Disappointing DNF's

  

• Love Waltzes In, Alana Albertson
• Kerr: Alien Mates Book 2, Ashley L. Hunt
• Forbidden Desire, S.J. Mullins

Bret seems so strong and admirable and then he becomes so judgmental about almost everyone. It makes me doubt his heart and how deep his goodness actually goes. He has noble reasons for doing what he's doing but how can such a man be such a jerk about others and what they feel is important or valid?

I don't really like Selena's character. She's obsessed with winning and says sacrificing Bret was super hard but I don't actually feel her sincerity and I'm not convinced of it. Dima is creepy and sleazy and justifying her dance partnership to the man Selena left so callously does nothing to endear her to me. And the stuff about paying her mom back I feel is a total cop out. From what we know of her mother she did all she did willingly and Selena has more than monetarily paid her back. Perhaps just being honest and heartfelt in her gratitude and the way she lives her life will be enough to pay her mother back. Serious humility will be needed and I don't see any of that in Selena so far. It'll take something huge for me to like her or raise my rating.

Well, really, it'll take some insane curiosity for me to go back to finishing this book because I stopped at chapter 13 and don't really feel like going back to it just yet. I have some ideas for things she hints about regarding the reasoning for sending Bret the Dear John letter so maybe the curiosity about that will be the impetus to go back and finish the story...  2 stars.

I read about 10 chapters and gave up. Female lead is naive while trying to assert her strength, intelligence, independence, and individuality the same way a 15 year old asserts she's all grown up. The voice used by the MC's is simplistic to a fault and grates on my nerves while reading. It sounds like a poorly written YA fantasy novel.

Then there's the misogyny of all the men introduced thus far. Sure Kerr says he wants to change things, but his own thoughts dispute those words he uses to placate his little miss, and then he tries to say that he tolerates his father's views because he's the king and he won't say anything against him. Sucky excuses if you ask me. And I didn't really care about the submission thing, sometimes that works for a relationship, here it was forced in many ways. Honestly, there's a lot more wrong with Kerr than his opinion of women, but I kind of don't even care to list and describe them. I'm just done with the book.

The whole beginning is terribly disappointing and I usually kind of like this author. The story probably got a lot better and the characters probably redeem themselves for their worthlessness in the beginning but I was so disgusted I just gave up. I didn't finish the book. The first 10 chapters were difficult to stomach and I didn't want to keep reading to find out if it was going to get better. So, readers beware! This author is usually really good so this might just be a fluke or my loss by not completing it.  1 star.

So I actually finished this story and it doesn't exactly fit with this post title of DNF's.  It was however, a truly disappointing story that I really don't want to devote an entire post to so here it is, bundled with these other tales of lackluster writing.  If you like gratuitous sex with pretty much everyone but the main romantic interest and almost zero redeeming human qualities, this book is for you. For me? Not so much.

I thought the blurb was great, hinting at a billionaire with a soul who gets a second chance with someone who could remind him that his heart truly beats and he's more than his bank account. And that maybe this wouldn't be about how many women he could screw because he's the world's greatest gift with an awesome c**k. Sadly, I was so very wrong. For someone who's supposed to be a great designer who continually churns out designs we see him do literally zero designing. He's also clueless, inconsistent, and had more potential in the beginning flashback chapters than any other moment in the entire book. Even the confessions were subpar. 

Holly was snarky and temperamental and good at her job. But she was relatively uninteresting.

James was great, David's mom was good, Marc was an interesting addition (though a distraction from the story that I wish were brought up more often so I could get a break from reading about David's frequent bedroom gymnastics). Aside from that, I had no love for what I read. Honestly, I couldn't be made to believe in a lasting HEA when practically 75% of the book is David's sexual conquests. Really, nothing much could trick me into believing David was a mythical spot-changing leopard. Oh, but he used condoms, so that's one in the overwhelmingly empty plus column for him.  1 star.