Beautiful Bastard: This book is seriously even better than I was expecting it to be (My thoughts on book #1 in the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren)

Before I get too far into discussing my thoughts on Beautiful Bastard, I definitely need to mention that this is actually a book that I’ve wanted to read for several years. The list of reasons for why I’ve wanted to read this book has definitely evolved over the years. I initially wanted to read Beautiful Bastard because I had heard that much like Fifty Shades of Grey, Beautiful Bastard was also originally a Twilight fan fic. Fifty Shades of Grey and Beautiful Bastard’s origins as Twilight fan fiction has definitely led to a lot of people that I’ve encountered online frequently comparing and contrasting the Fifty Shades series and the Beautiful series to each other, which naturally caused me to become interested in both series since I do like the Twilight books.

However, what ultimately served as my motivation to finally read Beautiful Bastard is the fact that I discovered that pretty much everybody who has been a narrator for the audiobook versions of Emma Chase’s books from her Tangled and Legal Briefs series have also served as narrators for various books and short stories from Christina Lauren’s Beautiful series, as well as their Wild Seasons series. I’ve loved all of the narrators for the audiobook versions of Emma Chase’s books, so that has definitely made me want to listen to the audiobook versions of Christina Lauren’s books even more than I already wanted to in the first place; that being said, here are my thoughts on Beautiful Bastard.

For the record, when I started reading Beautiful Bastard, I decided that I wasn’t going to spend the entire time that I was reading the book actively looking for similarities to Twilight and things about the book that might hint at or give away its origins as a Twilight fan fic; even though learning that Beautiful Bastard started out as a Twilight fan fic was one of the first things that got me interested in reading the Beautiful series. Based on what I’ve read of Fifty Shades of Grey so far, there’s no denying that it’s pretty obvious at certain points in the book that it originally started out as a Twilight fan fic. However, when it comes to Beautiful Bastard, there wasn’t really anything about it that I think screams, “Twilight!” Since I haven’t read the original Twilight fan fic version of Beautiful Bastard, which was called “The Office”, I obviously can’t do a comparison of Beautiful Bastard to the fan fic version of the story. That being said, I think that Christina Lauren did a great job of really distancing the story from Twilight and making Beautiful Bastard its own story. Honestly, if I hadn’t known about Beautiful Bastard’s origins as a Twilight fan fic before I started reading it, I’m pretty sure that I never would have guessed or believed that it ever had any connection to Twilight at all.

Maybe people will think that it’s unfair of me to spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting Beautiful Bastard to other books that I’ve read and other authors’ writing while I was reading it, but sometimes I just couldn’t help it. That’s just something that I seem to do whenever I’m reading any book, not just this one. That being said, as I was reading this book, I found myself thinking a lot about Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series, and how I personally think that Christina Lauren’s writing for this book is significantly better than Day’s writing for the Crossfire series is in general for several reasons; although, I should probably mention that I haven’t read the fifth and final book in the Crossfire series, One with You, yet. First off, the fact that Bennett made his first move with Chloe so early on in the book made a lot more sense to me compared to how Gideon acted when he first expressed interest in Eva in the first book in the Crossfire series (Bared to You), given the fact that Chloe had known Bennett and had been working for him for a while at the start of the book, while Eva and Gideon didn’t really know each other very well at all at that point in Bared to You.

In retrospect, I think the way Gideon acted the first time he hit on Eva was honestly kind of creepy. Sure, Bennett definitely came across as being kind of sleazy when he started trying to seduce Chloe during their business meeting where they ended up having sex for the first time, and I also can’t help but wonder if there was any part of him that was afraid that he might get slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit since Chloe is his employee. However, the way it was written still didn’t make me feel as uncomfortable when I was reading it as Gideon’s behavior in the scene in question from Bared to You makes me feel when I think about it now. At least Bennett wasn’t essentially a total stranger to Chloe at the time; Eva and Gideon didn’t really know each other at all at that point in time. Plus, Chloe definitely came across as being a bit more receptive to Bennett’s advances during their meeting compared to how Eva reacted to Gideon’s behavior towards her at first in Bared to You, if you ask me. By the way, if you’d like to read my review for Bared to You, you can read that here.

Beautiful Bastard also reminded me a lot of the Crossfire series since much like Eva and Gideon have sex A LOT in each of the books, Chloe and Bennett have sex quite a bit, too, in this book. However, when it comes to Beautiful Bastard, I think Christina Lauren did a much better job of not going completely overboard with the number of sex scenes that are in this book than I think Sylvia Day has with the Crossfire series. For the record, I’m not some kind of prude that’s offended by books, TV shows or movies having graphic sex scenes in them. If I were, romance most likely wouldn’t be one of my favorite genres of books to read.

I just feel like throughout the Crossfire series Sylvia Day was more focused on trying to cram as many sex scenes into the books as she possibly could than she was on character and story development to the point where I think that story and character development for the series, especially for Gideon, really suffered. Plus, the fact that so much of Eva and Gideon’s relationship seems to revolve around sex has really raised a lot of questions for me about how much depth their relationship actually has, despite the fact that they’re constantly talking about how much they love each other. I’ve also found myself wondering a lot about whether or not the reader should actually be rooting for Eva and Gideon’s relationship to work out, because so much of their relationship seems to revolve around sex more than anything else, but I digress.

Honestly, I think the sex scenes in Beautiful Bastard are very steamy and well written. For the record, I didn’t count exactly how many sex scenes there are in this book, but there are definitely quite a few. That being said, I think that Christina Lauren did a great job of not letting all of the sex scenes in this book get in the way of the character and story development both for Chloe and Bennett as individual characters, as well as their relationship with each other. I really feel like I have a very good understanding of who Chloe and Bennett are as characters and why they act the way they do after just reading this book. With Gideon Cross, I feel like even after reading the first four books in the Crossfire series, he continues to be a rather underdeveloped character. The readers still haven’t been given a whole lot of information about why Gideon does some of the weird things that he’s done at times throughout the series; and honestly, my hopes that all of the questions that I have about Gideon being answered in One with You are pretty low at this point.

When it comes to my thoughts on the relationship between Chloe and Bennett compared to Eva and Gideon’s relationship, while sex is a huge part of both relationships, I honestly think that Chloe and Bennett’s relationship has a lot more depth to it. Eva and Gideon’s relationship, on the other hand, ultimately comes across to me as having less depth to it than the shallow end of a kiddie pool. While I do consider myself to be somewhat of a hopeless romantic, I’m really glad that Chloe and Bennett didn’t constantly go on and on about how much they love each other throughout the book like Eva and Gideon seem to do in the Crossfire series. Christina Lauren definitely did a good job of letting Chloe and Bennett’s actions throughout the book show that they really do like and care about each other without having them constantly saying that to each other. After a while, Eva and Gideon’s constant declarations of love just start to seem incredibly insincere and meaningless at times, in my opinion. At the moment, I’m just having a much easier time rooting for things to work out for Chloe and Bennett than I’m having with rooting for Eva and Gideon and their relationship.

In case anyone who reads this review hasn’t already read the book, I definitely need to point out that while a lot of people compare the Beautiful series to the Fifty Shades books, it’s important to note that unlike Fifty Shades, Beautiful Bastard doesn’t involve BDSM. The closest thing to BDSM that this book includes is that Bennett habitually rips and keeps Chloe’s underwear whenever they have sex. Personally, I think that’s a rather weird quirk for Bennett to have, but I believe that sometimes when it comes to sex, people just have their own little quirks. As long as they’re not doing anything illegal or hurting anyone, people shouldn’t be judged for having sexual quirks and fetishes, in my opinion.

Honestly, I ended up loving this book even more than I was expecting to prior to actually reading it. The main reason why I enjoyed this book even more than I was expecting to is because I honestly had no idea that Christina Lauren would be alternating back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view throughout the book until I had already started reading the book. Admittedly, a big part of why I didn’t know that the book alternated back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view is because prior to buying the audiobook, I saw that Grace Grant was the sole reader for the audiobook. That being said, the fact that the book was written from both Chloe and Bennett’s points of view made me love this book for a lot of the same reasons that I love Emma Chase’s books so much; the main reason why I love Chase’s books so much is because all of her books are written at least partially, if not entirely from the guy’s point of view.

Emma Chase has definitely become my favorite author in the romance genre, especially since she’s written all of her books at least partially, if not entirely, from the guy’s point of view. That’s just something that I honestly hadn’t seen other writers within the romance genre do prior to discovering her Tangled series, and I think that doing that really offers a fresh spin on a genre that as much as I love the genre, can be incredibly cliché and lacking in originality at times. While Christina Lauren and Emma Chase are two writers that have written books and short stories from the guy’s point of view, they both definitely have their own unique style and approach to writing guy characters. As much as I love Emma Chase’s Tangled series, I definitely think that Christina Lauren handled writing the parts of the book where Bennett got jealous when he saw Chloe with another guy a lot better than how Chase handled Drew’s jealousy and dislike for Billy throughout the Tangled series. Admittedly, I thought that Chase did a really good job of having the guys in her Legal Briefs series express jealousy towards another guy in the story without having them come across as being annoying at times in my opinion.

If Beautiful Bastard is any indication of what I can expect from Christina Lauren when it comes to their writing, I’d say that they definitely have potential to end up tying with Emma Chase when it comes to who I’d say my favorite writer in the romance genre is. However, I definitely need to read more of Christina Lauren’s books before I can definitively say that that’s indeed the case. One of the main things that I’ve learned from reading Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series is that just because the first book in a book series is really great, that doesn’t mean that the rest of the series is going to maintain the same level of quality. For the record, I do like the Crossfire series, I just don’t think that Reflected in You, Entwined with You and Captivated by You were as good as Bared to You was, and I’m keeping my expectations for One with You pretty low at this point.

Getting back to the subject of Beautiful Bastard, I’ll admit that I initially didn’t like Bennett very much at the beginning of the book. He really came across as being an unlikable asshole and kind of sleazy when it came to how he treated Chloe. However, once I read the first chapter of the book that was written from Bennett’s point of view, I really started to understand Bennett better, and he quickly started to come across as being much more likable than I had originally thought he was. By allowing the reader to be privy to Bennett’s thoughts, I think Christina Lauren did a fantastic job of developing him as a character and giving him a lot of depth and complexity that probably wasn’t obvious to Chloe for most of the book. If this book had been written solely from Chloe’s point of view, the people who read this book probably would have missed out on the parts of the story that really gave Bennett some depth as a character. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have ended up liking Bennett as much as I did if the book had been written solely from Chloe’s point of view.

Personally, I’ve always been a huge fan of books, TV shows and movies where the plot that involves a character or multiple characters struggling with some kind of internal conflict. I feel like the writing for this book definitely featured some great internal conflict, especially when it comes to the chapters that were written from Bennett’s point of view. The fact that Bennett didn’t really understand the way that Chloe made him feel at times throughout the book is definitely one of the things that really made me love him as a character in the end after not really liking him very much at the beginning of the book. The internal conflict that Bennett deals with throughout the book was also one of the things that ultimately made me love this book so much.

As much as I love romance novels, I’ve often found myself getting annoyed with characters (Usually the guy) who act really jealous when there’s a romantic rival in the picture. Don’t get me wrong, I get that a book needs to have some conflict in it in order for the story to be interesting, and having a romantic rival for one of the main characters be in the picture is a great way to create some conflict in a story; but in my experience, it seems like the guy in a romance novel usually acts jealous to the point where they just end up coming across as a major asshole that I have a really hard time having sympathy for as I’m reading the book. That being said, I was definitely able to have at least some sympathy for Bennett when he got jealous seeing Chloe express interest in a guy named Joel that his family was trying to fix her up with.

I actually really enjoyed seeing Bennett get jealous of Chloe and Joel’s budding relationship, mainly because it allowed the reader to see that Bennett already knew things about Chloe that are the kind of thing that a guy who’s dating her should probably know, such as the fact that Chloe hates roses. Plus, Bennett’s reaction to Joel expressing interest in Chloe is one of the things that contributed to my thinking that the writing for Chloe and Bennett’s relationship had more depth to it than I think Eva and Gideon’s relationship does in the Crossfire series. Honestly, I’m actually really surprised by how much I loved that aspect of Beautiful Bastard. As much as I love Emma Chase’s Tangled series, I don’t really like how Drew’s rivalry with Kate’s ex-fiancée, Billy, was handled after the first book in the series, which is also called Tangled, very much at all. Rather than siding with Drew, I just ended up feeling sorry for Billy for the most part. That being said, I do think that Emma Chase did a pretty good job of incorporating romantic rivalries into the first (Overruled) and second (Sustained) books in her Legal Briefs series without making the protagonists of those books come across as being a total asshole, but I digress.

When it comes to Chloe, I have to admit that I wasn’t all that crazy about her at the beginning of the book due to the way she was basically whining in the internal narrative about Bennett being mad at her for being an hour late for work. I work in a grocery store, and while it isn’t my dream job, and I’m probably not the best at what I do compared to everybody else that works in my department, I still take my job very seriously. I always try my best to do whatever I’m asked to do to the best of my ability. I also do everything I can to make sure that I get to work on time every day, and that I’m not late getting back from my break. If I do end up being late for work or getting back from my break, and a manager calls me out on it, I always apologize and make sure that they know that I take responsibility for my actions. I don’t whine about it and make excuses to try and avoid taking responsibility for screwing up like Chloe did at the beginning of the book. Initially, Chloe’s behavior just made her seem incredibly annoying and immature, in my opinion.

That being said, I do think that Bennett kind of overacted about Chloe being late for work by giving her so much work to do in a rather short amount of time as a punishment for being late. The fact that Bennett ended up seducing Chloe during their meeting after work where he had been expecting her to present all of her work to him really made me wonder how serious he had actually been about expecting her to do all the work that he had assigned her by the end of the day. Was he never planning to actually make Chloe present and hand in all of the work that she had done? Was Bennett’s decision to seduce Chloe during their meeting a spur of the moment thing, or had it all been premeditated move on his part? I feel like that’s something that could have used a little bit of clarification, but ultimately, the fact that the reader is never really given any answer about Bennett’s actions during that part of the book didn’t really diminish my enjoyment of Beautiful Bastard in the grand scheme of things.

When it comes to the scene where Bennett seduces Chloe for the first time, there were so many things that were running through my head during that point in the book. While I thought the whole scene was pretty steamy and well written, the entire time I was listening that scene from the book on the audiobook version of Beautiful Bastard, I just kept thinking, “You better hope that she’s either on the pill or that she’s not ovulating.” since they didn’t use a condom.

I also kept wondering about whether or not there was any part of Bennett that was worried that Chloe might slap him with a sexual harassment lawsuit as a result of the whole thing. Maybe people will think that I’m weird for thinking about those things while I’m reading a sex scene in a romance novel, but those are honestly the things that I found myself thinking during that part of the book. That being said, I was really glad that Christina Lauren did have Chloe mention to Bennett that she was on the pill later on in the book, when it comes to acknowledging the fact that they didn’t use a condom when they were having sex for the first time.

Aside from my issues with the way Chloe reacted to Bennett being mad at her for being an hour late for work, I really did ultimately end up loving Chloe as a character. It was really great to see that she wasn’t a spineless, wishy-washy, emotionally and socially stunted idiot like Ana Steele from the Fifty Shades books is. Chloe is definitely a very likable and strong character. I’m really glad that she wasn’t afraid to stand up to Bennett and call him out on his behavior when the situation called for it.

Having read and reviewed both versions of Abigail Barnette’s book, First Time from her By The Numbers series (Ian’s Story) and (Penny’s Story), as well as Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, I’ve definitely learned that sometimes it’s better if the reader isn’t privy to all of a character’s thoughts. Being privy to all of a character’s thoughts can end up making them come across as being even more annoying and unlikable than they potentially could have been if the reader didn’t know what they were thinking at all times. However, in this case, I really think that Bennett is a character that can really benefit from the reader knowing what he’s thinking and feeling. Having the chance to know first hand what Bennett was thinking and feeling throughout the book definitely made me like him and really helped me to enjoy the book even more than I might have had the book been written solely from Chloe’s point of view. Sure, there were a few times throughout the book where I thought that Bennett was being kind of ridiculous when it came to some of the things that he was thinking in his internal narrative, but in the end, I think that the book as a whole really benefitted from Christina Lauren alternating back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view throughout the book.

That brings me to the subject of the one and only genuine complaint that I really have about Beautiful Bastard. While I love that Christina Lauren alternated back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view throughout the book, it really bugs me that they never specified at the beginning of each chapter which character’s point of view the chapter was written from. Plus, Christina Lauren didn’t appear to follow any specific pattern in terms of how often and when the book alternated back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view.

For example, we often got several chapters in a row that were written from Chloe’s point of view, there would be a chapter written from Bennett’s point of view, and then book would shift back to Chloe’s point of view. Occasionally there would be a couple chapters in a row that were written from Bennett’s point of view. The fact that the book was written in the first person point of view also made these P.O.V. transitions somewhat jarring, and it often took me the first few sentences of each chapter to figure out from which point of view the chapter was written. That definitely interfered with what was otherwise an overall awesome experience with reading Beautiful Bastard, and the enjoyment that I got from the book.

Something that I wouldn’t necessarily consider to be an outright complaint that I have about Beautiful Bastard is that the hopeless romantic in me really wishes that there had been at least one really extravagant and romantic moment between Chloe and Bennett at some point in the book. What I mean by that is since Bennett appears to have a lot of money; maybe he could have arranged for them to do something together that would be some kind of romantic, once in a lifetime experience. As horrible as I think Fifty Shades of Grey is, one good example of the kind of thing that I’m referring to from that book would be the part where Christian takes Ana out in a glider in an attempt to give her “more”.

That being said, I did really like the part of the book where Chloe takes care of Bennett after he gets sick with food poisoning, and she goes to an important business meeting in his place. I thought that part was really sweet, and it was nice to see Chloe take care of Bennett since that’s the kind of thing that happens in relationships in real life. Plus, I did think that Bennett creating an ad campaign for Chloe to present for a school project all because he thought that the product he created an ad campaign for was better than the one Chloe was going to present a campaign for, was a rather romantic gesture on his part. Ultimately, those two parts of the book did kind of make up for the fact that Chloe and Bennett never really had a grand romantic moment in the book.

One thing about Beautiful Bastard that I definitely want to comment on is the cover of the book. I haven’t made a point of commenting on the covers of the books that I’ve reviewed in the past, but in this case, it’s definitely something that I want to talk about. I’m not sure what the actual term would be for the kind of artwork that’s featured on the cover of Beautiful Bastard, but regardless, I’ve always loved the cover of Beautiful Bastard, as well as the covers of all of Christina Lauren’s other books. As I said earlier, I’ve been interested in reading Beautiful Bastard for several years now, and the art design of the cover for Beautiful Bastard, and Christina Lauren’s books in general, has definitely helped their books to really stand out and make a big impression on me whenever I’ve seen them in stores over the years. Plus, the cover design for Christina Lauren’s books is definitely very unique compared to the covers for all of the other books in the romance genre that are out there; which really helps to set their books apart from all of the other books out there, in my opinion.

All things considered, Beautiful Bastard really is an awesome book, and I’ll definitely be continuing with the Beautiful series. However, I’m planning to read and review the first book in Christina Lauren’s Wild Seasons series, Sweet Filthy Boy, along with the companion short story that goes with it (“Sweet Filthy Morning After”) before I read the next book in the Beautiful series, which is the novella Beautiful Bitch.

Beautiful Bastard really did exceed my expectations, which makes me extremely happy since it’s a book that I’ve wanted to read for a very long time. The fact that Christina Lauren alternated back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view throughout the book is definitely one of the reasons why I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. While I did love that the book alternated back and forth between Chloe and Bennett’s points of view, the fact that Christina Lauren didn’t indicate from which character’s point of view the chapters were written is really the only genuine complaint that I have about Beautiful Bastard. The fact that they didn’t indicate at the beginning of each chapter from which character’s point of view the chapters were written from definitely made the transitions from Chloe to Bennett’s points of view rather jarring and confusing at times throughout the book.

Both Chloe and Bennett are really great characters. The relationship between them was very well written, and I could really feel the chemistry between them, which isn’t always easy for me to do when it comes to romance novels. This book has definitely left me thinking that Christina Lauren have potential to eventually end up tying with Emma Chase when it comes to who I consider to be my favorite author in the romance genre. However, given the experiences that I’ve had with reading and reviewing Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series, I definitely need to read a few more of Christina Lauren’s books before I can say that’s indeed the case. In the meantime, I’m just really looking forward to checking out more their books in the near future.

That being said, my final score for Beautiful Bastard is 9.5 out of 10.