Entwined with You: Oh, for the love of God! Do Eva and Gideon ever stop having sex? (My thoughts on Book #3 in the Crossfire book series by Sylvia Day)

Let me start off by saying that I really went back and forth on trying to decide when I would read and review Sylvia Day’s Entwined with You since it was a book that I was very interested in reviewing given the fact that I had already reviewed Bared to You and Reflected in You, I really enjoyed them, and my reviews for both of those books have gotten a lot of page views. Plus, it has been somewhat of a goal of mine to review both this book and the fourth book in the Crossfire series, Captivated by You, by the time the fifth and final book in the series, One with You, is released on April 5^th. That’s definitely going to be coming up before we know it, so I decided to go ahead and listen to the audiobook version of Entwined with You this past weekend; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that while my feelings about Reflected in You were definitely mixed, my feelings regarding Entwined with You are very, very, very mixed. One of the things that bothered me the most about Reflected in You is the fact that there was so much drama and angst going on between Eva and Gideon in that book, and the story itself was rather lacking when it came to there being truly happy and romantic moments between them, which really made me question whether or not I should actually be rooting for Eva and Gideon’s relationship to work out. Fortunately, I feel like Sylvia Day did a somewhat better job of including, or least trying to include, enough moments between Eva and Gideon in Entwined with You that showed me why I should root for them as a couple.

While I do think that Sylvia Day does a better job of showing why the reader should be rooting for Eva and Gideon in this book, reading this book makes me think that Day’s idea of including lots of happy moments between Eva and Gideon in the books is to have them have lots and lots and lots of sex with each other, all the time. Reading this book made me feel like when Day was writing this book, she must have thought about the expression “sex sells”, and decided to cram as many sex scenes into this book as she possibly could, and just went completely super duper ultra mega overboard with how much sex is featured in this book. I get that the Crossfire series is considered erotica, but I still think there needs to be an actual plot and some subplots as well in erotic novels. Sure, there were definitely quite a few sex scenes in Bared to You and Reflected in You, but there were still plenty of clearly defined plots and subplots in those books.

When it comes to Entwined with You, I feel like there are so many sex scenes in this book that it kind of feels like the concept of having a clearly defined plot for the book was sacrificed as a result of there being so much sex in this book. I’m kind of tempted to make jokes about how trying to describe the overall plot of this book is a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I think that would be a bit of an exaggeration. If I had to say what the plot of this book is about, I’d say that this book mainly focuses on Eva and Gideon trying to move past what happened in Reflected in You, with Gideon killing Nathan so he wouldn’t be able to hurt Eva again. However, their entire plan for how they would gradually publicly get back together seemed awfully convoluted to me.

Divergent: I finally read this book, but did it live up to my expectations? Well… (My thoughts on book #1 in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth)

Let me start off by saying that the Divergent book series is a book series that I’ve really wanted to read and was really excited about for quite a while. I went into reading Divergent full of excitement and anticipation. Unfortunately, I ended up being very disappointed by this book.

One of the biggest problems that this book suffers from is a serious lack of world building. As I was reading this book, I kept waiting and hoping for Roth to provide some backstory for what happened that prompted their society to develop the social structure that they have with the five different factions: Abnegation (The Selfless), Dauntless (The Brave), Erudite (The Intelligent), Amity (The Peaceful), and Candor (The Honest). Also, how was it decided what the core values of each faction would be? There are some vague comments throughout the book about a war that happened at some point in the past, but it’s never fully explored or explained.

As I said in my reviews for Abigail Barnette’s books First Time (Ian’s Story) and First Time (Penny’s Story), it really bothered me that Barnette didn’t really provide a truly good explanation for why Penny had been waiting to lose her virginity in “Ian’s Story”. The explanation for that part of Penny’s backstory that was given in “Penny’s Story” ended up being very stupid and rather vague, which led to it also being incredibly frustrating and disappointing. I mention that only because much like the lack of a good backstory and explanation for something that played a huge role in the story hurt both versions of First Time, the lack of world building, backstory and depth behind each of the five factions really hurts Divergent as a whole.

Unfortunately for Divergent, the writing suffers a lot more due to its lack of backstory and world building since the book’s biggest flaws have to do with the key aspects of the story rather than being things that would be easier to forgive when it comes to any weaknesses that a story may have. Personally, I think the existence of good world building and thoroughly establishing backstory is especially important in books involving elements of fantasy or societies that are very different from the society we live in today. If an author neglects to give their characters and the plot a good and well written backstory, then the book really faces an uphill battle when it comes to being able to impress and entertain people, in my opinion.

There’s nothing quite like a boatload of teen angst and crappy parents to make a good story (My thoughts on 99 Days by Katie Cotugno)

Let me start out by saying that while 99 Days by Katie Cotugno has been on the list of books that I’ve wanted to read for several months now, I originally wasn’t planning to review it any time soon. However, I was feeling bad about the fact that it took me so long to read First Time (Penny’s Story) by Abigail Barnette and write my review for the book; not to mention the fact that I’m currently in the process of reading A Game of Thrones. That’s definitely taking me a while since it’s: A) A very long book compared to all of the other books that I’ve reviewed so far B) I’ve been trying to do some research on the A Song of Ice and Fire book series to help me with writing my review, and C) I’m also trying to watch at least some of the first season of Game of Thrones before I write my review for the book and post it.

I’m definitely putting a lot more time and work into my whole process for reading A Game of Thrones and writing my review for that book than I have for all of my other book reviews at this point in time. Obviously, taking a break from reading A Game of Thrones for several days in order to read and review 99 Days is counterproductive to my finishing A Game of Thrones, but I really was feeling bad about not having reviewed more books by this point in time. I decided to read and review 99 Days now, because I figured that it would be a quick and enjoyable book to read and review; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I definitely have mixed feelings about 99 Days. On the one hand, I felt like the story was rather cliché in some ways, and there were times when the whole Gabe/Molly/Patrick love triangle that 99 Days was centered around was a little exasperating. The backstory of what happened before Molly left town, and what things were like for her throughout most of the book reminded me a lot of Gossip Girl and the way the show began. If you’ve never watched Gossip Girl, it’s a teen drama about teenagers that pretty much all live on the Upper East Side of New York City. The show began with Serena returning to the Upper East Side from her self-imposed exile under somewhat mysterious circumstances. She originally left the Upper East Side after she slept with Nate, who was her best friend, Blair’s, boyfriend, and things weren’t smooth sailing when she first returned. Going back to 99 Days, because the backstory between Molly, Gabe and Patrick reminded me of Gossip Girl in some ways, I felt like the book was kind of lacking in originality. While 99 Days wasn’t the most original story in the world, it was still a very enjoyable book. Plus, Molly is a pretty likable protagonist for the most part, even though she did frustrate me at times.