Skip to main content

Book 38 - Dream Girl Drama by Tessa Bailey

I love Tessa Bailey books, and I’m sure I’ll read her next one, but this book is weirdly stupid. Hockey player Sig Gauthier’s car breaks down, and he’s rescued by manic pixie dream girl Chloe Clifford. They share a passionate kiss and plan to meet later for a date, but run into each other unexpectedly at her mom’s house, where they discover his (somewhat estranged) father is engaged to her mother. So they’re going to be step siblings. The entire book is based on the belief that this means they absolutely cannot be together. He will lose his hockey contract. Seriously. She will get booted out of the orchestra she’s in. It’s too much of a scandal for their careers to endure.

I’m reading, thinking, ok, sure, it’s a little weird to date a step sibling, but they aren’t blood related, and they didn’t grow up together like brother and sister, so what’s the big deal? I mean, we have a President who had sex with a porn star while his third wife was pregnant with his child. You hear stories all the time of sports figures beating their wives, doing drugs or having affairs. At worst the internet would be full of Alabama Roll Tide jokes for a bit, until the next sports scandal captured the masses attention. It’s not even remotely believable to me that being together would amount to professional suicide for them.

Ok, back to the plot. They fight their attraction, then decide it’s ok to hook up until their parents get married, as if that’s some magic line, not to be crossed. See, stupid. He hires a private investigator to try to get dirt on his dad to stop the wedding, and the findings are so predictable I was just irritated and wanted to book to be over. I’m sorry to Tessa Bailey, but the whole premise was too weak and I was more angered than entertained. (5)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 40 - The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

Classic fake-dating trope mixed with The Hating Game. Catalina Martin needs a boyfriend for her sister’s wedding, so the whole family doesn’t look at her with pity. The groom’s brother is her ex, and he’s recently engaged. The only one willing to help is her enemy colleague, Aaron Blackford. Nothing new of overly inventive, although the Spanish flavor was nice. Slow burn and then a fair amount of spice. Aaron seemed to have pretty good people and communication skills once he was fake dating Catalina, so I’m not sure why he didn’t use those skills before to apologize and express his feeling for her. There’s nothing overly memorable about the book, but I enjoyed it. I’ll happily read the next one about Catalina’s best friend. (8)
Post a Comment
Read more

Book 41 - What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon

There was a lot I really liked about this book. My favorite character, hands down, was the setting of Amsterdam. It certainly made me want to go visit, wander the streets, and eat all the foods. Dani Dorfman and Wouter van Leeuwen fell in love in high school, when he was a foreign exchange student from Amsterdam, staying with Dani’s family in LA. After he returned home, the break up was curt and painful for Dani. For some reason she still decides to move to Amsterdam when a work opportunity arises, and then is determined to figure out a way to stay when the work opportunity falls apart. Dani and Wouter run into each other (literally, which seems to happen a lot in romance novels), and forge a hesitant partnership as Dani needs to find a new apartment after the one she initially had floods, and Wouter has a place for rent. Dani will be booted out of the country if she can’t find a job in 90 days, and Wouter needs to be married to inherit his family’s home. The needs-to-be-married-for-in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book 63 - Book Boyfriend by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Jennifer and Scott are work rivals at a publishing company. He scoffs at her favorite fantasy series, so she’s shocked to see him at a week-long fantasy immersion vacation. Enemies to lovers, always fun.  I love this duo’s writing style, like the line about Princess Bride-ing it down a hill and other clever turns of phrases. I’ll read whatever they write just for that. I liked how they incorporated the fantasy world, Elytheum, into the story, even if it was a bit over-the-top and unrealistic. I’m not a big fantasy reader, and I wasn’t sure what a fae is (Google confirms my thought that it’s like a fairy), but I could appreciate how ingrained the series is into Jennifer’s life.  I liked Jennifer and Scott’s interactions, for the most part. I think the biggest flaw is that the only thing really keeping the characters apart is their suspicion and fear. Which got a little repetitive. And Jennifer’s self reflections got a bit tedious for me. All in all it was a cute read. I liked t...
Post a Comment
Read more