Tag: 1 Reviews

Buddy Review: Mystery Man by Kristen Ashley

Posted January 17, 2019 by Rowena in Reviews | 8 Comments

Buddy Review: Mystery Man by Kristen AshleyMystery Man
by Kristen Ashley
Series: Dream Man #1
Published by Hachette, Forever on July 11, 2011
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Point of View:First Person
Pages: 494
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Add It: Goodreads
one-half-stars

Night time is the right time...

Gwendolyn Kidd has met the man of her dreams. He's hot, he's sexy, and what started as a no-names-exchanged night of passion has blossomed into a year and a half-long pleasure fest. Sure, it's a little strange that he only appears in her bed at night, but Gwen is so sure he's the one, she just can't turn him away...

Hawk Delgado knows more about Gwen than she could ever imagine. She's gorgeous, headstrong, and skittish about relationships. But Hawk is facing his own demons, demons that keep him from connecting with anyone. Yet when Gwen is drawn into Denver's lethal underground scene, Hawk's protective nature comes out full force. The problem is, when Gwen gets a dose of Hawk's Alpha attitude in the daylight, she's not so sure he's the one anymore....

Rowena: Time got away from me last month so I’m just now getting around to posting our December review of Mystery Man from Kristen Ashley (sorry guys!)

We’re just going to jump right in guys. So what did you guys think? Yay or nay?

Shy: I’m so sorry to say that this book is terrible. Did no one proofread this mess? Less than a paragraph in, I knew this was going to be torture. Her writing style is painfully redundant, I felt like I was reading an adult version of Dr. Seuss. I am Sam, Sam I Am. I just couldn’t get past her writing. Then the nerve to have ole sweet pea as a book author.

Rowena: Ha! Welcome to the world of Kristen Ashley. She was a self-published author before she was picked up by Forever (her traditional publisher) but yes, you’re right. Kristen Ashley writes super long romances with huge chunks of unnecessary shit. Too bad for this book, my gripe was more focused on the characters and how idiotic, condescending and just outright stupid they were.

What about you, Tash? What did you think? I think of the three of us, Tash was the only one that liked this one.

Tasha: This was my second go of this book and I wasn’t as excited. I actually liked the book, just maybe not as much as the first time around. Gwen got on my nerves, her “mystery man” was borderline psycho but the whole story with the bikers, the law enforcement guys, her issues, his issues….it was a good read!

I probably liked it more because this was the first book I read where the girls come together and have their night to hang out and talk about whatever. It reminded me of our monthly book discussions and how we all do pretty much the same thing. Of course, we talk about our book but then we pretty much catch up and share the latest news with our lives. I LOVE IT!!

And the other reason I liked the book? It called to my inner naughty girl. The fact that a total stranger comes to her bed in the middle of the night totally rocks her world and leaves her sated is kinda of HOT & SEXY to me (don’t judge me, LOL). On Fantasy Island, I wouldn’t mind a mysterious stud hooking me up on the daily. As long as it was the SAME guy, of course.

Enough about me, let’s get back to the book…I think Gwen got on my nerves because all the hot guys wanted her. And the way she kept bouncing back & forth into the arms of the next gent who was willing to catch her, was so annoying, SMH. Hawk was irritating me too. I mean, there’s Alpha and then there’s Psycho Alpha. Hawk was the latter. It’s like he was two people, almost. Daytime Hawk- broody, bossy, jerk, all business; Nighttime Hawk- mysterious, sexy, freakin’ love machine. Gwen had to learn to accept both sides of this man.

I’m a fan of Kristen Ashley and I agree, her material can be really “wordy” and lots of unnecessary stuff gets in there, but I like her stories. This book actually led me to some amazing reads in this series.

Rowena: I did enjoy Gwen’s squad and how they had her back no matter what. I loved that Hawk’s assistant got in on that action as well and was able to share her input on Hawk’s background.

Sure, it was the same guy that was sneaking into her room and banging her three ways till Sunday but dude, out of all of those times, she couldn’t ask him for his name? I didn’t like how alpha Hawk was because there were a lot of consent issues where he was concerned. There were far too many times when Gwen would be like, NO YOU CAN’T DO THIS and Hawk would just bulldoze over those feelings because he knew better than her. He annoyed the shit out of me and even in the end, I couldn’t stand him so there was really no saving this book for me.

What do you think, Shy?

Shy: This book… I just couldn’t. Honestly, I hated it. How in the blue monkey hell do you go from phantom fuck (sorry excuse the language) to happy ever after? Its just weird and wrong and hell, desperate even. I guess I just personally have an issue with female characters that are ditsy, helpless and desperate lol. I’m sure this author has come a long way since this book but I’m not picking anything up by her any time soon. The only thing I liked about the book was the stepmom.

I tried really hard, Tasha, to find some sorta saving grace in this book that would help me fluff my review a little. However, you taught me valuable lesson years ago that it would be a disservice to the author to not give a genuine review lol

I just couldn’t with this book, I don’t think I ever hated an author’s writing so much. I’m all for living out my inner slut vicariously through a book, I get the no string attached but we should at least be on a first name basis (alias and all). This human would prefer to forego his government name and be called daddy? That, I get. But him creeping in and out of your house (and you didn’t even give him a key) at all hours of the night, you can’t speak to him, you don’t know his name smh. No, just hell nah.

Rowena: LOL, right??? She didn’t know shit about him and then when she finally does meet him? He knows EVERYTHING about her and is bossing her around, leaving her no room to make her own decisions but she didn’t think that was weird? GTFOH. Another issue I had with Hawk and just everything was his attitude toward Gwen’s past hurts. Like because she was just cheated on, her hurt over her sister’s betrayal wasn’t important, she should get over herself because at least her sister is still alive for her to be mad at? I mean, fuck you very much. Then after they break up and his Mom shows up and tries to guilt trip Gwen, like it was her fault and she’s supposed to fix things? Everyone can get all the way the fuck up out of here with that shit.

I give this a 1 out of 5 stars rating. What about you, Shy?

Shy: I don’t give it any stars, lol.

Tasha: Bwahahahahaha, this one gets 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Final Grade

Rowena: 1 out of 5
Shy: 0 out of 5
Tasha: 4 out of 5

Dream Man Series

So…did you read this book? Did you like it or hate it (like us)? Haha, share your thoughts in the comments!

one-half-stars

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Review: Sierra Burgess is a Loser

Posted September 18, 2018 by Rowena in Reviews | 8 Comments

Sierra Burgess is a Loser (2018)
Starring: Shannon Purser, Noah Centineo, Kristine Froseth, RJ Cyler
Director: Ian Samuels
Release Date: 7 September 2018
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 1:45
Movie Type: Comedy, Drama, Romance

A case of mistaken identity results in unexpected romance when the most popular girl in high school and the biggest loser must come together to win over their crushes.

***There will be a lot of spoilers because this will be more of a rant than a review so sorry.***

Netflix released another Noah Centineo rom-com this month and I finally got around to watching it over the weekend and let’s just say that I was less than impressed with this one.

Sierra Burgess is a Loser follows Sierra Burgess, a plump high school student who is bullied and teased at her school by pretty much everyone but mostly from mean girl Veronica and Veronica’s friends. For the most part, Sierra seems to be above everything because she’s planning on getting the hell out of Dodge the minute she can but then she gets a text message from a very cute boy named Jamie and things start unraveling for me.

So mean girl Veronica thought it would be funny to give Jamie, Sierra’s number when he hits on her and he’s over the moon and Veronica, queen bitch that she is laughs and laughs and laughs. When Jamie texts Sierra, she’s confused but she goes along with the texting because Jamie sent a picture and he’s a cutie pie so why not? I wasn’t mad that she kept texting Jamie at first until he calls her Veronica and she realizes that he thinks he’s texting her, not Sierra. Then it all goes downhill from there.

First, she continues to text Jamie and while I can understand that, the lengths she went through to keep texting Jamie really turned me off. She catfishes the hell out of him and ropes Veronica into helping her. Together, Veronica and Sierra fake a FaceTime call with Jamie and then Veronica goes on a date with Jamie while Sierra creeped on the date the entire time. It was so bad that at one point, Sierra is hiding underneath Jamie’s car while he talks to Veronica. What grossed me out was how Jamie leans in for a kiss with Veronica and the girls trick him into kissing Sierra instead. He doesn’t know that he kissed Sierra. He didn’t consent to kiss Sierra but the girls were so proud of their actions that it really creeped me out.

Throughout the entire movie, Sierra struggles with her self-esteem and I get it. I’m not skinny and I’ve felt exactly what Sierra felt in this movie but going through what she went through doesn’t make anything she did okay. Feeling bad about yourself does not give you a free pass to do shitty things. Sierra pretended to be deaf when she meets Jamie because she knew that his little brother was deaf and it was the only way that she could keep the charade up because he knew her voice. She played Jamie the entire movie, was a complete liar and through it all, Veronica helped her with whatever she needed because at the same time that Sierra is doing all of these shitty things to Jamie, Veronica and Sierra are becoming friends. Veronica is realizing that she’s a shitty person and being friends with Sierra is making her want to change her ways. There was a lot of character development with Veronica and I thought that was good, too bad I didn’t feel the same way about Sierra.

Sierra Burgess wasn’t a loser, she was a mean person and when the shit hits the fan and everything comes out, Sierra orchestrates it in a way that I thought was unforgivable. She hurt a lot of people with her actions and when the movie ended, I was pissed because there wasn’t an apology from Sierra. She doesn’t go to Jamie and apologize for everything that she’s put him through and there’s no apology for what she does to Veronica, which was a mean and completely ugly thing. No, she writes a song and pours her heart (I’d say soul but I didn’t think she had one) out and everyone forgives her and that’s that.

The movie had potential but it was a miss for me. After watching Stranger Things, I thought Barb deserved better and thought she’d get her better with this movie but I was wrong. I still think Barb deserves better, but not Sierra. I didn’t like her character at all.

Movie Trailer

My Rating

1 out of 5

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Book Review: If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say by Leila Sales

Posted April 18, 2018 by Rowena in Reviews | 4 Comments

Book Review: If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say by Leila SalesIf You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say
by Leila Sales
Published by Macmillan, Farrar Straus and Giroux on May 1, 2018
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Point of View:First Person
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Add It: Goodreads
one-star

Before we go any further, I want you to understand this: I am not a good person.

We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. But what happens when we’re seen and heard saying or doing the wrong things? What then?

When Winter Halperin—former spelling bee champion, aspiring writer, and daughter of a parenting expert—gets caught saying the wrong thing online, her life explodes. All across the world, people knows what she’s done, and none of them will forgive her.

With her friends gone, her future plans cut short, and her identity in shambles, Winter is just trying to pick up the pieces without hurting anyone else. She knows she messed up, but does that mean it’s okay for people to send her hate mail and death threats? Does she deserve to lose all that she’s lost? And is “I’m sorry” ever good enough?

First and foremost a novel about public shaming in the internet age, If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say is also an exploration of the power of words, the cumulative destructiveness of microaggressions, and the pressing need for empathy.

I’ve been reading Leila Sales for a few years now and I’ve really enjoyed some of her books and didn’t enjoy one of the books that I’ve read by her. After reading this one, I have not enjoyed another one of her books. This was almost a DNF but I needed to know that things turned around for the main character, needed to know that she learned her lesson and I was really interested in seeing how it all ended.

I feel I should warn you guys that there will be hella spoilers in this review because I’ve got shit to say and I’m going to say it all here…so this is your warning.

***BEWARE: MARJOR SPOILERS AHEAD***

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So this book follows Winter Halperin, a former spelling bee champion who made a racist remark online and pays the price for that remark. Her past is blasted and made fun of online and needless to say, she’s devastated. She didn’t mean the remark the way that everyone took it but it was still a shitty thing to say and she is remorseful but in my opinion, she wasn’t remorseful for the right reasons. As I was explaining to my daughter while talking about this book with her, Winter didn’t deserve a lot of the shitty comments that were thrown her way (you know all of the, you should go ahead and kill yourself now because you’re stupid cow and the you should be raped for what you said – those comments) but she 100% deserved to be educated on just how privileged her way of thinking was.

I’m sorry but if your apology includes the word “but” in it, you ain’t sorry for shit and Jason, Winter’s black best friend wasn’t here for that kind of apology. He was hurt by her words and he had every right to be pissed at her. They were close friends and she said a shitty thing online that hurt his feelings but she didn’t get why her comment was so bad. Jason explains why he was so mad at her and she was adamant that she’s not like that. Her defense was, “I have black friends, I can’t be racist!” She really didn’t get why Jason was so mad at her. This part of the book had so much promise and it could have gone down in a way that taught Winter a really good lesson but what actually happens had me all…

Because no she didn’t make the white girl say a racist thing and then make the white girl the victim and then make her black best friend the bad guy by doing some shady shit. Jason deserved better than that and I almost stopped reading the book because I was getting mad but I needed to know that Winter turned her ass around and that she learned some important life lessons from all of this. I needed to see this happen with my own eyes and you guys…that didn’t happen. Or actually, it happens but it came with a whole lot of shit on shit on shit that kept knocking me on my ass.

So Winter went to a sort of rehab clinic and it was a safe space for her to finally take a long look at her way of thinking, to learn and grow from her past mistakes. That was probably the best thing for her because by the end of the book, Winter learns her lesson. She does eventually get where Jason was coming from, she learns to be genuinely remorseful for her actions and she does learn just how different her life is from Jason’s, how different her life is from the black girl in rehab but holy cow, the delivery sucked huge donkey balls for me.

Winter really comes into her own over the course of the story and when she finally gets it, I breathed a sigh of relief because, freaking finally, right? I was satisfied that the main character finally saw the light but one of the last things to happen in the book left me speechless, left a really bad taste in my mouth because I honestly didn’t think it was necessary. It took a huge shit on the message of the book.

So Winter learns her lesson, she’s back at home and she’s not googling herself twenty times an hour, she’s evolved as a person and genuinely wants to be a better, more enlightened person. She’s at peace. One of the things that she hasn’t given up is googling others that are going through what she went through. The latest victim? A happily married white man in his thirties who set up a dating profile on a gay dating app for the sole purpose of outing the men he met on there who work in politics in D.C. He’s a reporter and was doing all of this for the story. Needless to say, the online social media justice department went in on this guy and our newly enlightened and evolved protagonist wrote this asshat a letter that basically said, “I feel for you man. Just know that you’ll get through this and I’ll see you on the other side.”

I can’t imagine why that needed to be included in this book. What lesson was being pushed here? It doesn’t matter what your actions are, nobody deserves death threats? People don’t deserve to lose their livelihood after doing shitty things that hurt others? That lesson could have been taught without victimizing the asshole who violated so many people, willingly.

I closed this book and was so very angry that I don’t think I can ever come back from it. There aren’t too many books that have angered me as much as this book did and I honestly don’t think I’ll be reading anything by Leila Sales again. I would be too scared that I’d get another one of these and no. Just hell fucking no.

Grade: 1 out of 5

one-star

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