Studious college student Ali knows what she wants out of life. She wants to be successful. She wants to live her own life without relying on her screwed up family’s money. And most of all, she wants her sister’s bodyguard, Scott. And Scott wants her, but he’ll never say it. That would be all levels of inappropriate. But with Ali’s determination to get under his skin, how long can he hold out?
This was… okay. I mean, it’s not like I expected a book entitled Booty Call to be groundbreaking or anything. It’s some fluff, and I’m totally fine with that. Sometimes that’s what I need. And, all-in-all, this book was pretty well-written. I’ve certainly read worse. I just wasn’t that great, either.
The plot is fine. I can go for a good forbidden romance. I don’t see why Scott was so hung up on their 14 year age difference rather than the fact that Ali’s family employs him. The tension that built up between them before Scott finally gave in was great. I thought I was really going to enjoy the book.
And it wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t great. There were little smidgens of issues that I had throughout the first 75% or so, but nothing really terrible. One thing I will mention is that I feel like I really missed something by not reading Hate F*@k first. I know that supposedly this is a standalone, but there were a lot of references to Ali’s family that I didn’t really understand and that weren’t really expanded upon, so it seemed to me like she was overreacting a lot of the time. (Particularly in the main conflict of the book, when she confronts Scott in London and throws a glorified temper tantrum.) That’s when my opinion of the book went from “this is fine” to “yikes.”
Here’s the big thing – and feel free to stop here if you want to avoid some minor spoilers – Scott never really did anything wrong. So he didn’t go into his full life story with Ali. He’s supposed to apologize for that? The girl constantly reminded him that she wasn’t looking for anything serious. Even when he pushed her for more, even a date or two, she reminded him that he was just a booty call. So, I’m sorry, where does she get off throwing a temper tantrum upon finding out that a 34-year-old man has had previous relationships? He didn’t cheat on her. He didn’t lie to her. Does he need to apologize for living his life before he met her? It all feels a bit hypocritical.
I’m not really convinced that these two would last. Sure, they have chemistry. But a relationship needs more than chemistry to survive, and I think it’s fairly telling that the epilogue is such a short length of time after the story ends.
I do have Hate F*@k somewhere in my Kindle library, so I’ll pull that out at some point and see if it gives me any insight on why these characters acted the way they did.
Final rating: ★★★☆☆ (really more of a 2.5)
The Bibliophagist 