A review by blooms_in_books
Lick by Kylie Scott

3.0

I reviewed this title with my co-blogger Amy on The Book Hookup. Our original, full review can be found HERE.

**Special Note:** An eARC of this title was provided by the publishers via Net Galley for Christina in exchange for an honest review. However, this did not influence this review in any way. (We tried to check bases on Christina’s ARC versus Amy’s purchased edition before posting this review.)

♥ The Lowdown: Evelyn is a girl with a plan. She’s always had one for every facet of her life and as far as she’s concerned, the one for her future is set in stone. I guess she never heard the quote “best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” because getting totally wasted on her birthday in Vegas before marrying a rock god is definitely going to put a kink the grand scheme of things. Especially when she doesn’t remember any of it.

But that’s fine, she makes a new plan that goes a little something like, “No one ever has to know (Except his name is tattooed on her ass- Ooops!) and get an annulment/divorce ASAP.” But she’s quickly thrust into the life of being a rock musician’s wife whether she wants the role or not. After her safety is threatened, Evelyn is whisked away to spend quality time with her rocker husband and soon begins to understand what could have made her say “I do” so easily. But just when things seem like they may be working in the couple’s favor, some of David’s past threatens to crumble it before it ever truly gets started.

♥ Initial Thoughts and Rating:

Christina: Actual rating of 3.5! I think I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I love me some music-inspired novels, especially when there’s a tortured tatted, song-writing, sex-driven rocker at the soul of it, but this ended up landing in the mediocre-meh camp for me. With a fun premise, I felt like this novel would have had greater potential if it gone through some content-editing. However, there were singular moments spread throughout the novel that made me want to stick around to see what happened next. Actually, it was only because of my love for the how David and Evelyn’s story concluded that I gave the whole book a whole extra star just for it. Without that ending, I may have only rated it a 2.5/3.

♥ Characters:

–Evelyn:

Christina: To be perfectly honest, I found her a tad bit aggravating at times. Granted she was in a confusing predicament, but I don’t know that I was particularly fond of being in her head space while she constantly bounced between here two options. Either a divorce was her top priority or it was insta-love all the way, and man did that make me want to toss my kindle since I couldn’t toss her. *siiiiiiigh*

–David:

Christina: He definitely had his moments, both good and bad. Mostly, I liked him, more so once he let down his walls and allowed himself to vulnerable which sadly didn’t take place until the last third or so of the book. It was the line below that made me swoon a little.

“What are we doing?” I asked, bewildered.

“Spooning. We did it that night for a while. Until you felt sick.”

“We spooned?”

“Yep,” he said. “Stage two in the memory rehab process, spooning. Now go to sleep.”

“I only woke up an hour ago.”

He pressed his face into my hair and even threw a leg over mine for good measure, pinning me down. “Bad luck. I’m tired and I wanna spoon. With you. And the way I figure it, you owe me. So we’re spooning.”

–Other Secondary Characters:

Christina: I freaking loved Mal! He brought most of the comic relief, and his book in the series is definitely one that I’ll be on the looking forward to getting my hands on. As for the other characters, even the ones in the band, I never seemed to get a real grasp on who they were or what they were about since their roles in the novel were far and few between… aside from the slore she-witch. Part of me wishes that they were fleshed out more, but then another part of me feels like it would have been a distraction.

♥ Writing and Plot:

Christina: Oh me. My apologies in advance if this turns into a mini rant. For a vast majority of this book, I just kept thinking that this story held the promise of being so much better. I wanted more from it. I felt like the “drama” in the book was over-dramatized in some cases, so much so that it came off cliched, unoriginal, and ridiculously exaggerated. Then the sex scenes fell somewhere between being corny and OMG-the-eff-is-this-people-don’t-really-say/do-that-why-is-this-so awkward bad. It read like really bad fic in some cases. [Sidenote: Dear authors, I'd rather you use the same word a million times over than stick an unsexy word in the middle of an intimate scene. Example? Rump is for cooking, never for sexy-times nibbling as in "He bit my rump." But hey, this is simply my opinion.] For me, where the author really found her groove and where I learned to love the characters is when everything went to hell and downhill fast. It was then that I felt like I knew who these characters were and wanted to root their relationship on. I love how everything came together in the end, how David was willing to woo her and make things right. It almost made up for all the eye-rolling I had to suffer from during the middle.

♥ Rec It?

Christina: Maybe? Yeah, I guess… probably. To be honest, I think Lick will be for some and definitely not for others. (And by others, I’m mainly speaking to those that can’t ignore work that obviously hasn’t been really edited.) It was a quick read and a decent book with a fun plot that wasn’t executed as well as it possibly could have been. There were a few really excellent scenes spread throughout the book, but the rest- particularly the sex scenes- bordered between awkward or cheesy at best.

However, if you noticed the average rating on Goodreads of a 4.28 (as of 07/12/2013), I guess you could say that we’re in the minority on our opinion. It seems as though quite a few people enjoyed it more than us, so give it a go if it sounds like something that interest you. You may find that you quite like it.

♥ A very special thanks to Pan MacMillan and Net Galley for allowing Christina an early preview of this title.