A review by conniejoy529
Blue Lines by Toni Aleo

2.0

This almost went into my DNF list, but I made myself finish in the hopes that these characters would somehow get better. I can not believe this book has gotten so many positive reviews. I'm really wondering if I read the same book as everyone else. This is my first read by Toni Aleo, and typically I don't like jumping into the middle of a series, but I stumbled across this one, and since I have a thing for sports romances (Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Rachel Gibson, Deidre Martin) I figured I'd give it a try. I was sadly disappointed. I honestly hated Erik from chapter two. There is no excuses, no if, ands, or buts, he was a complete tool. I mean really, we all love the tortured hero, but this guy was just self-centered, insecure, unfeeling, and at times downright cruel to Piper, and she just kept begging for more. Begging, and crying, that is pretty much all she did. For the entire book. I read this one on Kindle so just to show you that I am not exaggerating, I searched the word tears, it appears 106 times, I mean really, if this chick had to "fight the urge to cry" or have "tears falling down to her swollen abdomen" one more time i think i might have puked. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how or why the author expects us, the readers, to like, respect, or care about these characters. Plus, the writing style was juvenile, the jokes were something a 13 year old boy might make, the crassness of the conversations about women in general were just wrong. I felt like Erik's redemption came out of no where, I mean really no one goes from zero to hero that fast, especially if they have been an a-hole all of their lives. And seriously, the book ends and Piper still hasn't grown a back bone. I just don't get it. How am I expected to believe that these people like happily ever after? This book could have been about 100 pages shorter and still have the same effect. I really truly did not like this at all, and I tried. There were only two reasons i didn't give this book one star, 1) I saw in the reviews before reading the book that the release date was repeatedly pushed back and saw in the back of the book that the author lost her mom in the process of writing it. I understand how that might make someone lost their focus and not do their best work. 2)Her other books also got rave reviews, and even those who gave this one poor reviews say that the previous 3 books were much much better, and just by reading the except for the first book that was in the back of this one, i can tell that already. I want to give her another shot (pun intended) so I plan on reading Taking Shots, hopefully it will prove that she is capable of better work.