Group: Women's Fiction
Page Count: 334
Rating: 2.4/10
*Source: Netgalley*
Goodreads Blurb:
Keeping secrets is a horrible way to live. Sloane Davis should know.
She's kept her son a secret from his father for almost a year.
Now, her worst nightmare is coming true. Her ex is re-entering her professional life in the midst of the biggest project of her career. She's about to come face to face with the only man she's ever loved - her son's father.
Gates McCall is a brash man. He hasn't always been this way, but when Sloane walked out on him, something inside him broke. When his company's newest acquisition brings the two of them together once more, little does he know seeing her will bring back a flood of memories, feelings, and an unexpected surprise.
Review:
I have a concrete rule of always finishing a book, no matter how hard it is. This book is one of the only times I seriously contemplated breaking that rule at 40% of the book. Yup. Needless to say the blurb is way better than the actual book by a lot.
First of all, let me say this book kinda already set me up to hate it with the third person way it's written. As a reader, I severely dislike that every time. Isn't "I" way better? I mean, you already somehow know everything the person you're writing about is feeling. All you have to do is change the names to "I" and the world would be a better place. I don't know if it's just me but using "I" makes it easier for me to relate to the characters and makes my reading experience way more "I"nteresting.
Second of all, I'm one of those people that base 70% of my impression of the book on the characters, especially the main ones. The main character of the story is Sloane. There's no better way to say this but, she's everything a girl shouldn't be. First, she is so dependent!! Her friendships are basically her friends solving her problems whenever she got into trouble. She basically said so herself to one of her friends. Throughout the whole book, I keep waiting to see what she does for her friends and guess what? Zip, zilch, nada. It's always them helping her! That makes me so frustrated because that is not a friendship. They act like her helper, not her friends. Friendship: a state of mutual trust and support between two people. Key word being mutual. Relying on someone with no payback is not mutual. Don't get me wrong, I am all for friends relying on each other, but if it's one way, those friends really bug me. Especially since Sloane has her own baby. You have to responsible to raise a baby. Not toss your baby to your nearest friends whenever you feel like taking an entourage. So overall, I very severely hate her.
The storyline wasn't so hot either, safe to say that it was icy cold. The whole story is monotone. I was bored out of my mind by 40%. Basically most of the book Sloane is deciding whether or not to tell Cain, the father of the baby, about the baby. About 20 million times. You have no idea how many times in the book you see the sentence:"I was just about to tell him when....". Like seriously? Even the girl who's on her tenth flower saying her hundredth 'he loves me, he loves me not', is more entertaining than Sloane trying to decide. What made the book worse was that I did not find it in myself to care about the character, ergo, I do not care whether she tells or she doesn't.
Besides Sloane, the other main character is Cain. Cain was a pretty good character. Especially with the way the author portrays his inner struggles and his emotions. His past blends in with his present in a way that is fascinating to read despite how predictable he is. He really made me feel the love and hurt he has towards Sloane and each emotion he feels is passive and strong enough that I could relate and sympathise with it. He was the only light in the darkness that is the book.
Overall, I didn't like the book, but it had nothing to make me really hate it. There isn't going to be a second book and I hope the author takes the time to reflect on the book and keep writing.
