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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
Find this review and more at kimberlyfaye reads.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I. Love. Lauren. Layne's. Books. LOVE. Anytime I pick up something she's written, I'm all but guaranteed to have a four or five star reading experience. I love her characters and the relationships between them – romantic or otherwise. If she writes it, I'll be reading (and loving) it!
If I'm gonna be totally honest, I did struggle a little bit with Josh in this book initially. I have an issue with manwhores (or the perception that a hero is a manwhore). It makes me a little twitchy. I'm a little better with the reformed manwhore, but if he's hooking up with someone else after falling for or becoming interested in the heroine, I'm not a huge fan – whether that's fair or not. I won't get too deep into this here – it's a discussion topic for another time, to be honest. I won't get too spoilerly, but I will say all wasn't as it seemed with Josh. He was a flirt. He had a playboy past. He was pushing for a no strings attached thing with Heather. BUT there was more to all of it than meets the eye. He had his reasons.
Despite my initial issues with Josh, he grew on me. He was a complicated guy and my heart ached for what he went through in the past. I really liked Heather. I bonded with her as she struggled through the ridiculous expectations of her client and the building sexual tension (and annoyance) of her noisy, but sexy as hell neighbor, Josh. I loved the banter between these two. Their sizzling sexual tension and crazy chemistry, even as they were ready to strangle each other, made me smile. I was a little surprised by the feels that this one gave me, but I'm happy to say it all ended with a huge smile... and even a couple happy tears.
I'm absolutely loving The Wedding Belles series. Which is so NOT a surprise to me. See above re: loving Lauren's books. I love the friendship between these strong, successful women. And, of course, I kind of adore the men who enter their lives. I CAN'T WAIT for the next book. I'm all grabby hands over the possible connection between Alexis and Logan. The build up has been killing me!
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
FAVORITE QUOTES
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I. Love. Lauren. Layne's. Books. LOVE. Anytime I pick up something she's written, I'm all but guaranteed to have a four or five star reading experience. I love her characters and the relationships between them – romantic or otherwise. If she writes it, I'll be reading (and loving) it!
If I'm gonna be totally honest, I did struggle a little bit with Josh in this book initially. I have an issue with manwhores (or the perception that a hero is a manwhore). It makes me a little twitchy. I'm a little better with the reformed manwhore, but if he's hooking up with someone else after falling for or becoming interested in the heroine, I'm not a huge fan – whether that's fair or not. I won't get too deep into this here – it's a discussion topic for another time, to be honest. I won't get too spoilerly, but I will say all wasn't as it seemed with Josh. He was a flirt. He had a playboy past. He was pushing for a no strings attached thing with Heather. BUT there was more to all of it than meets the eye. He had his reasons.
Despite my initial issues with Josh, he grew on me. He was a complicated guy and my heart ached for what he went through in the past. I really liked Heather. I bonded with her as she struggled through the ridiculous expectations of her client and the building sexual tension (and annoyance) of her noisy, but sexy as hell neighbor, Josh. I loved the banter between these two. Their sizzling sexual tension and crazy chemistry, even as they were ready to strangle each other, made me smile. I was a little surprised by the feels that this one gave me, but I'm happy to say it all ended with a huge smile... and even a couple happy tears.
I'm absolutely loving The Wedding Belles series. Which is so NOT a surprise to me. See above re: loving Lauren's books. I love the friendship between these strong, successful women. And, of course, I kind of adore the men who enter their lives. I CAN'T WAIT for the next book. I'm all grabby hands over the possible connection between Alexis and Logan. The build up has been killing me!
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
FAVORITE QUOTES
"One day you're going to find a girl that you can't look away from and I hope I'm there to relish every minute."
"Oh, I don't want you to love me, 4C. Doesn't mean I don't want you to want me."
Their mouths collided hungrily, and it was like the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve all rolled into one. Fireworks. In her mind, her belly, her... other parts.
Cute wasn't the word for Josh Tanner's appearance. Ridiculously hot, maybe. It was almost hand, how good-looking he was. It was like a constant reminder not to fall for him, because men who looked like that were not the kind you fell in love with. They were the ones you admired from afar, sparred with occasionally, and kept at a very, very safe distance.
This book was just ok. I didn't love or hate the characters. Hero is running scared. Heroine is trying so hard to have what she sees as the picture perfect life. They get together. They bang. Drama ensues and then a handful of pages later, happily ever after. Maybe I'm just burned out on Lauren Layne. I have the audio queued to listen to the next one in the series, but I think I may just return it and pass it to listen later.
ARC Review: For Better or Worse (The Wedding Belles) by Lauren Layne
It's not very often that I can picture the characters as actors in a live movie. With Heather and Josh I totally could. Josh has had a hard road and been faced with some tough choices but the uncertainty and adversity has made him aware of his inner strength and allowed him to gain new appreciation for his surroundings. Heather balances out the seriousness with her quirky yet charming personality. I entered this story dreading the serious subject matter and exited applauding the excellent way it was handled. For Better or Worse mixes drama with charisma and ended up surprising me.
This book. Seriously. This was probably the wrong romance read for me with everything going on in the US election right now where you have the hero grabbing and kissing the heroine without permission mere minutes after they met and being all hey do you want to bone? He doesn't communicate his past or anything that he really wants with the heroine besides let's have sex. He gets angry if she asks any questions about a thing. Oh and he is just generally a jerk and refers to her either as assistant wedding planner or the name of her apartment. I am assuming the author meant that to be hot/cute but it wasn't. It just shows how little he really does think of the woman he supposedly fell in love with. And the ending....oh boy. That was not a happily ever after. That was a, so you are both dumb and I guess good for you? Okay, good for you. Golf clap.
Heather Fowler is an assistant wedding planner. So when she finally gets her big shot to plan a high profile wedding she is all over it. She means this wedding to be the one that has her promoted to wedding planner full stop by her boss Alexis. However, due to being woken in the middle of the night by her jerk of a neighbor (Josh Tanner), Heather starts to have the boy next door on her mind, a lot.
Heather was weak willed to the point that I was just confused by this character a lot. She talks a good game about being independent, never in love, wanting to move to NYC, making her dream of becoming a wedding planner a reality, etc. However, I saw none of that besides some words said here and there.
Actually we barely see Heather planning this once in a million wedding. We just know that she's handling the whole thing because the bride is being hands off (which is weird) and oh yeah, the bride used to date Josh (of course she did) and Heather is choosing things she would, if it was her wedding. You would think there would be some conflict there, but nope. In fact, this whole book was pretty boring from beginning to end. There was some sort of snafu that should/could have ruined things for the Belles, but it got done away with due to the too ridiculous to be believed ending.
And Josh is terrible. Even with his backstory, he is terrible. He acts like a jerk throughout the book to Heather. I didn't see one redeeming thing about the guy besides hey he's good in bed. I can't even say he's an alpha type dude since I think in most alpha romance stories you still get some development (most of the time) between the two main leads. At the end of this story the only thing I got is that Heather and Josh like pancakes, and Josh likes banana bread. I don't have an idea besides that what they believe or think about kids, marriage, religion, favorite movies, etc.
Also the age of these two would imply some maturity, but they both do really dumb things to make the other jealous and I just sighed for this book to get over quickly.
The secondary characters in this book are not really there. We have some friends/family of Josh and Heather's mother and the Belles. At least in this one there were more scenes/interaction with all of the Belles and we can already tell how book #3 is going to go with the commentary around Logan and Alexis.
The writing was good (one of the reasons why I kept this as a 2 star review) and the flow was actually okay. I just think that if the author had changed up the hero a bit, and actually show two people getting to know each other, or just didn't go with the ending she did the book would have resonated more with me. And honestly, I would have liked it more if Heather had been the one to realize she didn't need this crap from Josh. It was so surreal to see her falling for a guy who barely tolerated her asking questions. I think readers are supposed to get that Josh is falling for Heather by his checking his cell phone messages (way later in the story) but that can be read so many different ways.
Anyway, onto book #3!
Heather Fowler is an assistant wedding planner. So when she finally gets her big shot to plan a high profile wedding she is all over it. She means this wedding to be the one that has her promoted to wedding planner full stop by her boss Alexis. However, due to being woken in the middle of the night by her jerk of a neighbor (Josh Tanner), Heather starts to have the boy next door on her mind, a lot.
Heather was weak willed to the point that I was just confused by this character a lot. She talks a good game about being independent, never in love, wanting to move to NYC, making her dream of becoming a wedding planner a reality, etc. However, I saw none of that besides some words said here and there.
Actually we barely see Heather planning this once in a million wedding. We just know that she's handling the whole thing because the bride is being hands off (which is weird) and oh yeah, the bride used to date Josh (of course she did) and Heather is choosing things she would, if it was her wedding. You would think there would be some conflict there, but nope. In fact, this whole book was pretty boring from beginning to end. There was some sort of snafu that should/could have ruined things for the Belles, but it got done away with due to the too ridiculous to be believed ending.
And Josh is terrible. Even with his backstory, he is terrible. He acts like a jerk throughout the book to Heather. I didn't see one redeeming thing about the guy besides hey he's good in bed. I can't even say he's an alpha type dude since I think in most alpha romance stories you still get some development (most of the time) between the two main leads. At the end of this story the only thing I got is that Heather and Josh like pancakes, and Josh likes banana bread. I don't have an idea besides that what they believe or think about kids, marriage, religion, favorite movies, etc.
Also the age of these two would imply some maturity, but they both do really dumb things to make the other jealous and I just sighed for this book to get over quickly.
The secondary characters in this book are not really there. We have some friends/family of Josh and Heather's mother and the Belles. At least in this one there were more scenes/interaction with all of the Belles and we can already tell how book #3 is going to go with the commentary around Logan and Alexis.
The writing was good (one of the reasons why I kept this as a 2 star review) and the flow was actually okay. I just think that if the author had changed up the hero a bit, and actually show two people getting to know each other, or just didn't go with the ending she did the book would have resonated more with me. And honestly, I would have liked it more if Heather had been the one to realize she didn't need this crap from Josh. It was so surreal to see her falling for a guy who barely tolerated her asking questions. I think readers are supposed to get that Josh is falling for Heather by his checking his cell phone messages (way later in the story) but that can be read so many different ways.
Anyway, onto book #3!
more than a year and half later and they still remain flawless and one of lauren layne’s top tier ships (review after rereading)
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was okay. It was very light, and not necessarily in a good way. It felt a bit like Layne sorta phoned it in. I kept thinking I had read it before but I think it's just that I've read several books with the same story lines.
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5 stars!!!!!!!
LAUREN LAYNE IS BACK BITCHES!!! THIS IS THE LAUREN LAYNE I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED AND ADORED AND I ALWAYS HAD FAITH IN HER AND SHE DELIVERED OMG SHE DID I'M CRYING!!!
I'M JUST SO IN LOVE WITH THE STORY I DIDN'T WANT IT TO END WHY DID IT HAVE TO END???
LAUREN LAYNE IS BACK BITCHES!!! THIS IS THE LAUREN LAYNE I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED AND ADORED AND I ALWAYS HAD FAITH IN HER AND SHE DELIVERED OMG SHE DID I'M CRYING!!!
I'M JUST SO IN LOVE WITH THE STORY I DIDN'T WANT IT TO END WHY DID IT HAVE TO END???