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

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.

Captivated by You: Gee, I really wish I could say that I was “captivated” by this book, but… (My thoughts on book #4 in the Crossfire series by Sylvia Day)

Let me start out by saying that originally I wasn’t planning to read and review Captivated by You any time soon. However, I ultimately decided to go ahead and read it now because I wanted to have a book to read while I was working on my review for the second book in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, Scarlet. Since my reviews for Bared to You, Reflected in You, and Entwined with You, have all gotten a lot of page views and the fifth and final book in the Crossfire series, One with You, will be coming out in a few weeks, I decided that now would be a good time to read and review Captivated by You; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I unfortunately hated this book for the most part. If you’ve read my review for Emma Chase’s book Appealed, the main problem that I’ve had with this series as a whole, but especially when it comes to Entwined with You, is that it really feels like Sylvia Day is trying to cram as many sex scenes into the books as she possibly can, at the expense of having good character and story development in the books. I wish that I could say she did a better job of providing character and story development in this book, and to be fair, she did in some ways, which I’ll get to later; but for the most part, believe it or not, the whole issue of Day focusing more on having lots of sex scenes in the Crossfire series than she is on having good character and story development is even worse in Captivated by You.

Honestly, there are so many sex scenes throughout the book that the writing for Captivated by You as a whole felt extremely repetitive in the end. Despite the fact that the sex scenes are pretty steamy and well written, they actually become rather boring after a while due to the high number of sex scenes in the book. The way this book is written, it’s like Sylvia Day was thinking about the expression, “sex sells” as she was writing it, and she just went completely and totally overboard when it came to incorporating sex scenes into Captivated by You. If I had been reading a physical copy of the book instead of listening to the audiobook version like I did, there’s a really good chance that I would have started skimming through the sex scenes after a while. I think if I had done that, I might have been able to read this entire book in just a day or two, because that’s how many sex scenes there are in this book.

I’ll give Sylvia Day credit for not making Eva and Gideon’s relationship feel like one giant never ending angst fest in this book like I feel she has in the past, especially when it comes to Reflected in You. Eva and Gideon did seem happier together in this book compared to how they’ve been other times in the past. Plus, it was definitely interesting to see them deal with the fact that they’re secretly already married, while everybody else thinks that they’re currently just engaged and in the process of planning their wedding. However, the fact that Eva and Gideon are constantly having sex with each other really made me question how much depth their relationship actually has. The way Eva and Gideon act with each other most of the time makes it seem like they can’t be alone together for more than five minutes without them having sex. That really makes me wonder if their relationship really has what it takes to last for the rest of their lives. After all, once they’re old, their sex drive could quite possibly diminish, or it might become physically challenging for them to have sex with each other. If that were to happen, I honestly don’t know what they would do when they’re spending time together since sex has always been such a huge part of their relationship.

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.