Nothing says “romance” quite like two people pretending to be engaged to each other (My thoughts on Big Rock by Lauren Blakely)

At the risk of starting this review on a bit of a tangent, I have to say that my overall experience with reading the book Big Rock by Lauren Blakely was radically different from my experience with reading Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling’s Career of Evil. What made my experience with reading Big Rock so different from my experience with reading Career of Evil is the fact that as I talked about in my review for Career of Evil, I started out absolutely loving the book and thinking that it was perhaps the best book yet in the Cormoran Strike series, only to eventually become very frustrated with the book at times the more I read it, and eventually I came to the conclusion that it’s my least favorite book in the series. When it comes to Big Rock on the other hand, I instantly fell in love with the book as soon as I started reading it, and I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end. I actually loved Big Rock so much that I ended up listening to the entire audiobook version of the book in less than a day. I just couldn’t bring myself to stop listening to it until I finished the book.

That being said, as much as I loved Big Rock, it’s definitely far from perfect, if you ask me. As far as I’m concerned, this book’s single greatest flaw is that it definitely felt rather cliché and lacking in originality in a lot of ways. The entire time I was reading this book, I kept thinking that Lauren Blakely isn’t really offering anybody anything truly new with this book. As I was reading Big Rock, I kept thinking that this book is very similar to a lot romantic comedies that I’ve watched over the years, namely Just Friends and The Proposal, as well as numerous romance novels that I’ve read over the years, namely Emma Chase’s Tangled series and the first book in her Legal Briefs series, Overruled.

For the record, I love both of those movies, and I’m a huge fan of Emma Chase’s books, so it’s not like this book was reminding me of movies and books that I don’t like. This book actually reminded me of a lot of different things that I really love, which definitely made Big Rock a real feel good book for me personally. I simply feel like I do need to acknowledge that this book is rather cliché in some ways. That being said, I imagine that it’s probably very challenging for writers to write books that are a part the romance genre, since the romance genre as a whole is definitely a genre that’s full of clichés that numerous writers use for their books. It’s also a genre that in my opinion is rather lacking in originality when it comes to the premise of the majority of the romance novels that are currently out there, which is why I can’t entirely fault Lauren Blakely for Big Rock being rather cliché in some ways.

Speaking of Emma Chase’s books, one of the main things that convinced me to buy the audiobook version of Big Rock and read it is the fact that it’s narrated by Sebastian York, who narrated the audiobook versions of Tangled, the epilogue of Twisted, Tied, and the short stories “Holy Frigging Matrimony” and “It’s a Wonderful Tangled Christmas Carol”. He also narrated the second book in Emma Chase’s Legal Briefs series, Sustained, which is the next book I’ll be reviewing.

Overruled: Good news, Everybody! Emma Chase is back with a new book series, and I couldn’t be happier. :) (My thoughts on Book #1 in The Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

Right off the bat, I have to say that I really wish that I had read Overruled a lot sooner. I got it on Amazon as soon as it was released back in April of 2015, but I didn’t read it until now. That being said, I loved this book so much that I ended up listening to the entire audiobook version of Overruled in less than a day when I read it this past Tuesday. I immediately got sucked into the story, and I quickly became determined to finish the book before I went to bed that night. I’ve seen a number of people who do book reviews on YouTube describe various books as being “book crack” before, and I’d definitely say that this book was definitely “book crack” for me. A line that I’ve used in the past to describe my enjoyment of various books is, “This book is more addictive than cigarettes”, and this is definitely a book that I would use that description to describe what I thought of it.

Emma Chase has definitely become one of my favorite authors, and one of the main reasons why she has become one of my favorite authors is due to the fact that a lot of her books are written at least partially, if not entirely, from the guy’s point of view. That’s one of the reasons why I say Chase’s writing has often felt really fresh to me. Writing romance novels from the guy’s point of view isn’t something that I saw writers doing with romance novels until I discovered Emma Chase’s Tangled series. I’ve been a huge fan of romance novels for years, but there’s no denying that it’s a genre that’s full of clichés and is rather lacking in originality. By writing a lot of her books from the guy’s point of view, I feel like Chase is really offering people something new.

Being a guy, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t fit the target audience for romance novels, but I still love them. I’ve always been a real sucker for romance novels and movies that are romantic comedies, because I’ve definitely always been a bit of a hopeless romantic. However, when it comes to Emma Chase’s books and the fact that she has written quite a few books from the guy’s point of view, it really makes it easier for me personally to relate the protagonists of her books compared to a lot of the protagonists of other romance novels out there. Plus, I feel like she really does a great job of capturing the way men think with her writing.

When it comes to the overall writing for the book, I love this book almost as much as I loved Tangled, which is definitely my favorite book in the Tangled series. If you’d like to read my review for Tangled, you can read that here. That being said, despite the fact that I didn’t like this book quite as much as I loved Tangled, I’m not sure that I would call Tangled “book crack” for me personally. I didn’t get so sucked into it that I decided to devote almost an entire day pretty much just to reading Tangled like I did with this book; that being said, there’s probably always going to be a special place in my heart for Tangled. 

Tangled: Hey, Everybody! Do you want to read a story about two guys getting into a catfight over a woman? If you do, then this story is definitely for you (My thoughts on the short story “Holy Frigging Matrimony” by Emma Chase)

As I said in my review of Tied (My thoughts on Tied), that book really left a bad taste in my mouth to the point where it made me feel like I needed to take a break from reading the Tangled series before I would read and review “Holy Frigging Matrimony”. Honestly, I was originally going to wait a little while longer before I read and review this story. Pretty much the only reason that I decided to review it now is because I wanted to listen to something on my iPod while I vacuumed my basement the other day, so I figured that listening to “Holy Frigging Matrimony” would be a good choice since it’s a short story; that being said, here are my thoughts on the story.

Going into this story, I was really hoping that Emma Chase would be able to redeem both herself and Drew as a character at least a little bit after the extremely disappointing Tied. I recently discovered that Emma Chase has read the reviews that I’ve written for each book in the Tangled series, so I’ve honestly been very nervous to write this review. The reason why I’ve been pretty nervous to write this review is because unfortunately, I don’t think that there’s a lot to like about “Holy Frigging Matrimony”.

The story itself is rather pointless in my opinion. Drew, Kate and their friends are all going to a celebration for the second wedding that Matthew and Dee were having since they had eloped in Vegas at the end of Tamed, which had apparently devastated Matthew’s mother since she wasn’t able to see her only son get married. At the risk of sounding really shallow, my favorite part of the story was definitely the sex scene between Drew and Kate at the beginning of the story. Despite the fact that the Tangled series wouldn’t be considered erotica and the Fifty Shades trilogy is considered erotica, I honestly think that the sex scenes in the Tangled series are a lot steamier and written a lot better too.  Admittedly, I thought that Drew pouring his mimosa on Kate’s breasts was kind of hot. However, I thought the fact that he also poured some of his drink on Kate’s crotch during the sex scene was kind of gross though.

For the record, the sex scenes in the Tangled series aren’t the reason why I’ve read all of the books. The main reason why I decided to read and review each of the books in the Tangled series is because I’ve been a huge fan of romance novels and romantic comedies for many, many years. Plus, the fact that the Tangled series was written primarily from the guy’s point of view was really appealing to me as a reader since it’s something that I hadn’t seen before when it comes to romance novels. As much as I love romance novels, there’s no denying that it’s a genre that’s often full of clichés and severely lacking originality. By writing the series primarily from a guy’s point of view, I feel like Emma Chase has offered fans of romance novels something new with the Tangled series.