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My Review:Title: Sweet Cheeks
Author: K. Bromberg
Published by: Indie
Release Date: November 12, 2016
Format: ebook
Pages: 347
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »
Source: Book Funnel
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Beat the Backlist Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:
Blurb:An all new second chance love story by the New York Times Bestselling author of the beloved Driven series.
It all started with the invitation. To my ex-fiance’s new wedding.
I should have ignored it.Thrown it away. Set it afire. But I didn’t. I replied.
With a plus one.
And then my assistant accidentally mailed it.
Enter Hayes Whitley. Mega-movie star. The man who has captured the hearts of millions. But I gave him mine years ago. He was my first love. He was my everything. Right until he up and left to chase his dreams without so much as a simple goodbye.
When he showed up out of the blue ten years later, I should have known to steer clear. I should have rejected his offer to take me to my ex’s wedding. I should have never let him kiss me.
But I didn’t.
And now we’re left wondering if the pieces of the life we once shared still fit together somehow. First loves are hard to forget. The question is, do we want to forget? Or do we risk the chance and see what happens next?
3.5 stars — I made the colossal mistake of listening to an audiobook that has a lot of surface similarities to this book at the same time as reading this book, and I will admit I occasionally got my wires crossed. I had to set the audiobook aside so that would stop happening. And a side effect of that is that I inevitably compared the books, which I really shouldn’t have.
This one…there were so many elements I really enjoyed, but I honestly had a hard time getting into it. I think something about the writing style didn’t work for me. But it’s not something overt, so it’s really hard to describe. The author really liked interchanging two thought processes together (thought 1 in italics, then thought 2 normal, then an extension of thought 1 in italics, then an extension of thought 2). That didn’t work for me personally. It made me have to slow down and concentrate…apparently my brain doesn’t like that. There were some other things, but those are even harder to describe, so I’ll just stop with we weren’t a match.
The one thing that made me round down instead of up was the completely out there inclusion of an attempted rape flashback dream that did NOT fit the tone of the rest of the story. It didn’t end up having anything to do with the plot and resolution, and was only mentioned vaguely ONE OTHER TIME, and so I have NO IDEA why the author included it. Perhaps she had originally planned to do more with it, but then changed directions? But in that case she should have removed it. I’m not someone who gets triggered, but it felt very triggery to me…and since it served no purpose, I just don’t get it.
As for our characters, Saylor was pretty spunky and fun. Occasionally it felt like her character wasn’t consistent, but then I wondered if it was me being too critical. She was an odd one, because apparently in the past she was very rebellious and loud and out there and confident in who she was…but she sort of lost all of that due to a tragedy, and was slowly getting some of it back. I guess I just didn’t quite click with her and who she was. The whole wedding thing was super odd to me. I was hoping Mitch would have been a bit more 3 dimensional, and occasionally it felt like it was going in that direction, but by the end he was kind of a flat dick.
Hayes had me conflicted as well. He had these really great intentions, but he was a bit naive about what would happen in his world. In general I connected with him more, which is funny because at first I wasn’t sure how I was going to accept his reasons for leaving way back when. I actually really enjoyed that part, because he both felt regret, but also like he would probably do it again. And I liked the way Saylor reacted after she gave it some thought. It was kind of a realistic resolution, because it showcased how sometimes a couple needs to grow to make it back to one another.
I really loved the last bit of the story. I loved the way Saylor’s confidence grew, both in herself and in Hayes. I loved the cute ways Hayes was proving his love to her. It was a very satisfying ending in my opinion.
So yeah. I might try another book by this author, but perhaps I’ll seek out an audiobook and see if I have better luck when I don’t have to stumble over her style choices.
I had downloaded this one for free and then read some not so great comments about it. I ended up skipping it and after reading your review, I guess that was probably a good idea.