Wendy Douglas

Torn

Revisado: 09-28-20

I liked a lot of things about this book. Good writing, good narration, decent characterization. But the heroine's age really bothered me. She didn't have to be 17; this could have been written with her closer to 19 or 20 and not lost any of the angst and conflict. This is a new author to me, and I'll be reading book 2 in the series.

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Huge Disappointment

Revisado: 05-04-20

I really hate giving a bad review, but nothing else works here. Nothing about this book worked for me. Both narrators annoyed me, maybe because I didn't feel like the voices suited the characters. The female narrator sounded like an English teacher trying to pretend she had some emotion about what she was reading, while the male didn't have the emotion or resonance for an alpha male.

I found the heroine completely annoying throughout. She was weak, she was whiny, she avoided the truth at all costs, she felt sorry for herself constantly, and she wanted to run away and either hide in bed or get drunk -- all the while knowing she was doing stupid stuff. How can I be expected to find that heroic or entertaining? She was pathetic, and I don't know why the hero wanted to pursue her.

The other huge issue I had was their lack of communication. She REFUSED to discuss the past, when that made absolutely no sense. Surprised, yes. Unexpected, yes. But to pretend none of it happened and refuse to find out what was behind the obvious misunderstanding? I didn't believe it for a second, and the more she played the pitiful card, the more annoyed I became.

I won't be continuing with this series, because I simply can't stand any of the characters and don't care if any of them get a HEA. Certainly this hero and heroine don't deserve one.

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A Bit of a Struggle

Revisado: 03-29-20

I took me a year to listen to this book after hearing the first book in the Maybe series. This one is marginally better, but I still have more WTF thoughts than I probably should. The biggest among them: WHY did this book go on so long? At best, it should have been a novella, because Ryan went from Manwhore of Australia to Fighting for my Wife in about two seconds.

That brings me to another WTF moment: WHY were Ryan and Taiya separated? And for a year? Yeah, she saw something that she misunderstood, but it wasn't THAT serious that she should have disappeared overnight, stayed away a year, and left him a snotty note. And WHY didn't he make more of an effort to repair things. Instead, he just screwed any female who crossed his path. If their supposed years-long love (from high school) and marriage was so strong, wouldn't there have been more substance to the relationship?

After that, every time Taiya turned around, an old lover of Ryan was there. He was always concerned about being "nice" to them -- but why? They approached him in front of his WIFE! That should be enough for him to cut them off without a second thought. And Taiya's old "friend" -- the reason for the whole debacle -- made a couple of weak attempts to break them up again, but she came around, explained, and supposedly changed pretty damn easily. I just didn't believe any of it, except that it was there for the author's convenience.

After having listened to and enjoyed the Wind Dragons' books, I was really interested in finding out the secrets of Reid and Ryan Knox. Wish I'd just left it alone and liked them from a distance.

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Okay

Revisado: 02-22-20

I was looking forward to this book but overall was disappointed. Jacob Morgan was his usual excellent self, and the others were certainly good enough. My disappointment came from the endless tit-for-tat, you-hurt-me-so-I'm-going-to-hurt-you dynamic of the relationship. Plus, they spent far too much time apart for me to really connect with the relationship.

Parts of the book were sad and devastating and heartbreaking. I love angst. I didn't love this installment of the Hotholes saga.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 12-27-19

I listened to book 1 of this series which I mostly enjoyed. I was anxious for Dek's book and the premise promised in the blurb. The execution did not deliver for me.

I was was hesitant but willing to go with things until the scene in the club after Eric's appearance. Kendra's insistence on doing a scene, her attitude, and trying to top from the bottom lost my sympathy. When things progressed to her dominance in the rest of the scene, the book and characters totally lost all credibility with me. Then, to have her behavior swept under the rug -- it wasn't her fault but his and just forget about it -- I actively began to dislike them both. Her apologies were weak and his dismissing her behavior so easily left me cold. I honestly didn't care if they had a happy ending or not.

Ultimately, thebook was totally destroyed for me, and I'm seriously undecided about continuing with the series.

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Good and Bad

Revisado: 12-14-19

Honestly, this book seemed like too much filler. The heroine looked for reasons to be upset with the hero, she showed no willingness to compromise or understand how his past could color his reactions, and she pushed too hard to force him onto her timeline. Considering the abuse and mental health issues at risk, those that she shared, I found myself disliking her more as the book went on. I will finish the series, because I have little choice if I want to see how the HEA turns out, but I probably won’t read another by this author. That’s too bad, because the writing is good.

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Disappointing Premise

Revisado: 12-02-19

I got to Chapter 8 and DNF. It was just too silly.

Nikki met Pipe through her friend Karmen. He was obviously a manwhore, and the MC had a certain reputation. No surprise. Nikki and Pipe saw each other a couple of times, and then they slept together. Two weeks later, Nikki got the courage to surprise Pipe at his apartment, where he was with a club whore getting a blow job. Nikki raced off, so heartbroken that she left town immediately, telling no one, and keeping her new location a secret.

We didn't witness any of that, but -- excuse me? One night with a known manwhore and you're so in love that you will completely uproot your life when you discover that he has other women? (Don't even get me started on why he would take a club whore to his apartment. They do that stuff in the clubhouse!) It was just so implausible, I gave up.

TBH, if I had connected better with the writing or characterization, I probably would have continued listening. Since I was annoyed and didn't care if the couple got their HEA or not, I moved on.

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Disappointing

Revisado: 11-05-19

The constant skipping of years and the lack of commitment to each other -- despite claims of "loving" each other -- came as a disappointment. I DNF because of it. Just when I thought they might get their acts together, something else would come up. It wasn't about a relationship, it was about two people obsessed with each other. Worse, they were two pretty unlikable people, with nobody I could like or be sympathetic with.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 10-25-19

There were a number of reasons this book didn’t work for me. Among the primary was that the hero and heroine spent virtually the entire book apart. We heard about their relationship in book one, saw snippets of it, but there was never enough to really buy into the HEA.

I was disappointed that the heroine was so clueless throughout the book. Even at the end, when she had bruises and a year of verbal abuse, she still played the situation off as no big deal. This didn’t serve the story or the readers well.

Spoiler alert: the pregnancy was completely unnecessary and did nothing to further the story itself.

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Enjoyable

Revisado: 06-25-19

I enjoyed this book, although I had some disappointment about how some of the adultery issues were discussed. I bought into the story and felt some pretty deep pangs over what went down, but when the deep conversations came, they fell flat. Millen had said some pretty good stuff when he and Kenzie first talked, but he sure didn't back them up. Some things were glossed over, others just ignored, and I found myself wishing for more depth.

I was disappointed that Joe Arden only narrated the epilogue, as I prefer dual narration. I understand why the story was written solely from the heroine's POV, although with the amount of agonizing Millen supposedly did, the emotional punch could have been so much deeper with his POV. My point as far as the narration goes is that I wish authors would stop making it seem like it's a dual narration when I keep running across it being 99% female narration, with the hero only in a chapter or prologue or epilogue. It feels like a deliberate cheat.

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