Beautiful Bastard

The Pitch:

Enter Intern: Chloe Mills.  Enter Executive: Bennett Ryan.  Proceed to HR disaster in the making.  And lots of sex…

The Pros:

Switching character POV, some pretty amazing one liners, smoking hot sex scenes.

The Cons:

Level of believability, the ending.

The Soapbox:

Full disclosure – I’m done with this entire series of books…ALMOST all of them.  I was so sucked in that I haven’t had time to review them until now.  While there are still – technically – three (?) of those “half” books left for me to read…I’m not gonna do it.  But I’ll save that reasoning for the review of Beautiful.

My Friend (with a capital F) is the one that convinced me to start this series.  She gave me that “first hit for free” with this one and now that I’m in official Beautiful Series Rehab I look fondly back on this book and how simple it all was at the start.  How much I liked Bennett and Chloe in THIS book.

Sure she’s kinda stupid for sticking around for as long as she did.  And sure – my prediction that things would get kind of boring once they realized they loved each other was 100% true.  And of course it still follows the tried and true method of all romance novels in terms of pacing – but it was a lot of fun.

It’s another one of those fanfiction done right kind of examples and I applaud the authors for that.  But as I sit here in Beautiful Series Rehab I can’t help but feel bittersweet about this book – the gateway drug.  If you just want to laugh about it check out MNAR.  If you want to follow me on my decent into romance novel rage…please keep reading the reviews.

The Breakdown 

Rating: 3.5 Stars – though I tend to lean toward four.

Reasoning: This book was the absolute perfect “initiation” book for me, and some of the sex scenes and one liners in this book still resonate – but the ending killed it.

Recommended For: Romance novel lovers, lovers of sass and strong female leads, Mommy’s who need a break from their lives!

Map of Fates

The Pitch:  Immediately following the events of Conspiracy of Us, Avery and gang are trying to decipher clues that haven’t been solved in centuries.  Obviously – smoldering angst, murder and mayhem hound them on their quest.

The Pros:  So much Stellan.  Mmmmmmm.  I guess Jack too.  Elodie, Luc and Colette rounding out the gang.  See # below and link to MNAR.

The Cons:  Ahhh….it ended?  There might be faults – but I can’t see them I’m so deep in fandom land.

The Soapbox:  All my fangirling aside I’d like to point out something incredibly awesome that happened when I started listening to this book – I emailed the author and she EMAILED.  ME.  BACK.  Maggie Hall has been nothing but gracious and appreciative of my frantic and feverish attempts to pry more information out of her.  She is all things awesome and amazing.  I highly suggest you get on the Fandom newsletter so you can see all the “cut scenes” from the two books as well as her uplifting advice.

I have just been floored by her hospitality and also baffled why this book hasn’t caught on.  It’s basically ripe with fandom…it has all the pieces there.  So this is my plea to everyone out there – come to me.  Talk to me.  Let’s exchange notes!  Let’s argue about who Avery should be with!  I am dying to talk to people that aren’t my friends and co-workers about this.  That is the fun of fandom!  I’ve written a novel…literally…on what I think could go down in Ends of the World.  Let me read your stuff!  Let’s start this now!  There is only one book left…come out of hiding and unite.

The Breakdown:  Much like any book Rick Riordan writes – I have nothing bad to say about this novel either.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say it takes up 75% of my thoughts all day.

Rating: All the stars…like infinity.

Reasoning: #fangirl #stellan #cannes #greece #IWroteNovelLengthFanfictionAboutTheseCharacters

Recommended For: YA fans, Escapist Fiction, Teenage Readers

Conspiracy of Us

The Pitch:  Avery West’s decision to defy her mother and go to her junior prom starts a chain reaction of destiny, death and destruction.  Faster than she can manage, she’s in too deep and no one escapes the Circle.

The Pros:  So much fun!  Very quick read.  Smoking hot male leads.  Escapist adventure at its best.

The Cons: First third was hard for me to get through.  I could see how some people would hold that grudge through the rest of the book.

The Soapbox:  I drive a lot.  Some people say too much.  So I have switched to Audible to get most of my reading done these days.  Audible kept telling me I would like this book and I kept telling Audible – no thanks!  But one long summer day, when I had an extra long drive home to look forward to, I decided to take the plunge.  I’d gone through so many heavy books and non-fiction duds I needed something fun.

I’m going to be completely honest with you, I kept nodding and rolling my eyes for the first third of this novel.  Of course the hot new boy likes the main girl!  Of course the new girl has to keep to herself because she moves a lot and it makes her special!  Of course the other hot dude that appears is looking for her!

BUT.  Then things made a turn in the epic direction and I was hooked.  Just sucked in.  Obsessed.  Consumed.  She got me.  Maggie Hall got me, and now I can’t stop thinking about this series.  As soon as I knew I only had a chapter left to listen to I immediately downloaded the next book.

It’s that good.  #fangirling

I could write pages about this series – but I’ll let my feverish text messages between myself and my best friend (I cohersed into reading it) speak for me.

The Breakdown:  As long as you come into this book knowing that first third might make you roll your eyes a lot you’re gonna like it.  You’re going to like it a lot…

Rating: Four Stars

Reasoning: Lots of stereotypical YA stuff happening in the first third, but the second and third more than make up for it.

Recommended For: YA Fans, Teenage Readers, Escapist Fiction, YA that ISN’T Post-Apocalyptic! 

MNAR – Beautiful Player (Part 3)

MNAR – Beautiful Player (Part 2)

 

 

 

 

MNAR – Beautiful Player (Part 1)

MNAR – Beautiful Stranger (Part 2)

MNAR – Beautiful Stranger (Part 1)

MNAR – Beautiful Bastard (Part 1)

A/N: We finished texting about this book at this point – #sorrynotsorry #lol

MNAR – Conspiracy of Us Series (Part 4)