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A review by fangirljeanne
The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl by Annika Martin
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.5
This would have been a four star, but it lost points for the perpetual anti-sex worker jokes and the heroine blaming an abused woman for her death. The pacing is all over the place, largely because the unnecessary manufactured conflict that draws out the story and left me bored.
It also suffers from the Not Like Other Girl in disguise. Where all but one of the other women in the story are antagonistic (jealous) or one dimensional background characters. The one other female character (friend, sister, mother, etc) is only slightly more developed but primarily exists as a confidant and cheerleader for the leading lady. That way it’s less obvious about the internalized misogyny, but it is definitely there.
The bright spots of this book are the banter between the two leads during the sexy wake up calls and their love scenes. They have great chemistry and are a fun twist on the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, where her sunshine is snarky but only with him. Which he likes a lot. Sadly, the romantic side of the developing relationship fizzles into a cliche “she fixes him by teaching him to feel” trope that left me bored.
I feel like the biggest letdown of this work, aside from the issues I’ve already mentioned, is that the author failed to explore the MMC’s very obvious degradation kink that makes the sexy scenes so electric. It’s as if she understood it worked, but either didn’t know or was reluctant to explore why. Which is a real shame, but not all that surprising given the rather vanilla branding of the series.
Oh well. I recommend it only for the sex scenes and the audiobook narration. Neva Nevarre and Jason Clarke gave great performances.
It also suffers from the Not Like Other Girl in disguise. Where all but one of the other women in the story are antagonistic (jealous) or one dimensional background characters. The one other female character (friend, sister, mother, etc) is only slightly more developed but primarily exists as a confidant and cheerleader for the leading lady. That way it’s less obvious about the internalized misogyny, but it is definitely there.
The bright spots of this book are the banter between the two leads during the sexy wake up calls and their love scenes. They have great chemistry and are a fun twist on the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, where her sunshine is snarky but only with him. Which he likes a lot. Sadly, the romantic side of the developing relationship fizzles into a cliche “she fixes him by teaching him to feel” trope that left me bored.
I feel like the biggest letdown of this work, aside from the issues I’ve already mentioned, is that the author failed to explore the MMC’s very obvious degradation kink that makes the sexy scenes so electric. It’s as if she understood it worked, but either didn’t know or was reluctant to explore why. Which is a real shame, but not all that surprising given the rather vanilla branding of the series.
Oh well. I recommend it only for the sex scenes and the audiobook narration. Neva Nevarre and Jason Clarke gave great performances.