Bared to You: Is it just me, or is everybody in this book fifty different kinds of screwed up? (My thoughts on Book #1 in the Crossfire book series by Sylvia Day)

Let me start out by saying that the main reason why I decided to read and review Bared to You is because I’ve encountered a lot of people who’ve compared the Crossfire book series to the Fifty Shades trilogy. In most cases, I’ve seen people say that the Crossfire series is significantly better than the Fifty Shades trilogy, which has mostly been attributed to Sylvia Day being a much more experienced writer compared to E.L. James. Although, I’ve also seen people say that they like the Fifty Shades trilogy more than they liked Bared to You. After reading Bared to You, I’m absolutely baffled by the fact that anybody would think that the Fifty Shades trilogy is better than the Crossfire series since it’s pretty clear to me that Sylvia Day’s writing ability is definitely completely superior to E.L. James’ writing.

That being said, I realize that everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and when I think about how there are some people who like the Fifty Shades trilogy more than the Crossfire series, I’m reminded of the fact that I like 90210 a lot more than Gossip Girl. While I do like both 90210 and Gossip Girl, I’m also not blinded by the fact that in terms of the quality of the writing for the two shows, the writing for Gossip Girl is definitely superior to the quality of the writing for 90210. At the risk of seeming like I’m going to far off topic, one of the main reasons why I like 90210 more is because anybody with even just a small shred of maturity can see that the relationship between Chuck and Blair, who are arguably the main romantic pairing on the show, is incredibly toxic and abusive. The sad thing about that is the way the producers always talked about Chuck and Blair’s relationship, it’s as if they view that relationship as some epic fairytale romance when it really did end up being a very toxic and abusive relationship. I feel I should mention that I was originally a major Chuck and Blair shipper, it was only when their relationship became truly abusive at some point during season three that I stopped being a fan of that relationship.

While 90210 didn’t have much of a clearly defined endgame couple, the closest 90210 had to an endgame couple was Liam and Annie. Liam and Annie’s relationship wasn’t necessarily handled all that well when it came to them frequently getting together only to almost immediately breakup with little to no buildup or development to them either getting together or breaking up. What I think made Liam and Annie’s relationship better is that at least it wasn’t sick and abusive with them constantly treating each other like crap or either of them trying to sabotage the other’s happiness when they weren’t together like Chuck and Blair constantly did. They definitely handled things between them with a lot more maturity, which is one of the reasons why I liked them as a couple as much as I did, but I digress.

Going back to my thoughts of the Fifty Shades trilogy and Bared to You, while I can’t in good conscious root for Ana and Christian’s relationship, I do think that the relationship between Eva Tramell and Gideon Cross is worth rooting for. Eva is definitely a much more likable and interesting protagonist than Ana is. Gideon is also a much more likable and interesting character compared to Christian. It also helps that Gideon isn’t an incredibly creepy guy like Christian is. Although, there were times when I did think that Gideon’s behavior came across as being rather creepy in its own way. As far as I’m concerned, the creepiest thing about Gideon’s behavior in this book was the fact that he had absolutely no problem using his money and influence as a rich and successful businessman to become a part of Eva’s life. However, Eva is definitely a much stronger person than Ana is, and she doesn’t put up with Gideon’s crap and let him walk all over her like Ana does with Christian.

One of the things that surprised me the most about Bared to You was the overall pacing of the story and how quickly Gideon made his first move and made it clear to Eva that he was interested in her. I was very thrown by the fact that Gideon told Eva that wanted to sleep with her in the second chapter of the book. Given the fact that the overall pacing of Fifty Shades of Grey moves along at a painfully slow pace, especially for the first chunk of the book, I found Gideon telling Eva that he wanted to sleep with her so early on in the book very refreshing.

In my opinion, one of the book’s greatest strengths is the fact that all of the main characters in the book, namely Eva, Gideon and Eva’s best friend and roommate, Cary Taylor, are all very flawed characters, and yet I found them very likable. As far as I’m concerned, Cary is perhaps the most flawed character in the book. Cary is bisexual, and it’s established that he’s dating a guy named Trey. Eva points out to Cary that he has a tendency to sabotage his own happiness after he sleeps with a random woman even though he’s dating Trey and he gets caught cheating on him. Eva also came home at point only to find Cary having an orgy in their apartment, which was definitely a rather weird part of the book.

Personally, I really liked Cary as a character despite his flaws and his questionable behavior. However, being bisexual myself, I was a little disappointed to see Day portray Cary as a guy who’s seems to be incapable of being in a monogamous relationship. I feel like that could potentially give people the wrong idea about people who identify as being bisexual, making people who identify as being bisexual out to be incapable of being in monogamous relationships. Since Bared to You is only the first in a series of books, I’m hoping that Cary will grow and mature as a person as the series continues.

One the biggest problems that I have with the Fifty Shades trilogy and I definitely have a lot of complaints when it comes to those books is the way Ana and Christian talk about how Christian got into BDSM when he became a woman named Elena Lincoln’s submissive for six years beginning when he was fifteen. Neither Ana nor Christian seem to ever truly recognize that in the eyes of the law, Christian’s relationship with Elena would be considered rape since he was underage when the relationship began. Ana seems to bounce back and forth between viewing Elena as a pedophile and a romantic rival, which really goes to show just how messed up and immature and Ana is. Christian seems to view being Elena’s submissive when he was underage as a fond memory to feel nostalgic about. That to me is just beyond sick.

Once Eva and Gideon started dating, Eva ends up telling him that her stepbrother, Nathan, raped her repeatedly for four years beginning at the age of ten. She was forced by Nathan to keep the whole thing a secret. Apparently, Eva’s mother, Monica, and stepfather finally found out about Eva repeatedly being raped by Nathan after she ended up in the hospital because she started hemorrhaging blood and the doctors told her and her parents that she was having a miscarriage, and she apparently hadn’t even known she was pregnant until then.

Gideon was rightfully horrified by this revelation when Eva told him about what Nathan had done to her, but Eva told him that her mother ended up divorcing her stepfather after finding out about Nathan raping her repeatedly even though Monica loved him very much. Eva also assured him that justice had been served when it came to Nathan being punished for what he did. However, that didn’t stop Gideon from confronting Monica about what Nathan had done to her, which upset Monica greatly.

Maybe my opinion of Monica will change if I read the other books in the Crossfire series, and I probably will, but I didn’t like her very much at all in this book. While I do think that Gideon crossed the line by going to Monica and confronting her about what Nathan had done to Eva as a child without telling Eva first, I don’t think that Monica has the right to be upset with Eva for telling Gideon about her Nathan raping her as a child. After all, Eva’s an adult now, and she was the victim of the abuse, not her. If Eva wants to talk to somebody about what happened, especially if it’s someone she’s dating, she should be free to talk about it without being villainized for doing so.

On a more serious note, I’ve debated whether or not I wanted to talk about this on my blog in the past, but since I’m talking about my thoughts on this book and what I’m about to talk about did influence my thoughts on the book and has also influenced some of my opinions of the Fifty Shades trilogy, I’ve decided to go ahead and talk about it here

When I was about seven years old, I was molested by my paternal grandfather. My grandmother literally just stood there and watched the whole thing happen as I begged my grandfather to stop. Afterwards, my grandmother told me not to talk about it. My parents also basically told me not to talk about it, and my father acted like I’d be a home wrecker and that I would be destroying our family if I ever did talk about it. Over time having to deal with that emotional pain and trauma all on my own started to eat away at me, so I started cutting myself as a way to release the pain. Eventually, I realized that I could use my writing as a way to deal with my emotional pain in a healthy way and I was thankfully able to stop cutting myself.

Since I had just started to realize that I was attracted to men before my grandfather sexually abused me, him doing that really made coming to terms with my attraction to men very hard for me for a really long time. When my mother found out that I’m attracted to men, she almost immediately asked me if my attraction to men was because of what my grandfather had done. That really upset me for a lot reasons. For starters, no, I’m not attracted to men because I was sexually abused as a child. Secondly, considering the fact that she was one of the people who told me not to talk about what had happened, I found it rather hurtful that she threw that in my face and brought that up at that particular moment, but I digress.

I’m sorry if anybody who ends up reading this review is annoyed or upset that I started talking about my own personal life when I’m reviewing a book, but like I said, this post is about my thoughts on Bared to You, and Eva’s mother and her actions in this book really got me thinking about that as aspect of my childhood. I just don’t think her reaction to Eva telling Gideon that she was sexually abused as a child was very appropriate or justifiable. I understand that she’s a human being and people aren’t perfect, especially when it comes to how their emotions influence their behavior, but I just didn’t like her in this book. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only annoying and inappropriate thing that Monica does in the book. Eva eventually figured out that Monica was using the GPS tracking device on her cell phone as a way of tracking her whereabouts since they were on a family plan together. That just left me wondering if Monica was taking parenting advice from Christian Grey.

Since Eva’s not a complete and total doormat and she’s not dumber than Forrest Gump like Ana Steele is, Eva was naturally infuriated by this and got a new cell phone so Monica wouldn’t be able to use her cell phone as a way to stalk her. Eva also confronted Monica about using the GPS on her cell phone to track her whereabouts when they met with Eva’s therapist, Dr. Petersen, for a therapy session. Dr. Petersen pointed out to Monica that Eva was left feeling powerless for years as a result of Nathan raping her; so stalking Eva via her cell phone just wasn’t right. He also told Monica that if she’s really concerned about Eva, there are less creepy ways to make sure that she’s okay, such as simply by sending her a text message.

As I’ve said in the reviews that I’ve done for the first three books in the Tangled series by Emma Chase (Tangled, Twisted, Tamed), I really love that Chase has had the men in her books have moments where they demonstrate some genuine vulnerability instead of acting like men are always stoic and strong and never have moments of weakness. I definitely think the same can be said about the way Day portrays Gideon in this book. Sure, he acts like a strong and self-confident man most of the time, but he also has moments where he demonstrates a lot of vulnerability in weakness too. Most of the vulnerability is demonstrated when Gideon gets rather emotional whenever Eva seemed to run from him, or he thought she was breaking up with him. It really left me thinking Gideon has some serious abandonment issues. I’m guessing that the reason why Gideon is so possessive of Eva is because he’s afraid of losing her.

As weird and random as this might sound to some people, I kept thinking about Desperate Housewives and how each season involved a mystery that played out and was slowly revealed throughout the season when I was reading this book. I especially found myself thinking about that whenever Gideon had one of his weird nightmares that he was plagued with throughout the book. They caused him to do some pretty weird stuff in his sleep. At one point in the book, Eva discovered that Gideon was jerking off in his sleep, and at another point in the book he basically tried to have sex with Eva in his sleep, and Cary was forced to come to Eva’s rescue. That incident didn’t just freak Eva out, it freaked Gideon out too once he was fully awake and discovered what he had been doing in his sleep. I would say that Gideon was even more freaked out by that particular incident than Eva was, and Gideon decided to start seeing Dr. Petersen since he knew that Dr. Petersen had really helped Eva work through her problems. However, whenever Eva tried to talk to Gideon about what his nightmares were about, he was always very dodgy about the whole thing and refused to tell her what was bothering him so much.

Given what Eva tells Gideon about Dr. Petersen and the way he’s run his practice over the years, it’s pretty obvious that Dr. Petersen isn’t a “celebrity therapist” that all the rich people go to for therapy or something like that, but that doesn’t mean Dr. Petersen is a bad therapist. I’m glad that while Gideon is apparently incredibly wealthy, he’s not as much of a snob and control freak as Christian is when it comes to money. If Christian decided to go see a therapist, and he’s definitely in desperate need of therapy, I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t think that Dr. Petersen is a good therapist simply because he doesn’t charge his patients a gazillion dollars and he doesn’t have his own reality TV show about being a therapist for celebrities.

That being said, I was definitely a little disappointed that we don’t find out Gideon’s secret in this book. It’s obvious that he was the victim of abuse of some kind. Given how opposed to the idea of going to his parents’ house or Eva going there, which she does at one point, it’s pretty obvious that whatever happened to him most likely happened in his parents’ house. The only reason he went to his parents’ house at one point in the book was because he discovered Eva was attending an event there and he wanted to go and get Eva away from his childhood home. Given how reluctant he was to return to his parents’ house, I thought it was a little odd that he decided to have sex with Eva there before they left.

While that wasn’t my favorite sex scene in the book, I did think that particular sex scene was kind of hot. If I were in Gideon’s shoes, I would have gone there, gotten Eva and left as fast as I possibly could. I definitely wouldn’t have stopped to smell the roses gone off somewhere for a quickie with Eva before leaving.

One thing that really surprised me about this book is that it didn’t involve Eva and Gideon entering into a BDSM relationship. Since I discovered the Crossfire series by seeing so many people compare it to the Fifty Shades trilogy, I just assumed that Gideon was into BDSM. It wasn’t until after I started reading Bared to You that I discovered that this series doesn’t involve BDSM. If anyone reading this review hasn’t already read Bared to You, I should clarify that while Gideon isn’t into BDSM, he does tell Eva that he wants to be in a D/S relationship with her. When Gideon proposed the idea of being in a D/S relationship to Eva, he told her that her behavior makes her come across as someone who would be the submissive in a D/S type of relationship. Thankfully, Gideon doesn’t take the whole thing to an ultra creepy level like Christian Grey does in the Fifty Shades trilogy where it really seems like Christian wants to control every facet of Ana’s life.

I’m not into BDSM, and I really don’t see the appeal of it, but based on what I’ve heard other people who’ve read the Fifty Shades trilogy say about Christian’s behavior, in real life BDSM typically isn’t usually like it’s portrayed in the book. I’ve seen a lot of people say that Christian’s behavior makes it seem like what he really wants is to be a Master given the extensive contract that he wanted Ana to sign. Based on Gideon’s behavior in this book, it doesn’t look like Gideon is into all of the physical pain play that Christian obviously is into. However, Eva and Gideon do have a safe word, which is “Crossfire”, and honestly, I really like that they use “Crossfire” for their safe word given the fact that the first time they meet, it’s in the Crossfire building since they both work there.

One thing that I loved about this book is that I honestly had no idea where the story was going to go. Originally, I thought that the book would end with them breaking up. However, after reading the whole book I’m really glad that they were still together and things seem to be going pretty well for them at the end of the book. After all, there were several rather dramatic points in the book where it either looked like they had broken up or they were going to break up, long before I reached the end of the book. I think it probably would have been rather redundant for the book to have ended with them actually breaking up.

As much as I loved this book, I don’t think it’s perfect. Like I already said, I don’t like Eva’s mother, Monica at all. She’s definitely my least favorite character in the book. While I’m really glad that Sylvia Day didn’t make the same mistake E.L. James did when she wrote Fifty Shades of Grey by having Christian go as far as saying exactly how much money he has, I do think it was a little absurd that Gideon seemed to either own or have some financial connection to almost every single place Eva went to at one point in the book, and he kind of used his money and influence to insinuate himself into Eva’s life to a certain degree.

While I found the part of the book where Eva and Gideon kept sending each other flowers with cute and flirtatious messages back and forth kind of cute, after a while I started to wonder how Eva was able to afford all of the flowers she had sent to Gideon. After all, she’s starting a new job at an advertising agency as an assistant to a man named Mark Garrity at the beginning of the book. I don’t know how much money she’s supposed to be earning, but I’m pretty sure she’s not earning millions of dollars. I also have to wonder how she didn’t get in trouble with Mark for spending so much time doing that when she’s supposed to be working. Since Gideon is supposed to be very rich and is essentially his own boss, I don’t have the same problems with him doing that in the middle of the day when he’s supposed to be working though. I just thought that Eva doing that was a little absurd after a while.

The biggest issue that I have with the book is that I thought that Sylvia Day went a little overboard with describing what Gideon looks like when he’s first introduced. While I think it’s very important for a writer to give a good description of what the characters in a story are supposed to look like, I thought that she went a little overboard when it came to describing what Gideon looks like. Her description of what Gideon looks like seemed to go on and on and on and on and on and on with it finally ending five seconds before she could have used all the adjectives in English language to describe exactly how hot Gideon is supposed to be. This probably wouldn’t have bugged me so much if she hadn’t also given another long description of what Gideon looks like the second time he appears in the book. When she did that a second time, I couldn’t help but think, “Okay, I get it. Gideon Cross is supposed to be smoking hot. Let’s just move on now.”

Thankfully she didn’t keep giving long descriptions of Gideon’s physical appearance after that. Given the fact that E.L. James seems to be completely incapable of giving truly good descriptions of characters other than Ana and Christian or the various places where the Fifty Shades trilogy takes place, I suppose I should just be glad that Sylvia Day actually puts some genuine effort into describing what the characters in Bared to You look like. She also doesn’t use adjectives that contradict each other or create a logical disconnect in the prose like E.L. James did.

All things considered, I loved Bared to You and I honestly have very few complaints about the book, especially when I compare my thoughts on this book to my thoughts on the Fifty Shades trilogy. As I said earlier, I love that Eva and Gideon are both flawed, yet likable and interesting characters. Sylvia Day did an excellent job of getting me invested in Eva and Gideon’s relationship. While I’m definitely disappointed that we don’t learn what Gideon’s secret is in this book, not revealing what happened to Gideon and is now causing him to have really bad nightmares is definitely something that left me wanting to read the next book in the series.

Sylvia Day also did a great job of getting me invested in what was going on with the supporting characters in the book too, especially Cary. I know it might seem a little weird for me to get a little off track at the end of this review, but given the fact that I feel like most of the more minor characters in Emma Chase’s Tangled series have a tendency to be rather forgettable due to me getting so sucked into what’s happening to the main couple in the book, I honestly like that Sylvia Day managed to make even the supporting characters in Bared to You stand out very well. This book was truly an extremely enjoyable book to read.

That being said, my final score for Bared to You is 8 out of 10.