Category Archives: Challenges

(Watch Me) Break You

Book Review of (Watch Me) Break You (Run This Town #1), by Avril Ashton

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(Watch Me) Break YouI bought a copy of Avril Ashton‘s (Watch Me) Break You.

Description from Goodreads:
Here comes trouble…

Men. Women. Drugs. Dima Zhirkov’s favorite things. Add in the element of danger and he should be right as rain. But not today. It’s not working, hasn’t for a long time. He’s grasping at the flimsiest of straws to prove he’s indeed strong enough to run his streets. Until he sets eyes on him. In the midst of a room full of strangers, Dima is drawn to a man as cold and dangerous as he’s beautiful. Captivated, Dima embarks on a ruthless campaign to get his new toy into bed.

Here comes the danger…

Xavier “X” Storm is content to pull the strings while someone else handles the day to day dealings of his gang, The Rude Boys. He’s after what Dima holds closest—the Coney Island streets. He contracts out the job of killing the Russian, except Dima isn’t that easy to kill. When he suddenly shows up in X’s path, tempting him to indulge in the dirtiest play, he finds Dima isn’t all that easy to shake, either. His cocky attitude and rough submission tempts X to go where he’d vowed to never return, and they plunge head first into an affair fueled by possessive obsession.

Run for cover

Sex and pain Dima can handle, and X delivers the most depraved kind. Their connection is explosive, their games addictive, but Dima can end it whenever he wishes. He doesn’t see that X is breaking him down, giving Dima everything he wants and even more than he ever thought to need. By the time he realizes who X is and what he wants, Dima is raw and bullet riddled. It’s run or fight. And Dima doesn’t back down. Neither does X.

Review:
This book has great reviews, but I’m just not seeing the appeal. The whole thing felt like one long, sustained and unwavering note. It got a little old.

The book is primarily sex. I knew that going in, so no complaints. But it seemed to be on repeat. I’m not sure if X and Rush had a lot of sex or if I just read the same sex scene 5 times. The plot was weak and for two men running large criminal organizations, they seemed to do very little actual work.

I hate to say it, but Rush was written as a woman. Really. He cried all the time, was described as needy and sexually hungry (all at the same time). He often fainted when he climaxed. X joked about knocking him up and told him how much he liked seeing him in his kitchen. Not to mention Rush was always on the receiving end in bed.

It would have taken little more than a change in pronouns for him to be female and other than the fact that it’s unlikely a woman would have headed part of the Russian mob, a female would have fit the descriptions better. It would have been a Glen Close, boil the bunny type woman for sure, but still would have fit the character.

I also have to address the whole “safe word” thing. Yes, I understand that in real life BDSM safe words are important. In the same way that if you plan on having anonymous sex you need to use a condom. I get that. But if erotic authors religiously ensure to point out the partners stopping and rolling one on, it breaks the fantasy. The book risks feeling like an object lesson instead of a fun sexual romp.

Safe words here played the same role.  X and Rush spent the beginning of the book enacting real violence, waving guns and throwing threats. But the second anything drifted toward sex, X would stop to ensure Rush remembered his safe word. What?

When faced with such complete violently erotic abandon as the rest of the book exemplified, the use of said safe word struck a false and out of place note. It broke the narrative and reminded the reader that there was an author somewhere who stopped at her keyboard and thought, “oh, I better use safe words or real BDSMers will call me out for being unsafe.” Hello, they’re already being unsafe—Rush let X choke him unconscious their second time together. Why bother?

My biggest issue however, was that once Rush had elbowed his way into X’s life the whole rest of the book was just a broken record of “I love you,” “I need you.” “Stay with me.” In the last half of the book “love” was used 36 times. I get that the author was ensuring that the reader understood the depth of emotion these men felt (even though the whole book occurs in maybe a week), but it was too much. I felt beat over the head with it and eventually wanted to gag on it.

Generally, I love some broken men. I love crazy violent pairings. But this was too much of a good thing, with not enough of anything else to balance the cray-cray.

The writing itself was fine and I liked finding people of color as main characters for a change.  The editing could have used a little more attention, though. All in all, I think this one just wasn’t for me.

Book Review of The Duality Paradigm (Blood and Bone Trilogy #1), by Lia Cooper

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Duality ParadigmI grabbed a copy of Lia Cooper‘s The Duality Paradigm from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Everyone knows magic users and werewolves are intrinsically diametrically opposed… 

Seattle Police Detective Ethan Ellison, born into a long line of Quebecois magicians, leads a fairly unassuming life working Theft and consulting on magical misdemeanors. He’s spent eight years building a life for himself in Seattle, far from his father’s shadow. He works hard, lives under the radar, and fucks whoever catches his eye. 

Detective Patrick Clanahan, beta-heir to Pack McClanahan, is a tightly wired bundle of rage and guilt, still trying to come to terms with the murder of his last partner. 

When a human woman is murdered in werewolf territory under suspicious circumstances, Ethan is reassigned to worked the case with Clanahan in the hopes that he’ll be able to balance out the wolf’s rougher edges. 

Too bad they mostly just rub each other the wrong way.

Review:
This is a pretty middle of the road read, not bad but not all that great either. It’s a shame too, because I think the idea could really have been something special. Unfortunately, it tended to flounder, with whole subplots that never coalesced into anything meaningful (I suspect it was a set up for a future book.), annoying characters and truly lacking editing.

Let’s talk about the characters. Both were meant to be in their late twenties (26 & 29, if I remember correctly) but both came across as extremely juvenile. Patrick was at least adorable in his boyishness, but he was still childlike. This was an interesting turn for the otherwise big alpha character to take. Ethan, however, was just plain irritating in his bratty, self-centered aggression and over-reactions.

Both also had a history that was important and referenced, but never explored enough to feel substantial. I could have done with a little more world-building too. The plot worked, but it felt like mythical creatures kept being referenced without the reader knowing they existed prior to that point. On a similar side note, I never did figure out what the title meant. Maybe that comes up later in the series too.

I did, however, appreciate that this wasn’t an insta-love (even if the actual leap to sex was a 0-60 scenario). I liked that as annoying as Ethan was, he was smart and willing to stand up for himself. I really liked Cooper’s tendency to play with gender norms, mothers as pack alphas and fathers who cook dinner, for example.

All in all, I liked it enough to be interested in reading the next book, but not enough to be racing out and buying it.

The Accidental Alchemist

Book Review of The Accidental Alchemist, by Gigi Pandian

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The Accidental AlchemistI received a review ARC of Gigi Pandian‘s The Accidental Alchemist from Netgalley. (Isn’t that a great cover?)

Description from Goodreads:
When Zoe Faust–herbalist, alchemist, and recent transplant to Portland, Oregon–begins unpacking her bags, she can’t help but notice she’s picked up a stow away: a living, breathing, three-and-half-foot gargoyle. Dorian Robert-Houdin is no simple automaton, nor is he a homunculus; in fact, he needs Zoe’s help to decipher a centuries-old text that explains exactly what he is. Zoe, who’s trying to put her alchemical life behind her, isn’t so sure she can help. But after a murder victim is discovered on her front porch, Zoe realized she’s tangled up in ancient intrigue that can’t be ignored.

Review:
I’ll admit that the writing in this book is generally readable and, even though I had an ARC, the editing wasn’t worth comment. The problem was that I was simply bored throughout the whole thing…that and I became increasingly annoyed with the food references.

Because I can’t be bothered to give the book any more of my time by counting myself, I’m going to quote another reviewer here. “I did a quick word count and the “cook/ed/ing” was mentioned 79 times. SEVENTY-NINE-BRAIN-NUMBING-TIMES.” I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least, AT LEAST, 50% of the book is dedicated to what Dorian is cooking or what type of smoothie Zoe is making. And it gets worse.

I assume I’m not the only person who has that one friend who is a health nut and constantly trying to convert his/her (in my case her) friends to ‘the lifestyle.’ Zoe is this friend and I liked finding her in a book I was reading for fun even less than having soy milk, non-caff, chai lattes with my own real life fad eater friend.

None of Zoe’s healthy eating lectures felt natural. What it felt like Vegan/crossfirwas the author taking an opportunity to use her book as a soapbox. (There are even recipes in the back! How is that relevant in a fantasy novel?) All of which is annoying, yes, but it was also detrimental to the book. Because when, for example, three kids are missing and it’s imperative they be found quickly, all of the tension and buildup evaporates when the main character stops to make herself a quick smoothie, noting of course that she added extra chia seeds for the energy boost.

Further, when half the book is dedicated to food descriptions and another 20 or so percent dedicated to lectures on healthy eating and the benefits of certain herbs and such, there is very little book left for plot, character development and world building. So, let me address this here. There isn’t any of the last two.

There is no character development. To call them flat is an understatement. There is also no world-building. Zoe is just a random Alchemist in an otherwise, presumably, average America. What little plot there is is WEAK. The romance comes out of nowhere and has no basis. The mystery might as well have been a series of random events broken up by a series of silly and unbelievable Poirot/Jessica Fletcher/Columbo style ‘investigating.’ And the little bit of Zoe’s past that is revealed is just thrown in willy-nilly for no apparent reason.

Lastly, and as an admittedly pedantic point, a gargoyle is designed as a waterspout, having a trough for water to flow through. I don’t believe Dorian is meant to have one. It’s never mentioned in his description. Thus, wouldn’t he be a chimera or a boss?

So, for a super-food freak who likes to revel in their obsessive eating issues like others roll with religion, this book is a must-read. For the rest of us, you know, normalish people…I wish I hadn’t bothered.