Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry

I got the ARC of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley free of charge – thank you very much! Of course that fact didn’t influence my review in any way.

Synopsis:

Beth Risk is…a risky girl. Small wonder – she lives with a mother addicted to drugs who constantly chooses bad guys and never hesitates to bring them home. The acquaintance with Beth means only one thing: shame and troubles. The girl herself seems to follow the steps of her only parent - she has already slept with different guys who dumped her in no time. She drinks  and smokes pot. What’s more, Beth feels responsible for her mom and sometimes intervenes when a particularly nasty boyfriend  hurts her. She seems unaware that it should be completely the other way round – mothers are here to protect their kids. Dysfunctional doesn’t even starts to cover their relationship.

One night Ryan Stone tries to pick Beth up in a Taco Bell joint. It was a dare between him and his buddies – chat that strange chick up, although she has ‘mean’ written all over her face, and make her give you her name and phone number. Ryan loses and he hates losing so he decides to try and try again – especially when Beth moves to his home town and happens to be related to one of local baseball heroes, Scott Risk.

Ryan is a high school baseball star – an excellent player, a boy from a good family every father would like to greet as his daughter’s boyfriend. When he falls for Beth, though, he meets a wall of distrust and worry. Will he be able to overcome it? Will Beth allow him to do so?

What I liked:

I am very happy to inform you that, in my humble opinion the second part was better than Pushing the Limits. Firstly I liked its heroine, Beth, far more than Echo - she was more edgy, more conflicted and dark. Secondly I liked the pacing – especially the fact that the romance between Beth and Ryan developed slowly and we were given the opportunity to know them before they actually hooked up.

I also liked how the feelings between Beth and Ryan influenced their lives – especially Ryan’s family life, not so perfect as it seemed at the very beginning.

What I didn’t like:

Firstly I might repeat my main grievance from the previous book: the chapters narrated by Ryan sometimes read as narrated by a girl. Not by Beth, fortunately, but by a girl nevertheless. They were better than Noah’s chapters from the previous part but still not persuasive enough.

The author kept Beth’s silent admirer and companion, Isaiah, from the first book and created something almost like a love triangle. Keeping him was fine, love triangle – not so much. That ‘almost’ word saved the novel but honestly, how many times a girl must say ‘I love you like a FRIEND’ so the boy gets the message? Especially that from the sneak peek included at the end of the ARC I know Isaiah is going to have a book on his own and he is going to fall in love with a different girl. How it is supposed to work? No idea.

Some fragments of the novel felt a bit overlong – I admit I did skim over such scenes as girls’ bonding and adjusting to new school or arguing with friends over some trust issues or baseball-speak of Ryan.

I mentioned earlier that I liked Beth…yes I did, most of the time. Still there were moments when she felt too clean and almost too innocent for such an experienced character.

Final verdict:

A nice YA romance (sic!) which I requested on a whim and started reading without expecting anything good at all. It proved to be quite decently written, with interesting characterization and characters which made sense. I hope the third part will be even better although I am not a big Isaiah fan.

Review: The Prince (Original Sinners 03) by Tiffany Reisz

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer...preferably in bed. That's always been Kingsley Edge's strategy with his associate, the notorious New York dominatrix Nora Sutherlin. But with Nora away in Kentucky, now it's Kingsley's chance to take her place at the feet of the only man he's ever wanted -- Søren, Nora's on-again, off-again lover -- until a new threat from an old enemy forces him to confront his past.

Wes Railey is still the object of Nora's tamest yet most maddening fantasies, and the one man she can't forget. He's young. He's wonderful. He's also thoroughbred royalty and she's in "his" world now. But Nora is no simpering Southern belle, and her dream of fitting into Wesley's world is perpetually at odds with her dear Søren's relentlessly seductive pull.

Two worlds of wealth and passion call to her and whichever one Nora chooses, it will be the hardest decision she will ever have to make... unless someone makes it for her...

My impressions:

It will be an unusual review. If you want to read a real, serious, adult, more or less intelligent critique and know what I roughly think about The Original Sinners books penned by Ms. Reisz, please go to my review of the Angel or The Siren. I feel I told everything I had to tell while writing those two. Now time for some reviewer's fun. I started the book in the appropriate mood, knowing already what I was going to find. Still, as I got it from NetGalley free of charge I felt obliged to read it despite my lack of enthusiasm:

Ok, we get some flashbacks in which the author tells us about Soren and Kingsley's mutual infatuation at that very Catholic school of theirs. It still was the best thread of this story, honestly. But as soon as we returned to "the present" my mood changed dramatically:

When Nora went to Kentucky with Wes, who happened to be a rich, handsome, sweet Prince, no longer just a poor college student with type 1 diabetes my disgust increased :

Couldn't at least one character in this series be actually less than pretty and rather poor? Then there was the whole process of Wesley losing his virginity - yes, he forgot about his faith and moral principles because clearly they never concerned the divine Nora Sutherlin. Acting out of character and going with her to er...more or less bed was roughly as sexy as this beauty:

Then we got that mystery thread (who wants to attack Soren, Nora, Kingsley and destroy their little BDSM kingdom? Who DARES?) which was TRANSPARENT from the very beginning to anybody with 1 brain cell in working order.

Really, that obvious. 

 And finaly the big love between Nora and Wes despite their huge differences in practically anything and the big fat love between Soren and Kingsley despite the fact that Soren is a sadist and Kingsley is...well...French *groan* How come nobody saw anything coming their way?  I would comment it shortly:

The writing style? It made me as nice and cozy as looking at this guy:

The book ends with a big fat cliffhanger. There will be the fourth part coming. Will I continue reading the series? NO.

Final verdict:

Thank you very much for your kind attention. Have a nice day.