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A review by alborland
Hold on Tight by Abbi Glines
3.0
As we near the end of Abbi's thrilling Sea Breeze telenovas, I'm going to throw together something special and never done before by me - a positive review!
Abbi should be so honoured.
Usually, I don't expect much from a sequel, let alone the 8th one in a series set in a fictional beach town where the water is laced with a substance that makes boys and girls fall in love with a single glance. Ecstacy maybe?
To be honest, I don't usually start 8-book series. I haven't even read past The Goblet of Fire yet, so by all accounts I should be blacklisted as a reader from my generation for amount of truth in that statement. I guess beyond praising Abbi, this review will also turn the critical lens onto myself. How meta.
Like this review, Hold On Tight strays from the regular program. This is apparent from when we first meet our leading lady, the beautiful Sierra Roy as she has awkward sex with her high school boyfriend, Dustin Falco.
This little ditty, while hilarious, also breaks two of Abbi's Cardinal Rules of Erotica within the first few lines of Hold on Tight:
1. Never show awkward sex with the main character, unless it's a male in an ill-advised threesome; and
2. Always keep the female lead innocent and pure.
Both of these infractions are a surprise. Well we've seen some questionable sexual encounters with Sea Breeze's male characters as they mourn the loss of life/friendship/trust/youth/money, never have we really had to get down and dirty with the female lead in such an unappealing way. Similarly, Abbi has focused on formerly featured characters who are 'reformed sluts' (Jess), but rarely does she stray from the virginal trope for her female leads. Or maybe we have seen these two things a ton and my attention span is too short to remember every detail from this series. It has been 8 books people.
Regardless, bypassing these two Abbi staples in it hints at how much we've transcended throughout the whole series. Normally, you can apply a template to Abbi's stories - Sea Breeze and beyond. We've established it as:
1. Girl has deep-seeded, usually dark issues but remains pure in sexual nature. Usually wears a C-cup bra size, has real, thick eye lashes, wears a lot of floral sundresses and is completely oblivious to how hot she is.
2. Boy has deep-seeded trust issues that he copes with through copious amounts of drinking and casual, no-strings attached sex. Always a physical Adonis, fashion sense varies, usually part of a crew of dudes who run the town's social scene.
3. Boy meets girl, both parties immediately fall in love. Virginal girl experiences multiple orgasms at the mere swipe of the experienced hand of her troubled love interest and future husband.
5. Things go well for two days before the deep-seeded dark and/or trust issues resurface and disrupt the perfect course to happily ever after.
6. The amount of love between the two lovers is so undeniable that marriage and/or kids transpire as soon as the church is free for a wedding.
7. Rather, rinse, repeat as necessary.
This formula has been the ultimate backbone of Abbi's success so who am I as a lowly reader to knock it? I mean, it's not hard to hate a sequel if it's exactly like the book before it. Just look at all the problems The Chronicles of Narnia had. I obviously haven't read all those books, but I'm going to stick with the general feeling I have about those sequels being pretty different from each other. I'm clearly a well-informed lowly reader and reviewer.
In sum, I am happy that Abbi has taken a risk with this book, because if you read the first seven, what's going to stop you from reading the eighth, right?
Ok so back to that awkward sex except, it sets up the whole story as Sienna becomes pregnant with Dustin's baby shortly before he is killed in an impaired driving accident, wherein he was the driver. Because Abbi has a fascination with the hyper-Christian families who can't stand casual sex, Sienna's parents send her to Texas to have the baby and give the baby up for adoption. Sienna defies her parents by keeping the baby, Micah and lives the next 5 years in exile in her aunt's basement, working hard to raise her child on her own.
The girls of Sea Breeze always seem to aspire to be wives and mothers, or are constantly idling through the town's esteemed community college majoring in God knows what. This is the first real demonstration of professional ambition for any of Abbi's girls. Sure, Jess did that stripper gig for a bit, but this is just as huge - a certified hairdresser! It's so unheard of in Sea Breeze that when she's spotted working at the local beauty salon, she's mistaken for treating herself to a spa day while her kid is at day care.
But before all that nonsense even starts, Sienna's father dies without fixing their relationship or meeting Micah, and her mother ships off to Florida to live in peace (hope she didn't end up in Rosemary Beach!). In an attempt to revitalize the dead relationship with her daughter, her mom leaves Sienna their family home which is conveniently located across the street from her dead boyfriend's and baby's father's parents.
Now, early on it's loosely explained that Dustin's parents never responded to Sienna's letter pleading them to help and accept the baby. However, Sienna never calls them because this is the 1800s. Just kidding! She doesn't call because she's too naive and by the time she's jaded enough to cause a real stink, she's come to terms with how awful people can be. I like her. And I won't spoil potential readers with how this plot point turns out.
The addition of a small child into a Sea Breeze story always leaves me wary, but now I think Abbi has found a forte with these plots. If you've ever skimmed over one of Abbi's Acknowledgements, you know she has kids that she neglects when writing her books. Clearly, when she's not ignoring her kids, Abbi is a really good mom, because Sienna is written as a really good mom, Micah's a really good kid and their scenes together are not at all embarrassing to read. Honestly, I need to take a moment to acknowledge Abbi. I feel like we're celebrating a graduation here. Abbi's written a smart, strong female character and showed us. She didn't rely on the Sea Breeze population of Romeo's to tell us.
Because Abbi is evolving, we also don't have a Neanderthal love interest in Dewayne Falco, that greasy haired due who's elusively hung around with the gang at Live Bay since book one. Dewayne is Dustin's older brother, Micah's uncle, the authority figure of the Sea Breeze Boys Club and Sienna's girlhood crush. Through these connections, we are gifted with flashbacks of the old crew in high school, which can be summarized eloquently in this gem of an excerpt:
Ah, foreshadowing through the hindsight of a flashback. There's no other satisfaction quite like it.
The first half of the book, Dewayne is critical of his friends devotion to their wives/fiances/girlfriends "pussies". Yes, in Sea Breeze a female = a vagina if you haven't figured it out by book 8, you best give up now before book 9 is released. Despite this lack of respect for the female identity, Dewayne is pretty much right and he pretty much reads the room at Live Bay to a T when it comes to his whipped buddies, the way I've been literally reading these books with the maximum amount of judgement possible.
I love this passage because it serves three important purposes: 1. it degrades Cage York, the worst of any Abbi Glines love interest, 2. it effectively demonstrates how the men are in fact the pussies in this situation and 3. it summarizes how embarrassingly Abbi writes the male voice. Funny. As. Shit. Hot. Ass. . It's like she thinks men just throw swears in between words to sound cooler. Once Abbi's kids grow into teenagers, we'll all look back on this and laugh together.
It's called ch-ch-changes Dewayne, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Or just pretend you're an eternal 18-year old, that's fine too Dewaynebag.
Anyway, once Sienna returns she and Dewayne rebuild a friendship, their histories, trust and maturity and it takes us nearly halfway through the book before it gets romantic. And when it gets there, it's a real doozy:
I'm blushing because it's avant garde.
But the hesitation with upsetting their bizarre family tree for Micah leads to things moving slowly. It seems like Abbi has finally figured out how to cohesively weave the dark issues with the trust issues into a believable plot and character development.
Speaking of development, this entire series has come so far. Preston and Amanda are engaged, Krit is a one woman man, Cage is still a douche, Sadie and Jax are still off gallivanting in God knows where. It was just a few months ago that I picked up Breathe and read about Jax and Sadie's innocent, forgettable love story - so perfectly boring and void of smut. Now here we are watching our main characters mutually masturbate on FaceTime. Where has the time gone?
The characters are also maturing. The women are smarter and question the men's Victorian Era ideals of relationships.
And the boys are getting in touch with their inner-Oprah's with pep talks complimenting each other's accessories when they're feeling down.
Even the possessive male tendencies have toned down by this point.
Okay, fine. The male tendencies have been toned down the point where only Johnny Fucking Depp could disrupt them.
While we're on the topic of movies, I'll just leave this little piece of evidence for my case against Abbi's sanity here:
New lows Abs, new lows.
Overall this installment is like any eighth installment of any nine-book series set in a fictional town where the divorce rates for the current 19-24 demographic are at an all time low - the perfect mix of cute and ridiculous. It really wouldn't be an Abbi book if you didn't have the nonsensical logic, the rampant sexism, the cringing pop culture references. This book is for anyone who's read the first seven Sea Breeze novels, or is going to read the ninth Sea Breeze novel, or anyone who only wants to read the eighth Sea Breeze novel. For everyone else, the entire thing can be boiled down to this piece of insanity:
Well said Dewayne. Welcome to the club of whipped pussies.
Abbi should be so honoured.
Usually, I don't expect much from a sequel, let alone the 8th one in a series set in a fictional beach town where the water is laced with a substance that makes boys and girls fall in love with a single glance. Ecstacy maybe?
To be honest, I don't usually start 8-book series. I haven't even read past The Goblet of Fire yet, so by all accounts I should be blacklisted as a reader from my generation for amount of truth in that statement. I guess beyond praising Abbi, this review will also turn the critical lens onto myself. How meta.
Like this review, Hold On Tight strays from the regular program. This is apparent from when we first meet our leading lady, the beautiful Sierra Roy as she has awkward sex with her high school boyfriend, Dustin Falco.
"Fuck, uhhhh, yeah...God, babe, so good, uhhhh! GAAAAAH!" he cried loudly as he threw his head back and his eyes rolled into his head. That meant this was over. He was done. Thank God!
This little ditty, while hilarious, also breaks two of Abbi's Cardinal Rules of Erotica within the first few lines of Hold on Tight:
1. Never show awkward sex with the main character, unless it's a male in an ill-advised threesome; and
2. Always keep the female lead innocent and pure.
Both of these infractions are a surprise. Well we've seen some questionable sexual encounters with Sea Breeze's male characters as they mourn the loss of life/friendship/trust/youth/money, never have we really had to get down and dirty with the female lead in such an unappealing way. Similarly, Abbi has focused on formerly featured characters who are 'reformed sluts' (Jess), but rarely does she stray from the virginal trope for her female leads. Or maybe we have seen these two things a ton and my attention span is too short to remember every detail from this series. It has been 8 books people.
Regardless, bypassing these two Abbi staples in it hints at how much we've transcended throughout the whole series. Normally, you can apply a template to Abbi's stories - Sea Breeze and beyond. We've established it as:
1. Girl has deep-seeded, usually dark issues but remains pure in sexual nature. Usually wears a C-cup bra size, has real, thick eye lashes, wears a lot of floral sundresses and is completely oblivious to how hot she is.
2. Boy has deep-seeded trust issues that he copes with through copious amounts of drinking and casual, no-strings attached sex. Always a physical Adonis, fashion sense varies, usually part of a crew of dudes who run the town's social scene.
3. Boy meets girl, both parties immediately fall in love. Virginal girl experiences multiple orgasms at the mere swipe of the experienced hand of her troubled love interest and future husband.
5. Things go well for two days before the deep-seeded dark and/or trust issues resurface and disrupt the perfect course to happily ever after.
6. The amount of love between the two lovers is so undeniable that marriage and/or kids transpire as soon as the church is free for a wedding.
7. Rather, rinse, repeat as necessary.
This formula has been the ultimate backbone of Abbi's success so who am I as a lowly reader to knock it? I mean, it's not hard to hate a sequel if it's exactly like the book before it. Just look at all the problems The Chronicles of Narnia had. I obviously haven't read all those books, but I'm going to stick with the general feeling I have about those sequels being pretty different from each other. I'm clearly a well-informed lowly reader and reviewer.
In sum, I am happy that Abbi has taken a risk with this book, because if you read the first seven, what's going to stop you from reading the eighth, right?
Ok so back to that awkward sex except, it sets up the whole story as Sienna becomes pregnant with Dustin's baby shortly before he is killed in an impaired driving accident, wherein he was the driver. Because Abbi has a fascination with the hyper-Christian families who can't stand casual sex, Sienna's parents send her to Texas to have the baby and give the baby up for adoption. Sienna defies her parents by keeping the baby, Micah and lives the next 5 years in exile in her aunt's basement, working hard to raise her child on her own.
Giving up high school and getting my GED was my only option. My aunt Cathy was the principal at the local high school and helped me get a trade school grant, so when Micah was eighteen months old, I enrolled in beauty school. Before his third birthday I had a degree in cosmetology.
The girls of Sea Breeze always seem to aspire to be wives and mothers, or are constantly idling through the town's esteemed community college majoring in God knows what. This is the first real demonstration of professional ambition for any of Abbi's girls. Sure, Jess did that stripper gig for a bit, but this is just as huge - a certified hairdresser! It's so unheard of in Sea Breeze that when she's spotted working at the local beauty salon, she's mistaken for treating herself to a spa day while her kid is at day care.
But before all that nonsense even starts, Sienna's father dies without fixing their relationship or meeting Micah, and her mother ships off to Florida to live in peace (hope she didn't end up in Rosemary Beach!). In an attempt to revitalize the dead relationship with her daughter, her mom leaves Sienna their family home which is conveniently located across the street from her dead boyfriend's and baby's father's parents.
Now, early on it's loosely explained that Dustin's parents never responded to Sienna's letter pleading them to help and accept the baby. However, Sienna never calls them because this is the 1800s. Just kidding! She doesn't call because she's too naive and by the time she's jaded enough to cause a real stink, she's come to terms with how awful people can be. I like her. And I won't spoil potential readers with how this plot point turns out.
The addition of a small child into a Sea Breeze story always leaves me wary, but now I think Abbi has found a forte with these plots. If you've ever skimmed over one of Abbi's Acknowledgements, you know she has kids that she neglects when writing her books. Clearly, when she's not ignoring her kids, Abbi is a really good mom, because Sienna is written as a really good mom, Micah's a really good kid and their scenes together are not at all embarrassing to read. Honestly, I need to take a moment to acknowledge Abbi. I feel like we're celebrating a graduation here. Abbi's written a smart, strong female character and showed us. She didn't rely on the Sea Breeze population of Romeo's to tell us.
Because Abbi is evolving, we also don't have a Neanderthal love interest in Dewayne Falco, that greasy haired due who's elusively hung around with the gang at Live Bay since book one. Dewayne is Dustin's older brother, Micah's uncle, the authority figure of the Sea Breeze Boys Club and Sienna's girlhood crush. Through these connections, we are gifted with flashbacks of the old crew in high school, which can be summarized eloquently in this gem of an excerpt:
"Freshman girls," Preston Drake drawled, sounding pleased as he looked down the hallway. "Damn shame they'll be illegal before the year is over. We need to enjoy being seventeen while we can." Marcus elbowed Preston in the ribs.
"Dude you're a douche. Glad my sister won't be here until next year when we're gone." Preston chuckled. We all knew he wasn't gonna touch Amanda Hardy.
Ah, foreshadowing through the hindsight of a flashback. There's no other satisfaction quite like it.
The first half of the book, Dewayne is critical of his friends devotion to their wives/fiances/girlfriends "pussies". Yes, in Sea Breeze a female = a vagina if you haven't figured it out by book 8, you best give up now before book 9 is released. Despite this lack of respect for the female identity, Dewayne is pretty much right and he pretty much reads the room at Live Bay to a T when it comes to his whipped buddies, the way I've been literally reading these books with the maximum amount of judgement possible.
That smile had been Cage York's downfall. He'd taken one look at Eva and the player that was Cage York had transformed. Dude was funny as shit when he went territorial on Eva's hot ass.
I love this passage because it serves three important purposes: 1. it degrades Cage York, the worst of any Abbi Glines love interest, 2. it effectively demonstrates how the men are in fact the pussies in this situation and 3. it summarizes how embarrassingly Abbi writes the male voice. Funny. As. Shit. Hot. Ass. . It's like she thinks men just throw swears in between words to sound cooler. Once Abbi's kids grow into teenagers, we'll all look back on this and laugh together.
Live Bay was the club in town where we all used to drink and pick up women. Now it was just me picking up women. The rest of those assholes were hitched or good as hitched.
It's called ch-ch-changes Dewayne, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
When I was done, I pulled my hand out, then wiped it casually on her skirt. I didn't want her scent on me. I needed the damn hand sanitizer in my truck.
Or just pretend you're an eternal 18-year old, that's fine too Dewaynebag.
Anyway, once Sienna returns she and Dewayne rebuild a friendship, their histories, trust and maturity and it takes us nearly halfway through the book before it gets romantic. And when it gets there, it's a real doozy:
Dewayne: Let me me FaceTime you and watch you touch that pussy I want to fucking bury my face in.
I'm blushing because it's avant garde.
But the hesitation with upsetting their bizarre family tree for Micah leads to things moving slowly. It seems like Abbi has finally figured out how to cohesively weave the dark issues with the trust issues into a believable plot and character development.
Speaking of development, this entire series has come so far. Preston and Amanda are engaged, Krit is a one woman man, Cage is still a douche, Sadie and Jax are still off gallivanting in God knows where. It was just a few months ago that I picked up Breathe and read about Jax and Sadie's innocent, forgettable love story - so perfectly boring and void of smut. Now here we are watching our main characters mutually masturbate on FaceTime. Where has the time gone?
The characters are also maturing. The women are smarter and question the men's Victorian Era ideals of relationships.
Was he kidding? Does he think everything should be handled with violence? And why was that so incredibly hot? I need to seek mental help. Violence was not sexy.
And the boys are getting in touch with their inner-Oprah's with pep talks complimenting each other's accessories when they're feeling down.
"You're one of the best men I know," said Preston. "You wear your tats and piercings and those damn leather bracelets that only you could get away with."
Even the possessive male tendencies have toned down by this point.
The original plan had been to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. But then Micah said his mother liked Captain Sparrow and we'd have to wait to start the movie. Hell no was Sienna going to sit here and look at Johnny Fucking Depp.
Okay, fine. The male tendencies have been toned down the point where only Johnny Fucking Depp could disrupt them.
While we're on the topic of movies, I'll just leave this little piece of evidence for my case against Abbi's sanity here:
We had watched Star Wars: Episode III (which was my favourite) and eaten two bags of popcorn.
New lows Abs, new lows.
Overall this installment is like any eighth installment of any nine-book series set in a fictional town where the divorce rates for the current 19-24 demographic are at an all time low - the perfect mix of cute and ridiculous. It really wouldn't be an Abbi book if you didn't have the nonsensical logic, the rampant sexism, the cringing pop culture references. This book is for anyone who's read the first seven Sea Breeze novels, or is going to read the ninth Sea Breeze novel, or anyone who only wants to read the eighth Sea Breeze novel. For everyone else, the entire thing can be boiled down to this piece of insanity:
Hell I was pretty sure I was going to become so much worse than any of them. Even Krit and his inability to sing on stage without having Blythe near him - that made sense too.
Well said Dewayne. Welcome to the club of whipped pussies.