Review: Worth the Risk by Claudia Connor

Ughhhhhhhh.

Okay, I was super excited to read this one following my love for the second one. I started immediately, hence why I'm writing the reviews for the series back to back. I just had to start reading it as soon as I finished the first.

Too bad this one was not as good as the first.

Worth the Risk picks up about two years after the first book ended. While Matt and Abby are happy living their domestic lives, Matt's brother Stephen is busy making money and battling personal demons. After the death of his fiancée five years prior, as Norfolk's Most Eligible Bachelor, he's jumping from girl to girl. When he spots a pretty blonde while shopping for groceries, he can't help but ask for her number.

Hannah isn't like the average person. A traumatizing experience at the age of fourteen left her with physical scars all over her body and distrust in everyone except her brothers. So when Stephen approaches her and asks her for a date, she doesn't know what makes her say yes. The charming man clearly runs at a different speed, but she agrees, much to the chagrin of those closest to her.

So my problem with this primarily centered around this being far more typical than the first one. The virgin girl with a broken past meets the hot, angsty man who doesn't know it means to have a real relationship. He says something cruel and she overhears it, running away before he explains anything. He sees something, she freaks out, and he doesn't tell her how it doesn't matter.

All the typical tropes that have been overrun lately in this genre are very present in this one. Which sucks so hard.

While I loved her brothers - especially Nick - and his family, but it just wasn't as good as the first. I didn't cry, I expected everything, and while I still enjoyed her writing style, this didn't live up to the first one.

Final rating: 3 stars

Review: Worth the Fall by Claudia Connor

You know when you read a book that you thought might be a little fun and then blows you away?

That's this book. I did not expect to fall in love with this book, let alone the series. I was in the mood to read about a man in uniform (following my Elle Kennedy love) and found this series by chance.

Initially I gave this a four star rating, but I found myself going back to reread multiple times. Yep, I think it's safe to bump it up to five stars.

Worth the Fall centers around Matt, a navy seal on leave following a tragedy that tortured him mentally. Eager to move on, he spends a week at the beach. While on a run in an effort to get away from his 'date,' a girl brought along by his cousin, he gets smacked in the back by a football. When he turns around, his entire life changes.

Abby is a woman desperate to be loved. After the death of her husband, a man who loved his job more than his family, she wanted to get her kids back to normal and find some semblance of peace. Growing up in foster care made her eager for a big family, so with a pregnant belly and four kids, she packed up her stuff and took them to the beach for the week. She wasn't planning on her son Jack throwing his toy at the most attractive man she'd ever seen.

After Abby apologized on her son's behalf, Matt decided to hang around a bit. Before they knew it, Matt started going with them to everything - dinner, waterslides, the beach - and the week past far too fast for either of them. Used to being let down, she figured their goodbye would end following the weekend. However, Matt felt something for her he hadn't in a long time and didn't want to let her go.

I almost never like books that make kids a focal point of the story, but I fell in love with all of these characters. Obviously Matt and Abby had personalities, but each child was different. There was Jack, the adorable, rambunctious boy that wanted a father figure in his life. Gracie, with all her energy, was just happy to have someone give her attention. Her mother was portrayed as being there, but divided with other siblings made it difficult and Matt gave that to her in spades. Charlie, the youngest of the lot, was happy to have a daddy. Too young to remember his own, Matt provided him with the father he needed.

And Annie. Seriously, this character tugged at my heart and had me crying for her. She refused to let Matt in, thinking he would let her down in some way. Matt did everything to prove to her that he would be there for her and throughout he book, we see her come out of that shell.

As for Abby and Matt, I think I fell in love with them as a couple. I enjoyed seeing them happy. Angst is my favorite and, trust me, this had it throughout, but we also got to see this couple actually enjoy each other. This wasn't just a romance book about sex. This was about a couple dealt some bad hands, both afraid, and how they come to make things work.

As for the end...

I ugly cried.

No shame.

This isn't a book about a strong woman saving the world or fighting crime. She's not strong because she stands up to people. She is strong because she bears the weight of the world on her shoulders and isn't crushed beneath it. When she hurts, she makes sure to fight against her pain to take care of her kids. She wants love, but she refuses to beg.

The writing is fun and done in such a way that it kept my interest throughout the entire thing. I didn't feel like something dragged. I did suspend disbelief on some things, but I loved this book.

Claudia Connor is my new author obsession!

Final rating: 5 stars

Review: Confess by Colleen Hoover

After coming off the last Colleen Hoover book, I am just questioning everything. I know some people love love love this book and others thought it was meh. I'm conflicted about this one, but I did like it enough to give it the extra star.

Confess follows Auburn, a recent transplant from Oregon to Texas. Her only memories from Texas five years prior were not entirely good ones. During that trip, she was saying goodbye to her childhood sweetheart and only love, who shortly thereafter died from cancer. Now she's twenty and trying to survive on her own, even though she has family (in a sense) very close by.

As she's walking home one day she spots various confessions left outside of a studio. Some are silly while others are heartbreakingly sad. Next to the confessions just so happens to be a help wanted sign - and that's how we meet the boy.

Owen Gentry is an artist. He takes confessions from other people and paints them so they come to life. The city loves them and he makes a comfortable income from selling them, but he has secrets of his own he can't confess. And they happen to revolve around Auburn.

This was a book about addiction and if I had known that, I may have been more hesitant to read this. For personal reasons, I have a serious issue with it and I have found very few books capture it without sounding either offensive or just plain wrong. I give CoHo credit that the way she handled that was good - addiction is ugly and mean and hurtful. It's not glamourous. They want to stop but they can't and their families suffer from it. The family members feel shame and hurt and anger. The end result was written with eloquence. I was impressed.

I did like this book and my heart did hurt for the characters at various parts of the book. However, I didn't ugly cry like I have at her other books. Maybe it was because I listened to this as an audiobook, but I did not get as emotionally invested in this as I have with her other books.

The insta-love bothered me.

Even they say they fell in love in ten days. That's a bit bizarre to have this level of love for each other. I could understand lust - and holy hell the UST in this is insane - but I didn't get the burning passion they felt in such a short time. It all happened way too fast.

However, I did like it. I love her writing style and knowing all the confessions are real made it all the more beautiful.

Final rating: 4 stars

Review: Too Late by Colleen Hoover

I am a Colleen Hoover fangirl and that's probably why I'm rating this a 3. I am used to giving her books 5 stars - with an occasional 4 - but rarely do I give her something less than that.

I was frustrated by this and after sitting on it, I think I know where my frustration comes from.

Too Late stars Sloan, a girl with a rough past trying to make a better future for herself and her handicapped brother. Her boyfriend Asa has been there for the past two years, taking care of her financially. While it's clear she's fallen out of love with him, she doesn't know how to get out of her bad situation.

With Asa throwing parties every day and night, she doesn't get much sleep. So when she get's woken up by an exceptionally attractive guy in class, she's startled that she immediately starts flirting with him.

Carter is an undercover agent, hell bent on getting his target: drug dealer Asa. At 25, he finds it more tiresome than anything else that he was thrown back into college courses. Yet when he meets a stunning girl in his Spanish class, he's happy to have a nice distraction. Too bad his distraction turns out to be Asa's girl.

Asa has been dealing drugs for years, but now he's making it really big. With his girl at his side, loyal and gorgeous, he thinks he can take on the world. However, he's suspicious that not all is right with his inner circle. He knows something is betraying him, but he needs to find out who.

Pros:

-I liked the plot. I thought it was different than her usual high school angst. This was actually about a character involved in a job rather than just chilling at home or school and dealing with feelings.

-The writing. It was classic Coho: solid grammar, decent prose. Her writing doesn't pull out SAT words that nobody ever uses (like Cassie Clare) and it doesn't make me want to rip out my hair by being awful (like E.L. James).

-The angst. I'm a sucker for it and this had it in spades.

Cons:

-The insta-love was more obvious in this than any of her other books. Slammed was cute and we saw them fall much like a high school couple would. Maybe Someday was about fighting attraction before realizing they were falling for each other. In this story, they just are crazy about each other from the start. To the point where he was willing to risk his job for her.

-The characterization. Carter was stale, Sloan didn't appeal to me, and Jon felt like a villain in a Twilight fanfiction. The only character I was intrigued by was Asa. I actually liked his downward spiral.

-The silly FBI/cop stuff. My uncle used to be FBI and I've got a lot of cops in the family. Yeah, I wasn't feeling it. He was the worst undercover agent ever.

I think the problem is that this feels like fanfiction that had potential. These days it's all about self-publishing and I get that there are some gems out there. However, I am a firm believer that self-published books don't get the same treatment that classically published books receive. They're not properly edited, don't go through as many hands, etc. The best example is Fifty Shades of Grey, a piece of garbage that was "edited" by the author's husband. There are basic issues throughout that a properly published book (shame on you Random House) would have edited out.

This felt like a self-published book and that's because it was just a wattpad series. I think if this had taken her as many months as her prior novels, it would have been more thought out, worked from beginning to end, and I ultimately would have loved it. I don't want to read fanfiction. Those characters (and fanfiction authors can argue this until they're blue in the face) are taken from somewhere else and they don't have to develop them. It's the same for this - nothing was fully developed and that hindered it.

I personally think CoHo did this so she could write an erotica romance book like her friends (Abbi Glines, Jamie McGuire, Molly McAdams) without losing her spot in the fiction category at bookstores.

Overall, it was okay. Colleen definitely has better books out there. There is this perception that Colleen Hoover is perfect and after reading Maybe Someday, I was screaming to anyone who would listen. However, the more books she writes, the more I am starting to realize that she's not the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And as much as it kills me to say, I do think the hype has gone to her head. I wasn't impressed by her author notes throughout this story.

Final rating: 3 stars

Let's Get This Going

First things first: I love reading. 

I do not go a single day without reading. I can't fall asleep unless I read at least a page or two. It's just something that is an innate part of my personality.

I wanted to create a place where I could talk about my favorite books with the hopes of others reaching out. So this will be a space dedicated to book reviews and the occasional mention of my perfect cat - Rocky. 

Please note: I am sarcastic, snarky, and I swear like a trucker. My reviews do not hold back on the language so hopefully the occasional f-bomb doesn't bother anyone. Even if it does, I'll still be saying it.

I generally like to read a book a week so I'll do my best to post as often as I can. My reviews are unfiltered and vary in the snark. Sometimes I'm swooning over a book (pretty much anything by Marissa Meyer) and other times I'm writing about how I want to slam my head against the wall (E.L. James garbage. Barf). 

While I will definitely reference various pop culture things and my beloved feline, this will be dedicated to books.

Here is a list of some of my favorites:

Young adult: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, The Between the Lines Series by Tammara Webber, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma, and everything by Jennifer Armentrout.

Romance: Anything by Colleen Hoover, Easy by Tammara Webber, the Marked Men series by Jay Crownover, The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay, The Wait For You series by Jennifer Armentrout, and Scoring Wilder by R.S. Grey.

Fiction: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Mommy by Mistake by Rowan Coleman, and the Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury,

All time favorite series: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling.

Reading depends on my mood so sometimes I want to read a cheesy romance while other times I need to read some fantasy. I generally am reading five books at once and review them once I'm finished.

Oh and I have a slight obsession with Theo James. And hockey. Expect to see a lot of that.

So let's get this going!