The first part of the year hasn’t been great for reading for me. Just a lot of things going on.
Nothing Personal by Karina Halle– I really enjoyed some of Halle’s earlier books, but either my reading preferences have changed a lot or she has changed her writing style. This book felt like a bit of a mess to me. I think it was supposed to be funny but I didn’t really find humor in it.
The beginning was a bit heavy on calling women skanks (Nova’s ex cheated on her in Vegas with a stripper/prostitute) and making fun of a man who fell in love with a porn star (Nova’s boss leaves his job after falling in love with a woman who is a “porn star”). Kessler has a son with a “Russian model” and there were a few stabs at her too. This thing where author tear down other women to make the heroine stand out is tired and I hope it is a trend that goes away quickly.
Nova is closed off to love after having her heart broek a few years ago by Kessler. By a weird set of coincidences, Kessler ends up in Hawaii and is now Nova’s boss, for a job she is qualified for. Kessler is there for a 3 month trial, at the end of which one of them will be chosen to continue as the boss. It was weird.
Kessler has a son, Hunter. He is basically a plot moppet. He can’t say bathing suit properly, but somehow has a very advanced conversation with Kessler about how he wants Nova to be his mother.
But I could overlook those things if I fully believed in the love story between Nova and Kessler, but I didn’t. I just never fully understood their connection or what they liked about each other. Kessler had a big dick, Nova was complicated and I guess the other was in to it. It wasn’t bad enough for me to stop reading the book, but it wasn’t enough for me to put this author back on my regular rotation for reading.
Grade: C-
“This thing where author tear down other women to make the heroine stand out is tired and I hope it is a trend that goes away quickly.” So glad you mentioned this because there’s hardly any other trope that will make me DNF a book faster. I recently tried Jenny Holiday’s SAVING THE CEO (which was either a freebie download or was on sale for 98-cents) and the whole first chapter was devoted to criticizing the heroine’s coworkers at an upscale restaurant for having highlights in their hair, having manicured nails, and looking “trim” in their uniforms—as if being well-groomed is some enormous crime against humanity! Then the heroine smugly decided she was the only person at her job who knew who Ebenezer Scrooge was…as if that’s a qualification to wait tables. Anyway, it wasn’t worth it to me to continue on and I DNF’d it. Writers—please give us positive reasons to root for the heroine rather than reasons to dislike the women around her.
/Dismounting soapbox now!
DiscoDollyDeb, I read that Holiday book so long ago and I don’t remember the woman hating nonsense. But also I have grown as a reader and didn’t notice a lot of these things when I first started reading.
But nowadays I’m over it and I’m calling it out every time I see it.
DiscoDollyDeb and Kini, I hate this trend as well. I love me a Kristen Ashley book, but I say all the time that she hates women. There’s always an ex and she’s always bad. She’s always the reason they divorced. And I hate it. Thank you for calling it out, Kini, and DDD, I LOVED your soapbox. I’ll be there next time you pull it out!
Norma, I had to break up with Kristen Ashley because of this. I can not stand how she villainizes other woman in order to make the heroine stand out. I can accept it, sort of, from her older books. But the fact that in 2018 she was still doing it, I had to nope out for my own sanity.
Norma, I had to break up with Kristen Ashley because of this. I can not stand how she villainizes other woman in order to make the heroine stand out. I can accept it, sort of, from her older books. But the fact that in 2018 she was still doing it, I had to nope out for my own sanity.