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.

Hey, Everybody! Have you ever wondered what Jean Louise “Scout” Finch would be like as an adult? Well, you’re about to find out. (My thoughts on Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee)

Let me start of by saying that originally I was planning to wait a while before I was going to read and review Go Set a Watchman. However, much like J.R. Ward’s The Bourbon Kings, I was simply too excited to wait until I got to the point on my reading list/schedule where I had originally planned on reading and reviewing Go Set a Watchman to read it. Plus, I kept coming across other people who were talking about the book, especially my Facebook friends, and seeing them all talk about the book really made me want to know what they were talking about, so I decided to go ahead and read the book now.

I should probably mention that I decided to read To Kill a Mockingbird again in preparation for reading and reviewing Go Set a Watchman after reading a lot of comments from my Facebook friends where they talked about how they thought that Go Set a Watchman felt like a rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. I hadn’t read To Kill a Mockingbird since I was in the ninth grade, and I was either 15 or 16 years old at that time. I’m 28 now, so I definitely needed a refresher on the book. I’m really glad that I decided to do that because as I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird again, I realized that I remembered next to none of the details about the actual plot of To Kill a Mockingbird. What I remembered the most about To Kill a Mockingbird over the years were the themes and moral lessons that were explored in the book; that being said, here are my thoughts on Go Set a Watchman.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I have incredibly mixed feelings about Go Set a Watchman. On the one hand, when I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird again, I found myself constantly being annoyed by Jean-Louise “Scout” Finch, but I absolutely loved seeing the person that she had become as an adult in Go Set a Watchman. I’m going to go right ahead and say that I’ll be referring to her as Jean-Louise in this review, because I felt like the characters rarely called her “Scout” in the book, she’s an adult in this book, and “Scout” really does seem like a childhood nickname to me.

What I liked the most about Jean-Louise in Go Set a Watchman is that she really came across as being an incredibly strong-willed young woman, but she still had a vulnerable side to her, which is something that I really appreciate about this book. The way she was written in Go Set a Watchman felt very consistent with how she was written as a child in To Kill a Mockingbird, while also showing how she’s grown and matured now that she’s an adult. It would have felt rather disappointing if she was written in such a way that made her seem like a completely different person in this book. However, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought that Jean-Louise was rather annoying at times in To Kill a Mockingbird when I was reading it again. The thing that made Jean-Louise seem really annoying to me at times in To Kill a Mockingbird is that while I really liked that she was strong-willed child, her strong-willed and assertive nature often times made her come across as a major brat who was prone to throwing temper tantrums. I felt like that aspect of Jean-Louise’s personality was handled a lot better in Go Set a Watchman though.

Reflected in You: Get ready, everybody, because you’re about to board the Eva Tramell and Gideon Cross angst train (My thoughts on Book #2 in the Crossfire book series by Sylvia Day)

Since I really enjoyed the first book in Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series (Bared to You) and my review of the book appears to have been very popular with people, I decided to read and review the second book in the series, Reflected in You. Unfortunately, I have to say that while I did enjoy this book, I found it to be a pretty disappointing follow-up to Bared to You.

Right off the bat, my biggest problem with Reflected in You is that while I couldn’t help but root for Eva and Gideon’s relationship to work in Bared to You, this book really made me question whether or not their relationship was one that was worth rooting for. The story itself picks up almost immediately where Bared to You, which is something that I really liked about this book. Eva and Gideon are still very happy together, and Cary is dealing with the aftermath of Eva and Gideon walking in on his orgy.

However, that happiness seemed to end pretty suddenly and fairly early on in the book, and things just took a pretty angst-ridden and dramatic turn for Eva and Gideon’s relationship for essentially the rest of the book. While I usually think that having plenty of drama in a story is good thing when it comes to writing a relationship for a TV show or in this case, a book series, because it keeps things interesting; this book was so full of angst and drama that it honestly left me questioning whether or not I should be rooting for Eva and Gideon’s relationship to work out.

That being said, I’m really glad Eva and Gideon are both people who recognize that they have some major emotional baggage and issues, and that they are at least trying to deal with those issues instead of being completely blind and in total denial about their problems, both as a couple and as individuals. While they both see Dr. Petersen individually, I have to question how seriously they were taking couple’s therapy. After all, despite the fact that Dr. Petersen suggests that the role that sex plays in their relationship, mainly when they’re having some kind of argument, is doing more harm to their relationship than good; that didn’t even prompt them to consider that maybe they should take a break from having sex with each other.

It wasn’t until after they had broken up as far as Eva was concerned that she realized that taking a break from their relationship had been a good thing for her personally. However, I really have to question how seriously Gideon was taking therapy since he apparently didn’t show up for several of his appointments with Dr. Petersen. Sure, I suppose Gideon unexpectedly bailing on his sessions with Dr. Petersen could have possibly been a calculated move on his part when it came to his plan to kill Nathan, which involved making it look like he had broken up with Eva and gotten back together with his ex, Corrine, but I still have my doubts about how seriously Gideon was taking therapy. I’m really hoping that Sylvia Day will touch upon this in the third book in Crossfire series (Entwined in You).

Tamed: Hold on tight, Matthew! You've just boarded the crazy train (My thoughts on Book #3 in the Tangled book series by Emma Chase)

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.