A review by bookish_kristina
Hooking Him by Aurora Rose Reynolds

3.0

This book was ok, definitely the best in the series, though that’s not saying much as I rated the previous two books both two stars. This one was nowhere near as nauseating and lovey dovey, with only a few forehead kisses and no nose kisses whatsoever. Neither characters in this one waxed on and on about how rare and perfect their partner was and how they couldn’t believe that they were real, in fact the heroine often called the hero annoying and a jerk, and it was true, he kind of was one. The heroine was much better than Chrissie from that last book, she was just a weak, insecure cry baby. This heroine may have had more reason to be insecure but she had decided to make her own happiness a priority and seemed much stronger that the usual AAR damsel in distress. So this book was a decent read with a bit of push from the FMC, the male as per usual AAR was all in from jump and a condescending overbearing ass, but at least he was called out on it, not praised for it.

A few annoyances with the plot though:

1. The family drama on the heroine’s side was never really resolved in a satisfying way, we do get an update in the epilogue but there was no real closure on the awful way her parents treated her. For such a large part of the heroine’s struggle to find happiness this was kind of just left after the restaurant encounter.
2.

Spoiler

the murder mystery plot. Was this even necessary? It came out of left field at the 94% point with no hints during the story that the hero had a stalker. All of a sudden some chick he barely knew had decided IN HIGH SCHOOL that they were meant to be so she murdered people to get his attention? Like what? Why? Because he was a detective? She didn’t even leave him any breadcrumbs.... it was so far fetched and unbelievable and frankly dumb to include at all.

3. Calvin’s family: we are introduced to them through his overly involved mother in the beginning, seeming as a catalyst to pushing Anne towards Calvin. We then see his family at the bbq, and they are made very interesting. He was adopted at 5, has an adopted brother and his parents are a mixed race couple who also foster children in need. Cool right? But after that party we barely hear from or about them again. I was thinking there would be some cool meddling from the mom, some backstory from Calvin’s birth situation that would play out in the story, but nope. This whole part is abandoned quickly, leaving me to wonder why AAR even went to the trouble of building this out in the first place.

The golden girls were funny and crazy, could have had more of them and less of the above, especially the murder plot.
Other than that, the story was pretty conventional, it could have been interesting if the plot points above had been better executed. It just seemed like the author rushed to get this finished and didn’t fully flesh out the story.