight too, that he finally paid any attention to her. Yeah, a real prize this ass hat is. To be fair, if you can forget his jackass-iness, he gets more palatable in the second half of the book...still don't like him, though.

The whole story is from the heroines point of view, so it's hard to get past the Hero's douchery...she tells us he's changed. But not getting inside his head makes it hard to believe that....I keep thinking if some stereotypical babe came outta the woodwork, he'd forget all about the h.

Also there wasn't enough depth for me...and it was too short, and even though, iirc, the two MC's didn't have sex right off the bat, I can't help but think they got together waaaay too soon.

And more world building would've been nice.

Also while I liked the zombie-ness of the story, I coulda done with out all the [spoiler]
shifter [/spoiler]
 stuff. It sorta didn't mesh well, and just seemed sorta random...I like the idea, I just don't think it was carried out as well as it could've been.

So yeah,1.5 to 2 stars, but if there's another book in the series, I'd give it a shot....but only if the hero's less of an asshole.

oh and also, the title doesn't really come into play til the very end of the book, and even then only marginally. i know people get mad when the images on the cover of books don't match the characters in the story, but what's irritating me is that this title seems wrong..or inappropriate...it just didn't fit, IMO. Meh...just one more thing I didn't like about it. 

A fun read all around, though I have to admit to being twice as excited for the next book, especially if the next book's Tom's and/or Nell's :)

Having said that, this IMO lacked a bit of depth, as the H and h, Victor and Melody's transitions from being' you're all wrong for me' to 'your the only one for me', a a bit too sudden for me....one sec they're opposed to each other as a mate, the next their perfect for each other?! I think a more gradual getting together would have been more believable.

Also on a side note, I skipped the previous book, Ashes and Alchemy, and was fine....no missing or confusing bits, and iirc, no spoilers for that one either, so now I can go back and read it too :)

I also  have to admit to wishing 

3.5 stars.

Somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 stars. While it was pretty well written, IMO, I was never really sucked in....I actually put it down a few times before I actually finished it. Having said that, I did like her writing style, with both the H and h's pov's, so I think I'll probably giver her other titles a chance. 

Hmm...2.5 to 3-ish stars, me thinks.

Mating Brand was entertaining, but IMO it seemed like there were too many sex scenes. However, I've enjoyed LD's titles before,so I might just be in the mood for something plot heavy, which this definitely isn't.

Also a lot of the reasoning didn't make sense, or wasn't fully explained, and/or changed.... Like the h mating with the dude not the H....first I thought the dudes dad wanted them to mate, then I was under the impression, that non-H himself chose the h, then I was back to thinking it was his dads plan, then I decided I just didn't care anymore. And on the h's side, I couldn't tell if she chose to mate the non-H to protect her family, or of her parents made her mate him... Again. I decided I really just didn't care, but it was irritating none the less...

Oh also there are bits of the story that we don't get, that I'd have love to have read...ESP when the h and H first meet, we get a bit, but I'd have loved to see how things developed into a relationship...also the H goes after a bad guy but we don't get to read it! Seriously?

So yeah...3 ish ( maybe a tiny bit less) stars.

A cute, super easy, quick read, with little to no angst and little depth. A decent read if you're between reads, or to 'cleanse the palate' so to speak.Will probably pick up the next book in the series.

'Night Games' was a very hard book to get through, only because the characters were so hard to put up with! The hero, ESP in the beginning of the book,came off as a douche bag. Such an ass!( and a bit of a whiner, know it all) And the heroine! At first I thought she'd be okay....that she'd stand up for herself and wouldn't take any of his shit...and she was....for like 5 seconds! Then she'd magically know what was going on in his head ( since she's his biggest fan or course she knows what he's thinking!) and make excuses for him and everything would be hunky dory again! Blech! I just wanted to hit her for the crap she let him get away with!


Now to be fair, the book itself was written pretty decently, ( minus some editing errors) so maybe it's just me who couldn't like these two MC's.

As far as the baseball bits go, there was some oft he actual game in the book, but more so in the end than the beginning. For those who aren't big fans, there was some terminology that was never explained...

Also the ending dragged a bit. I kept waiting for the book to end, but we kept getting a little bit more, and a little bit more, and then even more after that! If I'd have liked the book and the characters more, this would've been a good thing, but as it was, I was just eager to see it finally finish!

So let me start by saying I really wanted to like Defining destiny. I mean rocker heroes have their own appeal, but I'm a sucker for rock star heroines, (maybe cuz there so few of them!) so when I saw the summary for this, I was pretty stoked.

Then came the part, where I actually read the book. And while the writing style was pretty decent, I couldn't  stand these characters! The hero, the heroine, or their mutual best friend ( who as a side character should have stayed on the side, dammit!). There were a couple more characters strewn about but I had a hard time keeping them straight.

Okay now, there are SPOILERS ahead, so only keep reading if you don't mind them!

So the story: the rock star heroine find outs that her soul mate/ lover/boyfriend/ band member, has been cheating and flat out lying to her, so she goes home to her BFF, who happened to make a new BFF, the  H, who is a self proclaimed man whore ( which we don't really see). So ours mc's meet, sparks fly. The Heroine is pretty Adamant she won't go back to her jerk faced  ex, ( except for a couple times), even if he is her one and only soul mate.  so she feels free to move on with H. The H is just as sure she will go back to her soul mate, eventually. But they ( the H and h)  figure that since she can't see herself with her soul mate now, then she might as well screw around with the H! But they cant seem me to work things out, so it comes to the question of will they or won't they. ( will they/won't they get together? Get past their own issues /trust each other. Etc.


So let's start with the H....While the he wasn't married, he was in a previous relationship with some one ( his soul mate) who dies. So he  was the pretty much  a widower hero...what does that mean? He spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about his previous lover( at one point, iirc, right after he's had sex with the heroine!)

And this is a personal gripe of mine, I hate widower stories! Hate them ,hate them  hate them! because how on earth am I supposed to believe in a HEA for the H and h, if his previous, relationship  was so so great! And the if it' was with his one and only soul mate, of all people! There's a lot of time spent with the h moving on from her very much alive ( though douchey) soul mate, but  not nearly enough time spent with the H moving on from his deceased one. In fact, IMO he really hasn't dealt with it, and could probably use a therapist ( why wasn't that mentioned?in this world, it's a thing,  People apparently have relationships after their mates die, so wouldn't therapy be a good way of showing people there is still life to live, post death/loss of the other halves of their souls?) and the fact that's it's not even mentioned as an option, makes me think the H's depression/ grief will make a comeback and blow up in their faces and that  this HEA isn't much of one, but instead is a HFN.

And the heroine. She's a little wishy washy,and while I didn't really care for her, I can't put it into words why I couldn't connect with her.

The worst though, IMO wast their best friend, who was IMO more bitchy and whiny than supportive...I sorta feel like the author forgot this wasn't said BFF's story, and just had her in the book waaaaay too much... It sorta felt like the friend was fed up with not being the focus, not being in the limelight, and tried to  shove the heroine  out of her own story. And the H spends a little too much time checking out the T and A of said best friend, grrr. It might happen in real life, but in my fiction, a romance novel no less, it just doesn't fucking belong.


Oh and another thing that bugged me  was and the whole soul mates thing, itself as it's  never explained! At all! Can you grrrr and a half? We're just dumped into a world, where apparently, everyone has a soul mate, it's not just something some people believe, while other people think it's totally bull, no, its a real thing, that happens in this book....but the whole concept is never explained, which means there are a lot of questions...like, what exactly a soul mate is/does? How often do people find their mates? Is it just luck of the draw? You just happen to come across them and bam! Or is there more to it than that? And how come finding your soul mate doesn't mean, they'll stay faithful ( if you've found your damn soul mate, why the hell would you needs or even want  to cheat?) And if it's your soul mate you've lost, just by their very title, how could you move on, and have any sort of meaningful relationship,  with someone who isn't, literally, your other half? Doesn't that screw things up for the other person in the relationship? You're pining away for someone else, someone who is literally the other half of you, but since you can't be with them, you just move on to someone else? Someone else who is not the other half of you? Yeah, sorry that just doesn't work, IMO. Especially not in what's supposed to be a romance.  I just couldn't buy it, 2 stars.

Keep in mind  that quite a few other people seemed to like this one, so it just be me who couldn't mesh with this story.

3.5 stars: quite a few surprises, and it was well written, with a great middle, but a slow start, and a somewhat abrupt ending :(


Having said that, I'm going to do something I don't usually do, and give you a quote from the book:

The back and forth, the push and pull, the mixed signals—she had thought they were past all that after their conversation last weekend, but apparently that wasn’t the case. And she valued herself too much to be treated that way, even if she knew it wasn’t coming from someplace malicious. She wouldn’t allow herself to settle for something less than what she wanted, or to wait around hoping for something she might never get.”

That made me Love the heroine! She didn't take anyone's shit, and was willing to walk away...how often do you see that in romancelandia?! :D