Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Beautiful Bastard

My loan expired and I haven’t renewed it after 2 months and after sitting down one day it hit me, d*mn this book did not really do it for me. Yes, this book is supposed to be smutty but the storyline barely any substance and I’ve read fan fiction that had me more hot and bothered than this book.

the first sex scene wasn’t even 20 pgs in. No sexual tension or real romantic buildup, so it basically seemed to come out of the blue. Kinda like opening a first message on a dating app and it being a d*ck pic. After the third-ish sex scene I kinda just started skimming past them to try and follow the paper thin plot which just irked me due to the constant flip flopping between “I hate him/her” and “I want to jump into the deep end w/ this one” with the two main characters. Also the pivot from gage to love was wildly unrealistic which made it a little harder to read.

Content Warnings

bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Content Warnings

sarafinley's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

I’m not sure I could dislike two people more. Bennett and Chloe were insufferable, but I guess at very least they deserve each other.

The beginning of their physical relationship was jarring since we are given little to no context of their established relationship dynamic besides the fact that they hate each other. Suddenly he is just touching her mid-meeting? What has happened previously that makes him think she would be on board with this? He doesn’t even bother discussing any sort of protection. Ever. Throughout the entire story Bennett comes off as a out of touch nepo baby who doesn’t know how to handle attraction. There are at least two instances where he talks about how he uses women for sex:

“One month flies by when you’re falling in love with the woman you’re using for sex. Two is an eternity when the woman you love leaves you.”

How sweet.

At 55% of the way into the book, far enough into the story where I should be able to at least tolerate the MCs, Bennett notes:

“The second temp, a young man named Isaac, came in around two o’clock. Isaac seemed highly intelligent, and I looked forward to working with someone other than an emotional female.”

Gross. Behavior.

In keeping with the theme of little to no context, there is almost no justification to the animosity they have for each other. Sure there first impression of each other wasn’t great, but the all out hostility between the two still doesn’t make sense. Especially from a boss who is supposed to be very strict on keeping a formal and professional image. That image doesn’t line up with Bennett calling Chloe a bitch to her and her coworkers on multiple occasions.

Chloe wasn’t as terrible as Bennett, and now that I’ve written out how much I disliked Bennett I can see the main issue I have with the story is him, but they still deserve each other.

Content Warnings

imds's review against another edition

Go to review page

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

More...