At the risk of starting this review off on a bit of a tangent, if you’ve read my review of the fourth book in Emma Chase’s Tangled series, Tied (My thoughts on Tied), it should be pretty clear that I found that book to be rather disappointing. One thing that I didn’t talk about in my review for Tied is the fact that while I was reading it and found myself thinking about how it was a rather disappointing way to end the series, I also found myself thinking a lot about what I personally would like to see in a romance novel as I was reading Tied. I thought about discussing my thoughts on what I personally would like to see in a romance novel in that review, but I ultimately decided not to mention that because I felt like my review for Tied was already getting to be kind of long, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to work the subject into that review without completely derailing that review. However, I think it’s very important that I share my wish list for things that I’d like to see in a romance novel in this review, because it really relates to my thoughts on “Ian’s Story” for the book First Time by Abigail Barnette. The things that I found myself wanting to see in a romance novel were as followed:
- I wanted the guy to be more average looking, while still being an attractive man, instead of being a guy who’s beyond gorgeous and could easily get a job as a model for men’s underwear.
- I wanted the guy to have a relatively successful career, but at the same time not be a millionaire or a billionaire like so many guys in romance novels tend to be, based on my own experience with reading books in the romance genre.
- Instead of having the guy be an uber confident man who can flirt and charm women with ease, I wanted the guy to be somewhat insecure and perhaps a little awkward around women at times, without coming across as being a creepy weirdo.
- I wanted the woman in the story to be smart, strong and confident, but still have a vulnerable side, rather than be simply being an incredibly naive idiot and a total doormat like Ana Steele from the Fifty Shades books is.
The reason why I’m mentioning my personal wish list for things that I’d like to see in a romance novel is because the writing for “Ian’s Story” for First Time really made me feel like Abigail Barnette somehow got ahold of my wish list for a romance novel when she wrote “Ian’s Story”, and that’s huge part of why I love “Ian’s Story” so much. I don’t know how the timeline for when I read and reviewed Tied compares to the timeframe in which she wrote First Time, but I think it’s safe to say that she had to have at least started writing it, if she hadn’t already finished the book for the most part by the time I read Tied. There’s also the fact that I never wrote down any of the things that I’d like to see in a romance novel, so in order for her to have gotten access to my wish list, she most likely would have had to have gotten access to some form of time travel, as well as the ability to read people’s minds or the assistance of someone who could read people’s minds in order to get my personal wish list for a romance novel.
I’m joking when I say that of course, but the point I’m trying to make here is that “Ian’s Story” for First Time has a major sense of wish fulfillment for me personally, which is a huge part of why I loved it so much. “Ian’s Story” really has a lot going for it and a lot to like about it. Both Ian and Penny are very likable characters, but Ian is especially likable in my opinion. I loved Ian pretty much as soon as I started reading this book. The first thing that I loved about Ian was the fact that he was kind of nervous about going on a date for the first time since his divorce, so he searched the Internet for tips on the dos and don’ts of going on a first date. The reason I liked that is because I felt like it made Ian come across as a character who was easier to relate to compared to how men in romance novels seem to frequently be written as a smooth talking ladies man who can charm and flirt with women with ease, and don’t seem to feel all that nervous or insecure around women.
Another thing that I really liked about the fact that Ian had done research on tips about dating before his first date with Penny is the fact that it came into play again later in the story when Ian and Penny decided to break all of the rules about dating that Ian had found on the Internet by discussing all of the topics that are considered taboo when it’s early in the relationship so they could hopefully feel more comfortable with each other. Ian and Penny talking about all of the taboo subjects was a really nice moment between them; it also led to Penny telling Ian that she was a virgin and that she has been waiting until she met the right guy to lose her virginity to. Personally, I thought it was great to see Ian be so understanding and respectful about Penny wanting to wait until she felt that she had met the right guy to lose her virginity to. Apparently, not all of Penny’s ex-boyfriends have been understanding and respectful about her wanting to wait to have sex.
Penny is also a very likable character. However, I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t a few times throughout the story where I felt like she was being kind of rude, immature or kind of crazy. While I immediately liked Ian, Penny definitely didn’t make the best first impression with me when I was reading the part where it’s the beginning of their first date. I felt like she was acting rather icy and rude to Ian for no justifiable reason. I was especially annoyed by the way she reacted to Ian originally telling the waiter that he wanted to order the warm octopus eschabeche, not knowing what an octopus enthusiast Penny was, prompting him to change his order. That seemed rather unfair of her. After all, it was a blind date and they hadn’t really had a chance to talk or get to know each other yet. How was he supposed to know that ordering a dish with octopods being the main ingredient would offend her? I can kind of understand why she would be offended by Ian wondering whether or not she was old enough to legally drink alcohol, but when it comes to the rest of Penny’s behavior at the restaurant, it just seemed like she was being unnecessarily rude to Ian. Besides, it was also established that Sophie (The person who set them up) had told Penny that Ian was fifty-three years old, or she at least told Penny that Ian was significantly older than her; however, Sophie hadn’t told Ian that Penny was twenty-two years old. If you ask me, it was pretty rude of Sophie to tell Penny about the significant age difference between her and Ian, but not tell Ian about their age difference.
At the beginning of chapter two, Ian and Penny quickly decided to hit the reset button on their date after Penny suggested that they go get Chinese takeout instead of having dinner at the restaurant that they were originally going to have dinner at. While Penny really annoyed me in the first chapter, I really started to like her after they had left the restaurant and were eating their Chinese food in the park. The message in Ian’s fortune cookie ended up playing a significant role throughout the story, with his fortune saying, “The love of your live will step into your path this summer.”
I thought that Abigail Barnette handled the idea of Ian’s fortune from the fortune cookie playing a significant role throughout the story perfectly. It’s something that’s mentioned enough times so the reader gets the idea that Ian’s fortune is important to the story as a whole, without having it be mentioned so many times throughout the story that you feel Barnette is beating the reader over the head with it.
One of the many things that I loved about Ian is the fact that despite the fact that his first marriage didn’t work out, he appears to still be a bit of a hopeless romantic, and I really enjoyed seeing how Ian navigated a relationship with Penny, a woman who’s much younger than him. However, I did think it was somewhat ridiculous how quickly Ian really seemed to fall in love with Penny. I’m guessing a part of why Ian develops feelings for Penny very quickly might be due to the fact that she’s a young and attractive woman who’s also interested in him despite the fact that he’s thirty-one years older than her. Plus, Penny does have a lot of good qualities that I think a man would want in a woman. She’s smart, nice and attractive to name a few of Penny’s good qualities, and to be fair, Penny seems to develop feelings for Ian pretty quickly too.
From a storytelling prospective, I think it’s safe to say that a big part of why two characters in a book fall in love with each other at a rather accelerated rate is because unless a writer is trying to write the longest book ever written, they basically have to have the characters fall in love with each other rather quickly. That being said, I can definitely believe that Ian and Penny have fallen in love with each other by the end of the book. I feel like I should also mention that the idea of two characters in a book falling in love with each other in a short span of time is something that Jenny Trout (Abigail Barnette) talks about in her chapter recaps for Fifty Shades of Grey, but I digress.
Getting back to the subject of me occasionally being annoyed by Penny’s behavior throughout the book, while I don’t usually say what score I give something that I’m reviewing until the end of my review, I’m going to just go ahead and say now that I give “Ian’s Story” for First Time a score of 10 out of 10. That being said, there were a few times when I was reading “Ian’s Story” where Penny’s behavior and the way Penny was written made me consider docking my score to a 9 out of 10. The first time was when Penny showed up at the restaurant where Ian and Carrie having dinner together in order to discuss a potential job that Carrie wanted to hire Ian and his company to do, and Penny immediately started acting pissed off and immature as soon as she saw them together, without even hearing Ian’s explanation for what he was doing at the restaurant with Carrie and despite the fact that Ian hadn’t done anything wrong.
The way Penny entered that particular scene made me feel like she had just randomly walked onto the set, so to speak, simply for the sake adding drama to the story. However, I have to give Barnette credit for having established that Ian and Carrie’s waitress had forgotten her wrist brace that she wears to help with her carpal tunnel earlier in the scene. It turns out that Penny was friends with the woman who had been waiting on Ian and Carrie. If Penny had said that she was there to bring something to the restaurant for someone that the reader hadn’t been introduced to earlier in the story, then the explanation for Penny being at the restaurant would seem pretty contrived. That being said, Penny’s behavior and the fact that she got upset with Ian simply because she saw him talking to another woman made her seem like somewhat of a jealous and psychotic girlfriend. Since I haven’t read “Penny’s Story” for First Time yet, I’m just going to have to guess that Penny’s reaction to that particular situation stems from the fact that some of her ex-boyfriends have cheated on her in the past, which probably makes her feel very insecure at times.
The other part of the story where I thought about docking my score for “Ian’s Story” a point or two was when I was reading the part where Ian and Penny had the fight that led to them breaking up. For starters, the way that Penny entered that scene and immediately started acting rather cold and immature towards both Ian and his sister, Annie, when all he had been doing was talking to Annie about why he and his ex-wife, Gena, had gotten divorced since he had apparently originally led Annie to believe that he had cheated on Gena when he actually hadn’t also felt pretty random and gave me emotional whiplash. It just made Penny seem really ridiculous and obnoxious at that particular moment in the story.
While I definitely give “Ian’s Story” a 10 out of 10, there are a few things that I think Barnette could have done to make the story even better. First off, I definitely think that there could have been more emotional build-up and plot development throughout the story leading up to Ian snapping and saying that he wasn’t Brad during the fight that ended with Ian and Penny breaking up. Up to that point, I felt like Ian had been pretty compassionate and understanding about Penny’s previous relationship with Brad and how it had ended. I never got the impression that he had any feelings of resentment or anger towards Brad or that he felt like he was somehow paying the price for Brad’s betrayal towards Penny. Honestly, I never got the impression that he even really thought about Penny’s previous relationship with Brad at all, so Ian’s outburst just seemed to come completely out of nowhere.
One thing that I think Barnette could have done to have Ian’s outburst about Brad make a little more sense would be for Penny to have another run-in with Brad, who could either be with his new girlfriend or alone, only Ian would be there that time. If there had been a second run-in between Penny and Brad, perhaps it could have led to Ian and Penny having an argument about Brad. Regardless, I think Brad should have had more of a presence in the story that would also have led to Brad periodically being the elephant in the room when it came to Ian and Penny’s relationship.
The other thing that I think would have made the story even better would have been for there to have been more follow-up between Ian and Penny regarding their dinner with Penny’s parents. Penny and her parents had a very vague exchange about something that Penny’s parents had told her when she was younger, which apparently led to her making the decision to wait a while until she lost her virginity. The exchange seemed to confuse the hell out of Ian, and yet there was no discussion between Ian and Penny about it afterwards. That to me was something that felt very important to the story as a whole and not something that should just be dropped like it was, since Penny being a virgin was somewhat of a major issue that Ian and Penny had to deal with in the story. The other reason that really bugged me was the fact that Ian explained to Penny the reason he had told her parents that he was one of seven kids when he had previously told Penny that he was one of nine kids on their first date was because one of his brothers (Robby) and one of his sisters (Cathy) had been murdered by Cathy’s boyfriend.
Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but it just bugs me that there was a follow-up conversation between Ian and Penny regarding the fact that Ian had been inconsistent about how many kids there were in his family, which I suppose could be considered important from the standpoint of character development, but there wasn’t any kind of follow-up conversation regarding whatever Penny’s parents had told her that had caused her to develop the attitude that she had towards sex. To me, the backstory regarding Penny’s attitude towards sex is a more important part of the story than the explanation for why Ian hadn’t been consistent when he told people how many brothers and sisters he had. Sure, I think both are important details regarding Ian and Penny’s backstories; I’m just a little baffled by the fact that aspect of Penny’s backstory wasn’t explained, while Barnette made a point of establishing that Ian’s brother and sister had been murdered.
The reason I ultimately chose to not dock my score for “Ian’s Story” simply because of the way Penny was written bugged me at times is because I found myself thinking about how as much as I love books centered around a romantic relationship between two people, there’s no denying that romance novels are constantly full of clichéd characters and plots that are often very hard to relate to. After a while, I’ve just found myself not being able to get too emotionally invested in the characters and the story itself at times when I’m reading a romance novel. Despite the fact that some of the emotions I felt as I was reading “Ian’s Story” weren’t all necessarily positive and were more feelings of frustration and annoyance, at least Barnette succeeded in making me feel something and getting me emotionally and mentally invested in the story.
I should probably mention that I didn’t know that there was going to be a significant age difference between Ian and Penny until I actually started reading “Ian’s Story”. Personally, I thought that Barnette did a great job of making Ian and Penny come across as being very believable as a couple despite the significant age difference between them. Barnette also did a really good job of acknowledging that while Ian and Penny clearly like each other a lot, they’re definitely in very different places in life. It’s established that despite the fact that Ian is fifty-three, he still wants to have kids. However, Ian clearly recognizes that even if he and Penny had a child in the next year or two, he would be in his seventies by the time their kid was in his or her twenties. Penny is still young, and she has plenty of time to do a lot of different things in life. However, as I mentioned earlier in this review, Ian was presented with very lucrative job offer that would pay a lot of money for both his coworkers and himself, but the major downside to accepting the job offer would be that he would have to relocate for about two years, which would obviously complicate things between him in Penny.
I have to say that I really like that Ian didn’t just assume that he could get Penny to ditch her job and her entire life in order to go with him if he took the job. He didn’t automatically turn the job down either though, and a big part of why he didn’t immediately turn it down was because the money that he and the company that he worked for would make from the job would provide a great deal of financial security not only for him, Penny and any children that they might have together, but it would also provide financial security for the company’s employees as well. It made for an interesting dilemma for both Ian and Penny to be faced with, and I love that Barnette wrote that aspect of the story with Ian recognizing the fact that automatically turning down the job offer just to be with Penny would be pretty stupid and self-centered on his part. As I said in my review for Twisted, as much as I love romantic comedies, I do think it’s rather idiotic when characters in a romantic comedy make major life altering decisions on a whim just to be with somebody that they’ve only recently met, especially when it comes to decisions that involve them quitting their jobs or turning down a lucrative job offer.
One of this story’s greatest strengths is definitely that it’s not incredibly predictable like I think a lot of romance novels can be based on my own experiences with reading books in the romance genre. As I was reading “Ian’s Story”, I found myself constantly being surprised by what happened. For example, I figured that the dinner where Ian meets Penny’s parents wasn’t going to go well; however, I thought that Ian being thirty-one years older than Penny would be the main reason why the dinner wouldn’t go well. I wasn’t expecting the reason Ian’s dinner with Penny and her parents wouldn’t go well to be because her parents don’t seem to like her very much, and they just come across as being rather horrible people. After all, they had no qualms about lying to their own daughter when she was a teenager, which seems to have really messed Penny up emotionally. That’s great, Deborah. That’s just great, James. After the disastrous dinner that you two had with Ian and Penny, I’m sure Penny will be getting you both a World’s Greatest Mom mug and a World’s Greatest Dad mug the first chance she gets. (Sighs heavily)
Personally, I have mixed feelings about Ian and Penny sleeping together for the first time later that same night. On the one hand, I think it kind of makes sense that they had sex for the first time after Penny learned that what her parents had told her (Whatever it was) was all a lie since it apparently played a big role in her decision to wait until she met the right guy to have sex for the first time. All we really know is that it apparently involves a woman named Ashley. On the other hand, she seemed pretty shaken up emotionally after the dinner with her parents, so I kind of feel like Ian was almost taking advantage of her by agreeing to sleep with her then. Penny might have initiated things, so it wasn’t entirely like Ian was raping her and trying to take advantage of her in that moment, but the timing of them having sex for the first time at that particular point in the story still felt kind of “icky” to me. Still, I have to give Barnette credit for surprising me when it comes to what point in the story Ian and Penny slept together for the first time.
When it comes to my thoughts on the way “Ian’s Story” for First Time ends, the ending to the story reminded me a lot of one of my favorite parts of the second book in the aforementioned Tangled series, Twisted, which is when Kate (The narrator/protagonist of the book) is talking in the narration about how romantic comedies typically don’t show couples dealing with the problems that they are probably going to be forced to deal with after the movies ends. While “Ian’s Story” ends with Ian and Penny getting back together, they also acknowledge that they definitely have some problems in their relationship that they really need to deal with. Personally, I was very happy to see Ian and Penny acknowledge that there are things that they really need to work on when it comes to their relationship. I think it would have been pretty sloppy and bad writing if the story had ended without Ian and Penny acknowledging that their relationship needs some work.
The way “Ian’s Story” ends leads me to believe that Ian is going to take the job offer and that Penny is going to go with him, which I’m okay with for the most part since it wasn’t decision that either of them took lightly. However, one thing that did bother me about the ending was the fact that they decided to have sex even though they didn’t have a condom and they basically decided to pay Russian roulette with Penny’s ovaries. Despite the fact that Ian and Penny had just acknowledged that there were aspects of their relationship that they really needed to work on, neither of them seemed to have any problem with the fact that Penny could easily get pregnant if they had sex without a condom.
I should also mention that that wasn’t the only time in the story that they had sex without a condom. At one point in the story, they decided to have sex, using the pull out method, which I was always told in Sex Ed class was a very unreliable way of trying to prevent a woman from getting pregnant. However, having read Jenny Trout (Abigail Barnette)’s Fifty Shades recaps, I think I can kind of understand why she might have had Ian and Penny have sex without a condom on two separate occasions in the story. In one of her Fifty Shades of Grey recaps, she said that apparently one of the reasons she doesn’t have the characters in her books use condoms sometimes is because she thinks condoms suck in real life. I’m guessing that might have been the reasoning she was using when she wrote those sex scenes, but I could be wrong about that.
One part of the story that I just can’t seem to get out of my head is Penny’s reaction to discovering that Ian is uncircumcised. Her reaction came across to me as being a weird mixture of surprise and excitement given the fact that she reacted to seeing his penis by saying, “Oh my gosh, and you’re uncut!” (p. 103).
I don’t know why exactly, but I’m just beyond flummoxed by Penny’s reaction to seeing Ian’s penis for the first time and discovering that he’s uncircumcised. It made me wonder if she had ever seen an uncircumcised penis before. As much as I hate to keep mentioning Emma Chase’s Tangled series in this review, mainly because I liked this book more than I enjoyed even the first book in the Tangled series, which is definitely the best book in the series; it reminded me of one part in the third book in series (Tamed) where the protagonist of the book, Matthew, is talking about how he’s uncircumcised and how some girls reacted to him being uncircumcised when he was younger, but I digress.
Something that I thought was very interesting about Ian as a character is the fact that he’s Catholic, his nephew, Danny, is a priest, and his faith is apparently very important to him. I don’t know if characters being Catholic and having their faith be at least somewhat important to them is becoming a thing with romance novels now, but that was something that I thought was very interesting about Ian as I was reading “Ian’s Story” given the fact that Matthew from Tamed was also Catholic and his faith was important to him, too. However, I thought that Ian being Catholic was a lot more interesting than Matthew being Catholic since a member of his own family was a Catholic priest. Danny being a priest led to some very interesting conversations between him and Ian that were also very funny at times. I love the fact that Penny found out that Ian wants to marry her someday because Danny forgot to turn off his microphone while he and Ian were talking before the church service started. I bet that made going to church with Ian for the first time something that Penny will never forget. I found that part rather amusing because I’ve actually heard stories about the congregations of churches overhearing embarrassing things because the pastor forgot to turn their microphone off while they went to the bathroom or did other things that they wouldn’t want an entire congregation to hear in real life.
One last thing that I’d like to mention is that while I’ve been a big fan of Jenny Trout’s chapter recaps of the Fifty Shades series for quite a while, this was actually the first time that I’ve read one of her books. Given how much I love her commentary on the Fifty Shades series and her blog in general, I went into reading “Ian’s Story” for First Time with a ton of anticipation and excitement, and in the end, she completely exceeded all of my expectations. Both Ian and Penny are great characters that are very likable, both as a couple and as individuals, even if Penny did get on my nerves a few times throughout the story. While there are some things about “Ian’s Story” that I think could have been better, the story’s strengths completely outweigh its weaknesses. “Ian’s Story” has a major sense of wish fulfillment for me personally, and it’s definitely the best romance novel that I’ve read in years. I’m going to take a brief break from First Time, and the next book that I’ll be reading and reviewing is The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward. After that, I’ll be reading and reviewing “Penny’s Story” for First Time.
All that being said, as I said earlier, my final score for First Time (Ian’s Story) is 10 out of 10.
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