Title: SEIZE (Delirious Volume 2)

Author: Clarissa Wild

Release Date: December 30, 2014

    

Blurb

True darkness has only just begun …

She thought she could run, but there´s nowhere to hide. My bad side is coming out to claim what belongs to me. This hunter has found his prey, and he’s hungry for more. She’s mine now, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep her to myself. You think I’m the monster? Think again. When the choices you make decide your fate, the line between good and evil blurs. In order to live, I do what must be done. Freedom is the price she pays for her safety. She wants the truth? I’ll give her the truth.  In order to play this game, sacrifices must be made. I will start with her. 

  This is Volume 2 in the Delirious Series, which contains 3 volumes and a prequel. This book is a full-length novel. These books should be read in order. 

  WARNING: This book contains very disturbing situations, strong language, drugs and alcohol, dubious consent, and graphic violence.      

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{CLICK TO READ MY ARC REVIEW!}

Book Review - Exquisite by Ella Frank

2 PEACHY STARS! ★★ 

  ♥ Buddy Read with the lovely Rachel! ♥

 

“I believe in fate and I believe you were supposed to walk into my life, so Mason could walk into yours.” 

I've had this on my TBR for almost a year and when my awesome GR buddy, Rachel suggested this for our BR, it was all the motivation I needed to finally check out this author's books.

  

Exquisite is about Dr. Lena, a paediatrician who has her heart guarded up ever since the passing of her little sister, Carly in a car accident. For 9 years, she has been carrying the guilt of losing her and sworn never to let anyone get too close to her. 

 All of this changes one day when one man ended up delivering her flowers. Meet Mason, the owner and head chef of his restaurant, Exquisite. Fate is a funny thing when this sexy chef ended up helping his mum be a floral delivery man for one day and little did he know, he would encounter one uptight woman who completely infuriates him.

   

After seeing some rave reviews for this one and this author's books, I do find myself disappointed that I'm in the minority for not entirely loving it. For the first 20% itself, I couldn't see myself connecting to either MCs. In fact, things escalated so quickly between these two that it came off a little unrealistic for me. I can make some exceptions for instalust/love sometimes but these two totally had it for each other before Chap 1 ended, what?!

 

My biggest problem with this book definitely lies with the heroine, Lena. She totally got on my nerves for the first half of the book, her outburst of temper tantrums totally took me aback and it annoyed me how much she over-reacted at some scenes. I felt like her misplaced guilt wasn't a strong enough reason for her to act the way she did. 

 Honestly, I didn't understand why Mason is so attracted to her in the first place and thought he deserved so much more than Lena! And even after she nearly screwed over Mason's career, there was so little grovelling done on her part and it made me upset cause I was looking for that angst to deliver but it didn't at all :( 

   

I did however enjoyed the banters between Lena and Mason and I'm glad Mason stood up to her at one point because she was starting to go overboard with her crazy outbursts. The second half of the book was definitely more bearable for me with some emotional scenes but if I viewed the book in its entirety, I thought the story plot was completely lacking and there was barely any character development.

Overall this book just didn't work for me as I would like to. I skimmed a lot after a while and even the steamy scenes can barely catch my attention anymore. I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculous this one scene (or actually, a line) sounded because if the author was trying to make it sound hot, trust me it did the total opposite. 

 It would probably be a good read if you're looking for a quick, sweet and emotional one with some great secondary characters plus a dash of steamy scenes (the peaches one was quite interesting LOL). But since I have a tendency to rate my books heavily based on the heroines & character development, Lena definitely did not excel in that department. 

 Having heard that the 3rd book in this series is the best one and hearing most of my buddies liking this author's work (especially the M/M ones), I would still give her books a shot in the future :)

  Thanks so much Rachel for the amazing BR! So glad we have the same issues with this one & I enjoyed your rants! :) Hope our next one will be better! ♥

Book Review - Hate: A Love Story by Laurel Ulen Curtis

2 TRIGGER STARS ★★ 

PURCHASE ON AMAZON: CLICK HERE

"To be in love...It's powerful and completely debilitating all at the same time. It's ecstasy and agony, and it's one of the single most terrifying feelings in the world." 

I swear that these days all the books are on a mission to deceive me with their pretty covers, eye-catching titles (look at how interestingly ironic this one was!) and promising blurbs. Why why why?! 



Honestly I'm so wiped out after a day's work to be even writing a review but then I look at this book and remind myself the amount of effort I had to put in to pull myself through this read. So here's my $3.99 two cents of worth.

*******

First, let's talk about that blurb. I know, it pretty much offered nothing about this book or what it's about except it's a love story filled with...hate? Damn that irony totally pulled me into this one.



Warning: This standalone novel contains explicit language, sexual content, and potential triggers

So I do enjoy going into a book blind once in a while but sometimes, we all just want a hint of what we might actually get into. There are some triggers that people may get uncomfortable with, so it's better to be forewarned. To be fair enough, let me just list those triggers into a spoiler tag. But please only open it if you're an eager beaver and have a certain definiteset of triggers that will sure to put you off. If not, move along and who knows, you may enjoy this book without knowing what triggers are ahead.

**SPOILER BEGIN**





Love triangle (sorta), abortion, depression, 9/11 incident, suicide, terrorism, death






**SPOILER END**

The thing is, I'm okay with triggers. I love 'em in fact. I love them like having chocolate sprinkles and nuts on top of my sundae icecream. But if it ain't done right?



I felt that a big portion of the triggers were crammed in the first half of the book and they came in continuous waves crashing upon me before I even have the time to soak in the moments. I haven't got the time to let my feels flow! It felt like I was in one of those moments where I go shopping with my mum and she kept rushing me in and out of each store before I have a proper look at everything.

Sorry mum, I hope you don't ever stumble across my review. I still love you.

And then let's talk about those excessive time gaps. For those who want to know, this book spans from 7th grade till age 30. The largest time jump being 10, I repeat, TEN years. And I'm not a huge fan of them, so *shakes head*. There's just too much time gone and without proper filling in these gaps, it just couldn't work for me, I'm sorry. 



Here comes the real kicker for me which then told me I should have DNF-ed this but my non-quitter self told me to suck it up. Again, this goes in a spoiler tag because it's a whole lot of triggers and MEGA SPOILERS. 

**MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD**






Okay summary: The girl MC, Whitney met the guy MC, Blane when young; they became BFFs. Later they both met another girl, Franny who then become both their BFFs. Blane ended up with Franny, knocks her up, she got an abortion, then depressed and later suicide. Whitney also then realised she loved Blane all the while. But Blaine couldn't, so he left and cue in 10-year time gap.

The whole gist of it is that Blane came back and he realised he loves her too. He was in love with two women, HUZZAH! Let me just quote him:

"Even when I was in love with her, I was in love with you!"



If the love of my life ever told me that, I'd tell him to pack his damn ass off.







**SPOILER END**

********

The only reason I didn't DNF this was because of one person in this book and that would be Whitney's grandma. Who is probably the coolest grandma EVER. She is literally the saving grace of this book otherwise I would have given up. Love her knack of humorous advices and just being plain crude.

"Two things I'm serious about are abortion and penises."

Would I recommend this read? It could go both ways and I'd say it depends on your reading preferences (and triggers). There are some glowing reviews for this one, so it could just be me being picky. I won't deny that there are some actual great emotional scenes that brought out some major feels in me. But sadly, it just wasn't enough to redeem the entire read.

Book Review - The Rules Regarding Gray by Elizabeth Finn

2 NOT MY CUPPA STARS ★★ 

 

"I want to do something I'm not supposed to do. I want to want something I'm not supposed to want. I want to make the mistake I'm not supposed to make." 

The first thing that went through my mind after putting down the book was:

 

And let me tell you, I do not mean it in an entirely good way.

********

Gracelynn aka Gray is a ballerina who is at the peak of her career and has been dating her current boyfriend, Ian for 4 months. On one of her rehearsal days, Ian's introduces his best friend, Jasper to Gray and subsequently led to Ian proposing a threesome (and also hinted that it's a common thing between those two in the past). Initially refusing the idea from both Gray & Jasper, a dinner between the trio has made Gray realised that she needed to let loose a little and eventually agreed to the idea. 

********

Okay so here’s the thing. Prior to picking up the book, I’ve already read enough reviews to know what this book has to offer. Yes it’s not technically a love triangle book because one of them was a complete twat & that said twat allowed the other two to play hanky-panky with each other. But then the curious side of me was dying to read this one, so I went into this with only three expectations in mind.

1. To see how much of a douchebag can Ian be.
2. To see how long it takes for Gray to dump said douchebag above.
3. To see how irresistible Jasper is.

Expectation 1

And without a doubt, the award for the King of Douchebags goes to Ian.

 

On a scale of 1-10 of “the worst boyfriend ever existed” meter, he’s at 100. Rating him any less would be a complete understatement. Calling him a rude, condescending prick and an arsehole is being very nice. Seriously, there were zero redeeming qualities about him. I found his little rules to be rather pointless because he sets the rules for Jas & Gray and later walks out on them, in which he ACTUALLY expects them to abide with the rules when he’s not around. Wow talk about major benefit of doubt right there. That's very un-douchey of him tho.

Expectation 2

The official breakup was done at like 80% into the book. Unfreakingbelievable. I honestly thought it would be around 50% (which would have been bad enough), but 80% is absolutely ludicrous. I can’t for the life of me understand how it didn’t cross her mind to dump Ian sooner. I’m appalled that any woman would subject themselves to such degradation from their boyfriend in which he insults her small tits and says shit like how he was nice enough to accept her “flaws”.



I probably get it that the author went overboard with Ian’s douchebaggery to cure the love triangle situation and not dumping him earlier would only escalate the angst and the “forbidden love” factor in this story. But I would have appreciated it more if the author took the time to executed it better. I love me some good angst, but this one didn't appeal to me at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against douchebags, I just have issues with heroines who lack any sense of dignity.

However, before anyone starts throwing objects at me, I understand that this is a work of fiction. And that it's totally okay to date douchebags & not dump them at their soonest. And the fact that not everything has to make sense in a fictional world.

Lesson learnt: Suspension of disbelief will save your tortured soul in this read. Toss all logic aside and enjoy the ride.

Expectation 3: Well I've finally made it to the redeeming part of the book for me. Lo and behold the incredible smutfest!



Brought to you by Jasper who is the complete opposite of Ian. Besides the obvious fact that he is one amazing sex on legs (and a dirty talker mmhmm), he was completely endearing and affectionate towards Gray. I won’t lie, the chemistry between Jas and Gray was undeniable and they shared some great emotional moments together.

You can’t help but root for this couple throughout the book and you probably won’t even remember that Ian doucheface still existed. And remind me, what rules again?



********

Overall, I was probably not made to love these kind of stories. Well yeah, I did enjoy the smut and some of the emotional scenes but that was just about it for me. I need my angst to be well-substantiated and for my heroine to have a better backbone. And that little juvenile part at the end? Definitely not well-played at all.

However, this is my very honest personal opinion of the book and while I didn't love it, please do not let it stop you from trying out the book :) I have a lot of buddies who really enjoyed this one and personally, you should give it a shot and you may find it to be at your liking ;)

Book Review - Lover Unknown by Ellie Kincade

2 I GOT BORED STARS ★★

~ ARC provided by author via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ~ 

Well this is probably the quickest read I ever had to do. With only 34 pages, I got bored out of my mind before I hit halfway. The only reason I didn't DNF this is because it's too short for me to even bother =\ 

   

The story starts out with Hadley Scott who received an exclusive invitation to Club Q which is apparently elusive and once she's in, she learns about the club's concept. The female counterpart will be led into a dark room where the male counterpart awaits them. So technically, they have sex. In the dark. Unknown to each other.

Sorry to say that while the idea/concept could have seem intriguing, I didn't enjoy anything while reading this. No build up, nothing compelling and sex was just...sex. Which pretty much sums up to my boredom & eye-rolling while I read this.

 

Still, I gave it a 2-stars because it may lead to something better in the next book. And the writing was alright, just that it didn't intrigued me. But overall, I'm not keen on picking the next one up.