As I said in my review of Twisted (My thoughts on Twisted), I thought that it was
a rather disappointing follow-up to Tangled,
which I absolutely loved. Thankfully, Tamed
is MUCH better than Twisted. One
thing that I found myself thinking about a lot as I was reading this book was
that I think both Drew and Matthew are much more interesting protagonists than
I thought Kate was in Twisted. Personally,
I find the fact that Drew and Matthew were both much more interesting
protagonists than Kate was rather interesting given the fact that this book
series was written by a woman.
Right off the bat, I have to
say that I’m really curious as to why Emma Chase chose to take a slight detour
from what I like to call “The Drew and Kate Show” to write a book from
Matthew’s point of view for the third book in the Tangled series. Like I said, I loved this book, but if I were her, personally,
I would have waited until after Holy
Frigging Matrimony had been released to write a book from Matthew’s point
of view. Since Emma Chase didn’t really do anything to indicate when exactly
the events that took place in this book took place in relation to the events
that took place in Tangled and Tamed, I found it a little jarring to
read this book. The closest Chase came to specifying the timeline of this book at
the beginning of the book was having Matthew tell the reader that while Drew
and Kate were dealing with their drama, he had his own relationship drama that
he was dealing with.
It wasn’t until towards the
end of the book when I finally figured out that the events of this book took place
during the same period of time that Tangled
did since Matthew went to visit Drew when he was stuck in bed because he had
“the flu” as Drew put it back in Tangled.
I definitely think Chase should have put some kind of note at the beginning of
the book specifying when the events of this book place, so the reader wouldn’t
have to spend almost the entire book trying to figure it out for themselves.
Honestly, based on the beginning of the book, I thought the events of the book
took place at some point during the two years that had passed between Tangled and Twisted, but I was never absolutely certain, and I was still a
little confused once it was established that the events took place at the same
time that the events that happened in Tangled.
While I’m definitely very
curious as to why Chase chose to take a slight detour from The Drew and Kate
Show for the third book in the Tangled
series instead of waiting until after she published Holy Frigging Matrimony, this book reminded me a lot of why I’ve
enjoyed Emily Giffin’s books in the past. While they haven’t really been labeled
a series by anyone, several of Giffin’s books do take place in the same world
and characters from her books have often made brief cameos in the books that
followed whatever book they were a main character in, which allows people like
me who have read all of her books to get a brief glimpse of what’s happened in
the characters’ lives after the book they were the focus of ended. That’s
something I’ve always like Giffin’s books, so I really did like getting to see
Matthew and Dee be the focus of Tamed.
Admittedly, I found both Matthew and Dee to be very forgettable characters when
I was reading Tangled and Twisted. When I discovered that Matthew
and Dee were the focus of Tamed, I
honestly really had to think hard to try and remember anything that Chase had
said about Matthew or Dee in those books.
If by chance you haven’t
read Tangled or Twisted, please, don’t take my not being able to remember Matthew
and Dee as a sign that they aren’t interesting characters, because they are
both really interesting characters in this book. It was definitely nice to see
Matthew and Dee be fleshed out in more detail. I think the main reason why I
had such a hard time remembering who they were is because I got so invested in
the relationship between Drew and Kate when I was reading Tangled that unless the characters were featured a lot like Alexandra,
Billy and Mackenzie were, they didn’t stand out to me all that much. When it
comes to Twisted, Kate spent a
significant part of the book staying with her mother, so it wouldn’t make sense
for Matthew and Dee to be featured in that book all that much.
While I thought Twisted was very disappointing, reading
this book once again reminded me what a talented writer Chase truly is. One
thing that I loved about Tangled was
the fact that it was a romance novel written from the man’s (Drew) point of
view, which is something that I hadn’t really encountered before as I’ve read
numerous romance novels over the years. However, I don’t think simply writing a
romance novel from a man’s point of view means that it’s automatically going to
be a great book. It also helped that Drew was a very interesting, funny and
likable character.
Like Drew, Matthew is also a
very likable guy, but at the same time, he’s not a saint, which I also love,
because sometimes I think men who are a complete and total gentlemen,
especially in a story about a romantic relationship can be a little boring. That
being said, while I really liked Matthew as both a protagonist and a fictional
character in general, I didn’t like him quite as much as I love Drew as a
protagonist. Unfortunately, I can’t quite put my finger on why that is exactly.
If I had to guess why I prefer Drew over Matthew, I’d say that Matthew ended up
coming across as being “Drew lite”. While I thought that Matthew had a good sense
of humor and an interesting prospective on life, I personally think that Drew
is a little funnier and his views on women and life in general are also a
little bit more entertaining in my opinion.
When it comes to stories,
regardless of whether it’s a TV show, movie, or in this case a book, I’m very
drawn to stories with characters that are very flawed and have a tendency to do
morally questionable things at time, but at the same time the audience can
still like them. I definitely love both Matthew and Dee as characters because
they are definitely both flawed characters. That being said, I view Matthew as
having been more flawed in the past than he is in the present, because it was
established that Matthew had cheated on every girlfriend that he’d had until he
dated a woman named Rosaline who cheated on him and broke his heart. Based on
what Matthew tells both Dee and us, the reader, about the aftermath of his breakup
with Rosaline, it sounds like getting his heart broken by Rosaline is what
caused him to change his ways and become a better person. Rosaline is briefly
featured in the book. Based on what we see of her, I’d say that while I feel
bad for Matthew for having Rosaline cheat on him and break his heart, Matthew
definitely dodged a bullet. Rosaline seemed beyond crazy, and while I’m no psychiatrist,
I definitely think that she’s someone who needs to be on A LOT of medication.
Dee is definitely a very
interesting character to say the least. For the most part, Dee comes across as being
a very strong willed, independent and confident woman, which I loved about her.
On the other hand, there were times when she acted rather crazy and irrational
and reminded me a lot of the character Andie Anderson from the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days once she had
really cranked up her crazy act. The only difference between Andie and Dee is
that I found Andie’s crazy antics rather funny and entertaining. In fact, the
parts of the movie where Andie was acting particularly crazy have always been
my favorite parts of the movie.
When it comes to Dee, I
didn’t find her behavior funny when she was acting rather crazy and irrational.
She definitely annoyed me at times with her antics to the point where there was
a small part of me that was left wondering why Matthew was willing to put up
with her flaky bullshit. Given what we, the reader, are told about Dee’s
unfortunate history of constantly getting hurt by the men that she had dated
over the years, I can definitely sympathize with her though. It was also established
that Dee got pregnant when she was a teenager and her boyfriend abandoned her,
which ultimately led her to have an abortion. However, I still think the fact
that Dee had a habit of jumping to the wrong conclusion way too quickly at
times throughout the book when in reality Matthew hadn’t done anything wrong
was rather annoying.
I think the reason why Dee’s
habit of doing this bugged me so much is because people constantly jumping to
conclusions or rushing to judgment about someone or something that they know
very little, if anything, about is a major pet peeve of mine. Personally, I
have a really hard time respecting someone’s opinions or views on things if
it’s obvious that they don’t know what they’re talking about. It really annoyed me that she freaked out and
got mad at Matthew when she saw him having lunch with Alexandra A.K.A. “The
Bitch” at the one point in the book, and automatically assumed that he was
dating other women behind her back, prompting her to dump her slushy on him
before he introduced Dee and Alexandra to each other. That part kind of left me
wondering if Dee was expecting Matthew to never speak to any other women aside
from her ever again just so she wouldn’t have to worry about other women
possibly being a romantic rival to her when it came to Matthew. Honestly, I
felt like she was kind of channeling Christian Grey from the Fifty Shades books in that moment, and
personally I don’t think Christian Grey is someone that ANYBODY should try to
be like in ANY way. As a brief side note, I’d like to mention that I absolutely
loved the part of the book where Matthew’s mother was talking to him about the Fifty Shades books. I found Matthew’s
reaction to her talking about the books rather funny. That was definitely one
of my favorite parts of the book.
There was also the part of
the book where Dee freaked out about her relationship with Matthew during the
middle of the night because things between them were moving too fast for her
taste. However, Matthew managed to quickly convince Dee to give him another
chance. Now that I’ve finished reading the book, I have to say that the reason
why Dee’s whole freak out really bugged me was because Chase didn’t really do
all that much with it since Matthew managed to convince Dee not end their
relationship pretty quickly and pretty easily. If Chase had done more with
Dee’s whole freak out, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me all that much. All
it did was give me yet another reason to view Dee as being a bit of a one-woman
circus, and it seemed to do nothing for the overall story other than increase
the book’s word count. A part of me feels like I shouldn’t be too judgmental of
Dee though since I’ve always viewed myself as having a tendency to be rather
neurotic at times, and like they say, “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t
throw stones.”
I guess what I’m trying to
say is that while fictional characters who for the most part are strong-willed
and confident having a tendency to also be very insecure and have trust issues
at times could possibly be interesting in theory, I don’t think Chase
necessarily managed to balance those aspects of who Dee is as a character very
effectively in this case. It just made Dee seem really annoying and unstable at
times. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time Dee’s issues with trust and
commitment caused problems for them. The events that took place in Tangled with Kate breaking up with Billy
apparently happened on the same night that Matthew was planning to give Dee a
key to his place, Kate and Billy’s breakup once again brought out Dee’s
commitment and trust issues, only this time Matthew and Dee broke up. I feel I
should note that this was the point in the book when I finally figured out what
the timeline was for the events that took place in this book in relationship to
the events that took place in Tangled
and Twisted.
Personally, I was really
happy with the way this book ended. As I was reading this book, there was a
part of that was worried that the book was going to end with Matthew making yet
another grand gesture that would lead him to truly win Dee’s heart, so I was
happy to see that’s not what happened. The farther I got into the book, the
more I thought that it would be very disappointing if Dee didn’t do something
or make some kind of grand gesture to win Matthew back. The reason that became
so important to me as I was reading the book was because it seemed to me like Matthew
was doing almost all of the chasing while Dee was basically just playing hard
to get.
I like that as a grand
gesture to win back Matthew, Dee got a tattoo of his name. I feel like that
really showed her growth as a character since she had previously told Matthew
the reason she got one of her nipples pierced when her friends got tattoos back
when they were younger was because she didn’t want to do anything to her body
that would be permanent and that she wouldn’t be able to get rid of if she
wanted to. I also really enjoyed the epilogue that jumped ahead six months
where Matthew and Dee got married by an Elvis Pressley impersonator at a wedding
chapel in Vegas. Plus, the fact that Matthew proposed to Dee while he was being
treated in the emergency room of a hospital all felt rather fitting since their
entire relationship hadn’t been all that traditional to begin with.
All things considered, while
I’m still curious as to why Emma Chase chose to take a detour from “The Drew
and Kate Show” for the third book in the Tangled
series, that didn’t stop me from loving Tamed.
I thought that it was a very well written book, and I thought both Matthew and
Dee were both very interesting and likable characters, even if Dee come across
as being a tad annoying and crazy at times. Much like Chase did with Tangled and to a certain degree Twisted, I thought that she did a great
job of putting a fresh spin on a genre that I feel is often full of clichés,
especially when it comes to the way Tamed
ends with Dee being the one to make the final grand gesture instead of having
Matthew make some kind of grand gesture to win Dee back like so many other
romantic stories would usually do.
While I think Matthew and
Drew are both great protagonists, I definitely like Drew just a little bit more.
I think it’s because I think Drew is a little bit funnier than Matthew was at
times, especially when it comes to the wisdom and insight Drew tries to convey
to the reader. While I don’t think it’s entirely necessary for either Matthew
or Drew to be acting as if they’re competing for a “Funniest Man of the Year”
award, I simply find Drew’s humor and prospective on women and life in general
a bit more entertaining.
This truly is a great book
and one that I would definitely recommend reading, especially if you’re a fan
of romance novels. It was definitely an enjoyable detour from “The Drew and
Kate Show”. Speaking of detours, the next thing I’ll be reviewing is chapter
two and maybe chapter three of Fifty
Shades of Grey, which will also serve as a bit of preparation for reading
and reviewing the first book in Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series, Bared to
You.
That being said, my final
score for Tamed is 8 out of 10.
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