Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Enemies of the State by Tal Bauer

5 reviews

20sidedbi's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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pawtory's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book will had me going "nooooooooooooooooo!" from secondhand embarrassment with some frequency. It's not terribly deep (maybe over the top? But understandable with the subject matter) compared to other stuff I've read from Tal but it's fun and sexy. 
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anintrovertrambles's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

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espiargrant's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I really wanted to love this book because it's been rated quite highly and had some glowing reviews, plus, it had so many elements that I love—they were just done terribly. That said, there actually were some moments in the story that I actually quite liked, just not enough to save this book for me.
Now, I tried to suspend all belief, but there were so many things that weren't even close to plausible that it felt like a sit-com at times. I also found that our MCs themselves weren't very believable, nor was their relationship development. Ethan is supposed to be one of the best secret service agents in the biz, yet he's bending/breaking rules in ch. 1. The same goes for Jack, who asks his bodyguard to have a drink with him, and questions about foreign policy, and
sneaks him up to his room after hours to hang out. After which, we're supposed to believe that Jack thinks this is all in the name of friendship.
Now, this is a bodyguard romance, so I did not expect for their relationship to stay 100% professional forever, but the fact that they didn't even try annoyed me and took all the tension out of the romance.

Once the two actually became a couple, I liked the story a lot better, but things were still unrealistic in many ways. There were several scenes that I found cute/sweet or heavily emotional, but they didn't hold much weight due to the lack of build-up from the aforementioned reasons. 
I liked the writing style well enough, there were some great descriptions, but some things got repetitive. I won't say much about the ending, but I felt that one or two chapters should have been cut from it.

Not sure if I'll read anything else from this author, but I'm not going to continue with this trilogy. :( 
Positional Dynamic:
Jack: Top, Ethan: Bottom (changes in later books I believe)
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jengiraffe5's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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