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tita_noir's review against another edition
3.0
This was a fun read. But honestly the heroine's revenge quest made no sense. But still fun.
radioactve_piano's review against another edition
2.0
Pervert: "a person whose sexual behavior is regarded as abnormal and unacceptable."
Biggest problem with this book: that enjoying giving oral is somehow a perverted thing. It shouldn't be... oral is pretty fucking common, no? Oh, I'm sorry, it's a MALE who enjoys giving? Yeah, totally different.
....
Honestly, the writing was pretty damn good. But it really bothers me that the entire premise of the book is that this is some unacceptable behavior. Eh. The main characters approach to their relationship? Maybe. But the mechanics of it? Nope.
Biggest problem with this book: that enjoying giving oral is somehow a perverted thing. It shouldn't be... oral is pretty fucking common, no? Oh, I'm sorry, it's a MALE who enjoys giving? Yeah, totally different.
....
Honestly, the writing was pretty damn good. But it really bothers me that the entire premise of the book is that this is some unacceptable behavior. Eh. The main characters approach to their relationship? Maybe. But the mechanics of it? Nope.
phoenixinthecity's review against another edition
5.0
ARC received in return for an honest review.
This was written from a dual POV, but mainly from the (anti-)hero's.
Nate is an ex-army, once-upon-a-time stripper with a degree in computer engineering so he's not dumb but chooses to loaf while he continues to consider his options 1 year after his honorable discharge. He comes off as a complete womanizing asshole with little to redeem himself except that he's honest and upfront with women about his intentions of being in it for sex only and it's not his fault if the women he gets involved with misunderstand or assume they can change him. Long story short: a man you love to hate.
That being said, I loved the game of cat and mouse that unfolds and how Robyn drives Nate to stalk her because he can't stand that a woman has actually said no to him and when she finally does say yes, he's so caught off guard that he remains on tenterhooks wondering what she's going to do next. He gets his comeuppance in the end and it's quite the cute and satisfying HEA.
Reader beware if you're cool to the hot sex scale. The sex scenes are dirty and rather graphic - hello, foreplay, I'm so over you - you'll know what I mean when you read it. ;)
This was written from a dual POV, but mainly from the (anti-)hero's.
Nate is an ex-army, once-upon-a-time stripper with a degree in computer engineering so he's not dumb but chooses to loaf while he continues to consider his options 1 year after his honorable discharge. He comes off as a complete womanizing asshole with little to redeem himself except that he's honest and upfront with women about his intentions of being in it for sex only and it's not his fault if the women he gets involved with misunderstand or assume they can change him. Long story short: a man you love to hate.
That being said, I loved the game of cat and mouse that unfolds and how Robyn drives Nate to stalk her because he can't stand that a woman has actually said no to him and when she finally does say yes, he's so caught off guard that he remains on tenterhooks wondering what she's going to do next. He gets his comeuppance in the end and it's quite the cute and satisfying HEA.
Reader beware if you're cool to the hot sex scale. The sex scenes are dirty and rather graphic - hello, foreplay, I'm so over you - you'll know what I mean when you read it. ;)
theblisstour's review against another edition
4.0
Sometimes I get into reading ruts. Every book starts the same. Everything is distant and I've recently discovered that reading a good book in 1st person POV really gets me out of it. This book is in 1st person, and was just the kind of batshit crazy I needed. Nate's voice, which dominates the book, is distinct and consistent, strong and immediate.
The book has its problems: Why does the author throw around "BDSM," but there's really none in it. I found the couple's relationship believable but not their friendships. Robyn's new best friend she's only known for a few months and her old best friend, she only knew for a few years? I don't buy it. Also, the author has trouble with noun/verb agreement for prepositional clauses.
That said, it still gets 4 stars because I devoured this, couldn't stop reading. It's fun, dirty, and sweet.
The book has its problems: Why does the author throw around "BDSM," but there's really none in it. I found the couple's relationship believable but not their friendships. Robyn's new best friend she's only known for a few months and her old best friend, she only knew for a few years? I don't buy it. Also, the author has trouble with noun/verb agreement for prepositional clauses.
That said, it still gets 4 stars because I devoured this, couldn't stop reading. It's fun, dirty, and sweet.
bookhero6's review against another edition
3.0
One of my first forays into the more erotic side of romance. So I think stepping out of my comfort zone into super sexy land (coming from fluffy and mildly sexy land) was a little jarring at first. Now that I know more what to expect, I think I should probably re-read.
I liked that it was told entirely from the dude's perspective. Which is something I haven't encountered much. It also helped keep a bit of an air of mystery about the heroine. Even though I kinda didn't like the hero, I liked reading about his development and I both thought the heroine was a little too good for him and also just what he needed.
Will definitely read more from this author (who I believe also write under the name Melissa Blue).
I liked that it was told entirely from the dude's perspective. Which is something I haven't encountered much. It also helped keep a bit of an air of mystery about the heroine. Even though I kinda didn't like the hero, I liked reading about his development and I both thought the heroine was a little too good for him and also just what he needed.
Will definitely read more from this author (who I believe also write under the name Melissa Blue).
hellhorse's review against another edition
1.0
I basically had to hate-fuck this book to finish it. I wanted to DNF around 55%, but figured it was a short read so I could power through. I'll just go through my gripes because godDAMN did I have some problems with this book.
- Being obsessed with eating puss is not perverted. Like, at all. No one would call a woman who loves sucking dick a perv, and the only reason you'd equate cunnilingus with perversion is straight up misogyny. The sex acts here are, at most, the lightest of BDSM. This book should be called GUY WHO HAS PRETTY STANDARD ISSUE SEX BUT THINKS IT'S A LOT DEEPER THAN IT IS, not PERV. There is something a bit perverse about Nate liking to smell his conquests' underwear, but this wasn't explored at length (which I think I prefer, since "panty sniffer" is a stomach-turning phrase that the author used too much for my taste already).
- Other reviews have pointed this out, but Nate is a misogynist. His friend Duke, a laughably inaccurate caricature of a high-powered lawyer, also seems like one. Tarek is the only one out of the three who acts like a remotely normal person, and he seems to be constantly exasperated with the grunting, stoic antics of his alphahole friends to the point where I wondered why they still hung out. I have issues with the whole concept of alphas to begin with, mainly because IRL you primarily hear alt-right chuds talking about whether men are alphas or betas, and literally every guy I've met who's been described or describes himself as an alpha has been an absolute douchebag. Nate pretends like his casual sex history has been above board when he doesn't even bother learning these women's names and doesn't seem to want to have conversations with the women he bangs, except for Robyn. It doesn't seem like he treats his conquests with much respect, and given that he can barely have an an honest conversation about his feelings with anyone in his life, I would guarantee that Loraine wasn't the only woman he hurt.
- CAN WE TALK ABOUT LORAINE. What a goddamn dumbass. She knew she had cervical cancer, so somehow it's Nate's fault that she hooked up with him without telling him about her cancer and then she held onto her resentment towards him while she was on her fucking deathbed! Girl, no dick is that good. Not to mention the narrative repeatedly calling her "broken" when really she just needed some grief counseling and a vibrator.
- Robyn sucks so much. What the fuck kind of revenge plan is it to fuck the guy who DESTROYED YOUR FRIEND'S LIFE because of how good he is at sex?! Why bother getting involved when you have already seen what this dude's fuck game did to your best friend? There are about a thousand ways to get revenge on someone, and giving him free access to your vajay because he fucked your (unbeknownst to him) terminally ill friend so good she killed herself is NOT one of them. On top of that, what Nate did to Loraine was... nothing. If he's as obvious about his proclivities as he says he is, then she knew what she was getting into (as a virgin!), she didn't give him all of the facts about herself, she dumped him, and then she blamed him for her shitty decision-making. Nate's narrative notes that he didn't know, but her pain was his fault anyway... yeah no. That's absolute bullshit.
- Nate repeatedly calls Robyn "not normal" because... she drinks green tea and doesn't wear underwear? Robyn is exceedingly normal, right down to her drinking wine in her pajamas because she's sad over her and Nate's blink-and-you-miss-it breakup. If anything, Robyn is an absolute moron for not wearing underwear with her nice work clothes.
- Related to my previous point, I would like to see the permanent death of the "dom ignored my safe word and now I'm incredibly tortured but still into BDSM" trope. Either treat it like sexual assault - which it is - or stop using it as a shorthand for someone who likes getting beat up but has trauma attached to it. There were a lot of opportunities here for Robyn to explore her dissatisfaction with BDSM and its community and feeling doubly alienated by both BDSM and the vanilla world, but mostly it was an excuse to have Nate slap her tits a couple of times.
- The writing is so, so bad. It's trying so hard to be intense and quippy but it's just choppy and incredibly lame. I groaned out loud a few times reading some of the "flirty" lines that Nate threw out. There were also a few instances where the quips just didn't make sense, like when it's revealed that Loraine worked in the NICU because she had her works out due to the cancer and wanted to be closer to kids I guess? (Maybe choose pediatrics instead, it's less traumatic on top of all the cancer and life-destroying sex.) The lines of dialogue just didn't follow each other logically, and the writing was so stilted that there was never any sense of flow. Not to mention that Nate's nicknaming conventions are just so corny and lame. "Stealth and Heels" is a godawful nickname and genuinely one of the stupidest things I've read in fiction, especially because there's nothing stealthy about literally putting your tits on the bar to get the bartender's attention and then letting a total stranger finger you in public, which is what Robyn does in the opening scene.
This was the first book I started in 2020 and I hope it's not an omen for the rest of my reads this year. Mama, this was hot garbage.
- Being obsessed with eating puss is not perverted. Like, at all. No one would call a woman who loves sucking dick a perv, and the only reason you'd equate cunnilingus with perversion is straight up misogyny. The sex acts here are, at most, the lightest of BDSM. This book should be called GUY WHO HAS PRETTY STANDARD ISSUE SEX BUT THINKS IT'S A LOT DEEPER THAN IT IS, not PERV. There is something a bit perverse about Nate liking to smell his conquests' underwear, but this wasn't explored at length (which I think I prefer, since "panty sniffer" is a stomach-turning phrase that the author used too much for my taste already).
- Other reviews have pointed this out, but Nate is a misogynist. His friend Duke, a laughably inaccurate caricature of a high-powered lawyer, also seems like one. Tarek is the only one out of the three who acts like a remotely normal person, and he seems to be constantly exasperated with the grunting, stoic antics of his alphahole friends to the point where I wondered why they still hung out. I have issues with the whole concept of alphas to begin with, mainly because IRL you primarily hear alt-right chuds talking about whether men are alphas or betas, and literally every guy I've met who's been described or describes himself as an alpha has been an absolute douchebag. Nate pretends like his casual sex history has been above board when he doesn't even bother learning these women's names and doesn't seem to want to have conversations with the women he bangs, except for Robyn. It doesn't seem like he treats his conquests with much respect, and given that he can barely have an an honest conversation about his feelings with anyone in his life, I would guarantee that Loraine wasn't the only woman he hurt.
- CAN WE TALK ABOUT LORAINE. What a goddamn dumbass. She knew she had cervical cancer, so somehow it's Nate's fault that she hooked up with him without telling him about her cancer and then she held onto her resentment towards him while she was on her fucking deathbed! Girl, no dick is that good. Not to mention the narrative repeatedly calling her "broken" when really she just needed some grief counseling and a vibrator.
- Robyn sucks so much. What the fuck kind of revenge plan is it to fuck the guy who DESTROYED YOUR FRIEND'S LIFE because of how good he is at sex?! Why bother getting involved when you have already seen what this dude's fuck game did to your best friend? There are about a thousand ways to get revenge on someone, and giving him free access to your vajay because he fucked your (unbeknownst to him) terminally ill friend so good she killed herself is NOT one of them. On top of that, what Nate did to Loraine was... nothing. If he's as obvious about his proclivities as he says he is, then she knew what she was getting into (as a virgin!), she didn't give him all of the facts about herself, she dumped him, and then she blamed him for her shitty decision-making. Nate's narrative notes that he didn't know, but her pain was his fault anyway... yeah no. That's absolute bullshit.
- Nate repeatedly calls Robyn "not normal" because... she drinks green tea and doesn't wear underwear? Robyn is exceedingly normal, right down to her drinking wine in her pajamas because she's sad over her and Nate's blink-and-you-miss-it breakup. If anything, Robyn is an absolute moron for not wearing underwear with her nice work clothes.
- Related to my previous point, I would like to see the permanent death of the "dom ignored my safe word and now I'm incredibly tortured but still into BDSM" trope. Either treat it like sexual assault - which it is - or stop using it as a shorthand for someone who likes getting beat up but has trauma attached to it. There were a lot of opportunities here for Robyn to explore her dissatisfaction with BDSM and its community and feeling doubly alienated by both BDSM and the vanilla world, but mostly it was an excuse to have Nate slap her tits a couple of times.
- The writing is so, so bad. It's trying so hard to be intense and quippy but it's just choppy and incredibly lame. I groaned out loud a few times reading some of the "flirty" lines that Nate threw out. There were also a few instances where the quips just didn't make sense, like when it's revealed that Loraine worked in the NICU because she had her works out due to the cancer and wanted to be closer to kids I guess? (Maybe choose pediatrics instead, it's less traumatic on top of all the cancer and life-destroying sex.) The lines of dialogue just didn't follow each other logically, and the writing was so stilted that there was never any sense of flow. Not to mention that Nate's nicknaming conventions are just so corny and lame. "Stealth and Heels" is a godawful nickname and genuinely one of the stupidest things I've read in fiction, especially because there's nothing stealthy about literally putting your tits on the bar to get the bartender's attention and then letting a total stranger finger you in public, which is what Robyn does in the opening scene.
This was the first book I started in 2020 and I hope it's not an omen for the rest of my reads this year. Mama, this was hot garbage.
threeundertwopnw's review against another edition
5.0
Funny, dirty, quick read. I loved the characters and their arcs.
frahhn's review against another edition
3.0
TLDR; I definitely liked this book (curse you goodreads, I really wanted to give this 3.5 stars) but I was frustrated by one of the sex scenes BUT also I'm excited for book two! I liked the Lawyer friend.
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I really loved the "big reveal" chapter. It was very heart tugging but showed the male MC's real character growth that made him pallateable enough for the heroine lol. Well written and I highlighted it a ton for myself.
the casual refrence to amazon drones was wild, I have to say.
about the scene that makes me scrunch up my face:
The male mc is super clear about calling all women "sugar" because their names, personalities, identities are irrelevant...which is pretty shitty as we all know, and I would say vaguely humiliating (at best) for most people. Getting off doesn't create an inherently good experience. However by the time we reach this scene in the book that bothers me, it's already clear that this is ~☆**MoRReee**☆~
And the heroine
and rightly the hero agrees not to hurt her like that...
and smugly for a safe word she chooses "sugar" because it's subtly humiliating to be called that, he's used it to demean their relationship before etc. It's a reminder not to be a dick, and a pointed call out that's totally deserved.
but as the next chapter begins we hear from him..."And...maybe I'm a little pissed at her choice of safeword. She's topping from the bottom before we even play. She always does. I'm going to make her eat the word sugar."
I don't think it's topping from the bottom when she's trusting an admitted fuckboy who has humiliated her before:
"We're only supposed to fuck, not have this emotional shit bubbling up in our every exchange. I have to end this. I rest my forehead against hers and force myself to say, “I'll see you, Sugar.” She flinches at the nameless endearment. I hope those are my last words to her."
I know he hasn't really reached the pinnacle of his redeemedness or whatever by that scene but ehhhh I needed more sympathy from him @ 60% *shrugs*
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I really loved the "big reveal" chapter. It was very heart tugging but showed the male MC's real character growth that made him pallateable enough for the heroine lol. Well written and I highlighted it a ton for myself.
the casual refrence to amazon drones was wild, I have to say.
about the scene that makes me scrunch up my face:
The male mc is super clear about calling all women "sugar" because their names, personalities, identities are irrelevant...which is pretty shitty as we all know, and I would say vaguely humiliating (at best) for most people. Getting off doesn't create an inherently good experience. However by the time we reach this scene in the book that bothers me, it's already clear that this is ~☆**MoRReee**☆~
And the heroine
Spoiler
clearly states she is not into erotic humiliation and has been burned by someone who ignored this before as they discuss their sexual parameters...and rightly the hero agrees not to hurt her like that...
and smugly for a safe word she chooses "sugar" because it's subtly humiliating to be called that, he's used it to demean their relationship before etc. It's a reminder not to be a dick, and a pointed call out that's totally deserved.
but as the next chapter begins we hear from him..."And...maybe I'm a little pissed at her choice of safeword. She's topping from the bottom before we even play. She always does. I'm going to make her eat the word sugar."
I don't think it's topping from the bottom when she's trusting an admitted fuckboy who has humiliated her before:
"We're only supposed to fuck, not have this emotional shit bubbling up in our every exchange. I have to end this. I rest my forehead against hers and force myself to say, “I'll see you, Sugar.” She flinches at the nameless endearment. I hope those are my last words to her."
I know he hasn't really reached the pinnacle of his redeemedness or whatever by that scene but ehhhh I needed more sympathy from him @ 60% *shrugs*
rashbrook's review against another edition
4.0
This book lives up to the series name. It was deliciously filthy, and if you enjoy erotica with light BDSM you’ll love this book. I only retracted a star due to the nature of the conflict between the hero and heroine, but I will definitely read this book again.