Amazon Ad

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Book Review: One with You (Book #5 in the Crossfire series) by Sylvia Day


http://www.sylviaday.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/owy-compressed-1.jpg

I should probably start out this review by saying that I originally wasn’t planning to read and review One with You any time soon, but reading the second book in Christina Lauren’s Beautiful series, Beautiful Stranger, and writing my review for the book really got me thinking about the Crossfire series again quite a bit, so I decided that it would probably be very fitting for me to go ahead and read One with You now. That being said here are my thoughts on One with You.

Because I feel like I’ve been repeatedly disappointed by Sylvia Day, and the Crossfire series as a whole, I’ve definitely been putting off reading One with You ever since it was released back in April of this year. Since this is the last book in the series, I was really hoping that I would enjoy One with You, and that the Crossfire series would end on a good note. Sadly, that definitely didn’t happen. While One with You does have some elements that I enjoyed, I was ultimately extremely disappointed with the book, especially when it comes to the fact that this is the final book in the series. To me, One with You came across as being the book equivalent of a TV show having a season finale where the writers have the season end with multiple cliffhangers, leave storylines open to be continued in the following season, and introduce whole new storylines, because they’re confident, or at least fairly optimistic about the show’s chances to be renewed for another season, only to have the network cancel the show. However, the fact that this or any final book in a series would have that kind of vibe to it is absolutely infuriating to me, since an author has the luxury of knowing whether or not a book is actually going to be the final book in a series. If an author who’s writing a book series knows that a book is going to be the last book in the series, they can and should write it as such, which Sylvia Day unfortunately didn’t do when it comes to this book.

One of the many problems that I’ve had with the Crossfire series is a lot of the writing and character development for Gideon, or rather the lack of character development and growth for him throughout the series. As I’ve read each book in the series, I constantly found myself thinking that I didn’t fully understand why Gideon is the way he is. Sure, we were given some information throughout the series about his past and the abuse he suffered when he was younger, but the character development and growth for Gideon still always felt rather incomplete, in my opinion. I feel that way even more so after reading One with You, and the fact that the series ends without Gideon truly working through and overcoming all of his issues, particularly his sexual parasomnia. The lack of character development and answers regarding Gideon’s past is one of the reasons why I would liken One with You and the Crossfire series as a whole to a TV show that’s abruptly canceled, leaving various storylines unresolved. However, I’ll admit that there was one “revelation” that’s revealed in this book, which I’ll talk about later on in this review, that does make me feel a little more understanding when it comes to the fact that Gideon doesn’t truly work through all of his issues by the end of the series.



While I don’t think that Gideon Cross is as creepy, despicable and altogether unlikable as Christian Grey from the Fifty Shades series is, there have still been times throughout the Crossfire series where I really didn’t like Gideon very much at all. The most disturbing scene in the entire series for me personally was the part in Bared to You where Eva wanted to give Gideon a blowjob after she ended up kissing her ex-boyfriend, Brett, in order to “wash away” the kiss that they had shared, and then the blow job evolved into a really weird and disturbing sex scene. In case you’ve forgotten about that scene; basically what happened in the scene, is that Eva starts by giving Gideon a blow job, and then the scene transitions into them repeatedly having sex. Even though it eventually becomes clear in Eva’s internal narrative that she wants to stop having sex with Gideon, she doesn’t think that she can do that because Gideon was really upset about her having kissed Brett. Eva just kept having sex with him until he was finally ready to stop. There was absolutely nothing about that scene that I thought was sexy and erotic, and that entire scene was very uncomfortable and difficult for me to get through.

As much as the writing for Gideon has really pissed me off and frustrated me at times throughout the series, especially when I read the fourth book in the series, Captivated by You, where Sylvia Day started featuring chapters that were written from Gideon’s point of view; the frustration and anger I felt regarding Gideon as I was reading Captivated by You doesn’t even begin to compare to how much he frustrated me as I was reading this book, though. For starters, Gideon’s entire reaction to Eva telling him that she didn’t want them to have sex again until after their vow renewal ceremony really made me mad, and it made me think even less of Gideon than I already did. That being said, at the risk of sounding like I’m trying to slut shame Eva, the fact that she ultimately didn’t stick to her guns about not wanting them to have sex again until after they renewed their vows was rather disappointing for me personally, and it made me think even less of Eva and Gideon’s relationship than I already did. Eva deciding that she didn’t want them to wait until they renewed their vows for them to have sex again after all was just another one of the many, many, many things that made think that there isn’t really anything truly meaningful about their relationship. It’s pretty much all about sex and not much else when it comes to Eva and Gideon’s relationship. I know they’re constantly talking about how much they love each other, but I honestly just don’t buy it any more.

However, the thing that probably frustrated me the most about Gideon in this book was not only the messed up way that he tried to deal with Monica getting killed and having to break the news to Eva in chapter fourteen, but the absolutely cringe inducing writing for Gideon’s internal narrative throughout that chapter. For the record, I think it’s definitely a good thing that Gideon’s not some kind of pathological liar who doesn’t have any qualms about waiting to break the news of Monica’s death to Eva and kind of lying to her in the process. That being said, I felt like Gideon was being way too overly dramatic when he was going on and on and on in his internal narrative about how bad it made him feel to kind of lie to Eva about the whole situation at first.

Plus, it really pissed me off when he said that he would need to read Monica’s diaries before he would give them to Eva so she read them. Honestly, I don’t know where to begin with that. First off, I think it’s safe to say that Monica wouldn’t have wanted him to do that. Just because Monica is dead, it still doesn’t give Gideon the right to violate her privacy. Second, I get that Gideon wanting to read them first was just another example of his messed up and misguided need to protect Eva, but Gideon is definitely way too overly protective of Eva at times; sometimes to the point where it comes across more as him being creepy and acting inappropriately than it comes across as a good thing. As far as I’m concerned, Gideon wanting to read Monica’s diaries before he lets Eva read them is definitely an example of Gideon’s obsessive need to protect Eva causing him to do something incredibly inappropriate.

As I said earlier, there was one revelation in this book that makes it somewhat easier for me to understand and deal with the lack of resolution to all of Gideon’s issues that he has struggled with throughout the series. Pretty much the only reason I’m willing to be at least somewhat, and I’m putting a great deal of emphasis on the word, “somewhat”, when it comes to being a little more lenient about my criticisms regarding the fact that the series ends without Gideon undergoing very much growth and character development is the fact that it’s established in chapter two of the book that it had only been three months since Eva and Gideon met each other for the very first time; meaning that the entire Crossfire series only takes place in the timespan of about three, maybe four, months, by the end of the book. I could be wrong, but I didn’t get the impression that very much time had passed by the end of the book, so I doubt that the timespan of the series would have ended up taking place over a span of four or more months when all is said and done.

While I really would have liked Gideon to have worked through his emotional issues by the end of the series, or to have at least made significant progress by the end of the series, I don’t think all of Gideon’s emotional and psychological issues are the kind of thing that he could have truly overcome in the span of just three months. I’d say Gideon’s issues are the kind of thing that could possibly take a person years to truly work through and overcome, which is why I’m somewhat willing to cut Sylvia Day some slack for the lack of resolution regarding Gideon’s emotional and psychological issues; as well as the total lack of character development for Gideon throughout the series. That’s still something that I’m rather frustrated and disappointed by when it comes to One with You being the last book in the Crossfire series, though.

Honestly, I was absolutely baffled and beyond surprised when I got to the part where Dr. Petersen mentions that Eva and Gideon have only known each other for three months. As much as I’ve always wanted to joke about how Eva and Gideon’s relationship reminds me a lot of the description that Gloria Pritchett from Modern Family gave of what her marriage to her first husband, Javier, was like back in the series premiere, in the sense that Eva and Gideon are constantly having sex with each other or fighting about something; I still think that more than enough has happened throughout the series that could realistically take place in the span of just three months. I honestly don’t think that Sylvia Day was really thinking things through when she decided to establish in this book that Eva and Gideon have only known each other for three months, and it all just comes across to me as really bad writing.

The fact that the entire Crossfire series takes place in the span of just three months once again raises all kinds of problems that I have with Eva and Gideon’s relationship, and the way it’s written; as well as the way the series in general is written. The main reason that I find it almost impossible to believe that the entire series takes place in the span of about three months is that Gideon’s entire plan to kill Eva’s stepbrother, Nathan, and get away with it back in the second book in the series, Reflected in You, seems like that alone would take at least three or more months to successfully carry out. As bizarre as the idea of somebody concocting a plan to murder someone and get away with it, either in real life or in a work of fiction like the Crossfire series sounds, that still doesn’t seem like something that Gideon, or anybody for that matter, could pull off in the span of just a few weeks. Even if I try my absolute best to suspend my disbelief and just go along with the idea that the entire series takes place in the span of only three months, I still honestly think that everything that happens in Reflected in You would have to take place over the span of several, or perhaps many months, rather than just a few weeks. It almost feels like the entire Crossfire series is taking place in the same kind of weird time warp that soap operas seem to take place in, where a single conversation between two characters can go on for two or three episodes, but characters can fly from one place to the other on an airplane in the span of a single commercial break for an episode that also features a conversation that lasts for several episodes.

Not only did the whole revelation that the entire series pretty much only takes place in the span of about three months make me question how believable the idea that everything that has happened throughout the series had all taken place in that short amount of time; it also made it even more difficult for me to root for Eva and Gideon as a couple than it already was. I’m no relationship expert, but I feel like even after being a couple for three months, I could still possibly think of them as being in the honeymoon stage of the relationship, when the relationship feels new and fresh, and a couple is acting all lovey dovey with each other. The novelty of the relationship hasn’t had a chance to wear off, and yet Eva and Gideon have already been married for what I would consider to be a decent chunk of the time that they’ve known each other.
Eva told Dr. Petersen that she felt like them getting married was essentially an inevitability, so she didn’t think that there was any reason why they should have waited to get married; which I thought was a rather stupid thing for her to say. Personally, I just don’t think that Eva and Gideon’s relationship has enough genuine emotional depth to it to actually last for the rest of their lives, and yet Sylvia Day seems to expect the reader to simply believe that Eva and Gideon are soul mates, and that they will be madly in love with each other for the rest of their lives. I honestly don’t buy it, though. As far as I’m concerned, Eva and Gideon’s relationship has ultimately ended up being one of the absolute worst cases of instalove that I have ever seen, in either a standalone book or in a book series.

To be fair, Dr. Petersen does acknowledge that Eva and Gideon’s relationship has definitely moved at an incredibly accelerated rate in chapter two of the book, but I’m still pretty frustrated by the whole revelation regarding the Crossfire series’ timeline. It’s definitely a good thing that I’m not Eva and Gideon’s therapist, though, because I probably wouldn’t be very nice or able to withhold a great deal of judgment when it comes to talking to them about their relationship. Dr. Petersen has always been a lot nicer and understanding than I think any therapist in their right mind should be when it comes to being their therapist, or the therapist of any couple with a relationship like theirs. Maybe I’m wrong for feeling this way, but honestly, I feel like Eva and Gideon could definitely benefit from seeing a therapist who wouldn’t be afraid to be much more blunt at times when it comes to discussing their relationship in couple’s therapy.

As I said earlier, one of the many, many, many problems that I have with One with You is the fact that Day didn’t really provide any resolution for quite a few of the storylines in the book; namely the whole thing with Corinne trying to publish a tell-all book about her relationship with Gideon, and the whole situation with Cary: Tatiana being pregnant with his baby, and whether or not things were going to actually work out between him and Trey. Regarding the whole situation with Corinne, we never find out whether or not her book actually got published. That whole subplot petered out rather quickly and was pretty much dropped without any fanfare whatsoever.

Cary’s storyline was probably left with the most unanswered questions. Is Tatiana going to have the baby? At one point in the book, Cary told Eva that Tatiana was apparently considering having an abortion since he had told her that he didn’t want them to live together. I also have to wonder if the baby is even Cary’s, because based on what we saw of Tatiana and what we were told about her throughout the series, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if she was lying about the baby actually being Cary’s. There was also one point in the book where it seemed like Cary’s boyfriend, Trey, might be willing to get back together with Cary and make their relationship work. This especially seemed to be the case after Eva and Trey talked to each other about Cary, but we never get any resolution on whether or not Cary and Trey actually get back together.

The whole revelation about Eva’s mom, Monica, and her past with her sister really seemed to come out of nowhere, and it all felt rather pointless, in my opinion. I honestly don’t know why Day felt the need to introduce that whole thing to Monica’s backstory all of the sudden in this book; when she could have used the time she devoted to that subplot to resolve at least one of the numerous other subplots that was already going on in the book instead, preferably Cary’s since Cary is my favorite character in the series. However, I do like the fact that learning the truth about her mother’s past and her mother’s sister helped Eva to gain some insight into why her mother was the way she was, and why she had done the things she did over the years, namely why she had married so many rich men over the years.

There’s no denying that Monica’s actions were rather questionable, if not incredibly messed up, at times throughout the series. I just thought that it was way too late in the series for Sylvia Day to introduce the whole subplot with Monica dying and Eva subsequently learning about her mom’s secret past. The fact that Day was constantly introducing new subplots throughout One with You, only to end up completely dropping a lot of them later on in the book, or resolving them in a rather sloppy manner, is definitely one of the book’s biggest problems. Plus, it also didn’t help that the writing for Gideon in chapter fourteen of the book where he was dealing with the immediate aftermath of Monica getting killed was absolutely cringe inducing.

As much as I hated this book and consider it to be one of the worst books that I’ve reviewed for my blog at this point in time, my favorite thing about One with You, and the Crossfire series as a whole, was definitely Cary. I’ve always thought that he was the most interesting and entertaining character in the series. While I often ended up finding the Crossfire series as a whole to be rather frustrating, Cary has always been a rare bright spot in the series for me personally. The parts of the books that included Cary were always a welcome, and at times rather entertaining, break from all of the repetitive, frustrating, boring, and at times outright bad writing that often plagued Eva and Gideon, both as individual characters, and as a couple.

The Crossfire series is probably the first book series that I’ve ever read where I honestly like one of the secondary characters in the series more than the main character, or this case, characters. Even though we, the reader, never really get to see Cary’s storylines play out for ourselves throughout the series; and for the most part we’re just told about what’s going on in his life, what was going on with him oftentimes sounded a lot more interesting to me than what was going on with Eva and Gideon, and their relationship. As frustrating as I often ended up finding the Crossfire series to be, Cary has still always been my favorite thing about the series, and one the main reasons I stuck with the series and read all five books; even though I felt like the series just kept getting worse and worse with each book that followed Bared to You. His problems usually sounded a lot more interesting to me than whatever was going on with Eva and Gideon, and I always loved the writing for Cary whenever he was in a scene. I especially loved Cary’s interactions with Eva, and their friendship in general.

When it comes to my thoughts on the Crossfire series as a whole, despite the fact that the series started out strong with Bared to You, it sadly really just kept going downhill with each book that followed after that. I’ve most likely completely beaten the people who read this review over the head with this point, but one of my absolute biggest problems with the series is that despite the fact that Eva and Gideon were constantly talking about how much they love each other throughout all five books in the series; their relationship never came across as actually having very much depth to it at all. So much of the writing for their relationship revolved around sex and how attracted they were to each other, rather than being about them having a genuine romantic and emotional connection with each other. It just makes their relationship seem so shallow, and honestly, rather boring to read about. Plus, Gideon’s character development throughout the series also really suffered as a result of Sylvia Day putting so much emphasis on the sexual aspect of Eva and Gideon’s relationship. The fact that Sylvia Day put so much emphasis on the sexual aspect of Eva and Gideon’s relationship throughout the series is, in my opinion, the Crossfire series’ greatest flaw.

All things considered, One with You is unfortunately an extremely frustrating and disappointing end to the Crossfire series, which I already thought was a book series that was for the most part extremely disappointing, and at times outright bad. While I really like Eva as a character, looking back on the series, I really can’t help but feel like Gideon was an incredibly hit or miss character for me. Sometimes I liked Gideon, and I thought that he was a really intriguing character that I wanted to learn more about; but the majority of the time, he just frustrated and annoyed me. That was especially the case with One with You. Plus, I ultimately just can’t get behind Eva and Gideon’s relationship for many reasons that I hope I’ve made clear in this review, as well as my reviews for all of the other books in the series. As I said earlier, Cary is definitely my favorite character in the series, so I naturally really enjoyed all of the scenes that he was in throughout One with You.

Personally, I wish that Sylvia Day had fleshed out Cary’s subplot with Tatiana being pregnant, supposedly with his baby, as well as the problems that it created for Cary’s relationship with Trey more than she did. I also really wish that Sylvia Day provided some actual resolution for Cary’s whole subplot, as well as the subplot involving Corinne trying to publish a tell-all book about her relationship with Gideon; instead of leaving those subplots, as well as various other plot details, unresolved. I have to say, that after being repeatedly disappointed by Sylvia Day’s writing for the Crossfire series, I don’t really have any interest in reading any of the other books that Day has written in the past, or any books that she may write in the future.

With all that said, my final score for One with You is 1 out of 10, and my final score for the Crossfire series in its entirety is 4.1 out of 10. For the record, my final score for the Crossfire series, in its entirety, was determined by averaging my scores for all five books in the series. Here are my individual scores for the first four books in the series, along with links to my reviews for those books in case you’re interested in reading those reviews.

Bared to You: 8 out of 10
Reflected in You: 5 out of 10
Entwined with You: 4.5 out of 10
Captivated by You: 2 out of 10

No comments :