Book review: Some Sort of Crazy by Melanie Harlow

Some Sort of Crazy by Melanie Harlow

Series: Happy Crazy Love #2

Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: November 17, 2015
Source: Kindle Freebie

When a psychic tells Natalie Nixon her life is about to be upended by a mysterious stranger, she laughs it off. After all, she has everything she’s ever wanted—a successful bakery, the perfect boyfriend, and the keys to her dream house.

Who could possibly make her want to throw all that away?

Then Miles Haas comes back to town.

But he’s no stranger—they’ve known each other since high school. Plus, he’s only around for the summer, he’s still a shameless playboy, and he makes a living writing articles for a men’s magazine with titles like ‘Should You Bang the Boss’s Daughter? A Flowchart’ and ‘Butt Stuff for Beginners: A Field Guide.’

He’s not the man of her dreams, and she’s not about to abandon everything she’s worked so hard for just for a little fun. Except he makes her laugh like no one else, smells like heaven, and looks sexy as hell in those panty-melting glasses.

Melanie Harlow is one of my favorite romance authors, and, since I’ve been in a bit of a slump recently, I thought I’d read some of her backlist to get back on track. I read If You Were Mine and really, really enjoyed it. Then I picked up Some Sort of Crazy and just… didn’t. Where did this one go wrong? I think it was a lot of little things more than anything else.

To start, I’m going to talk about the whole premise of the book. I thought that I would really enjoy a book about a woman who gets out of a ten-year dead-end relationship. Even better that she gets together with a childhood friend because we all know that friends-to-lovers is my absolute favorite trope. But something about the way this was executed, with lots of years of pining despite a long-term relationship and the heroine quite literally jumping into bed with a new guy mere hours after ending things with someone else just rubbed me the wrong way.

The second thing I want to talk about is the language. I don’t have a problem with dirty talk, I’ve read countless erotic novels, and even if something’s not my thing personally, I don’t really judge what other people are doing. But one thing I can’t get over in a romance novel is the hero referring to the heroine as a slut. I know that’s something that people are legitimately into, but it makes me cringe every time. Regardless of how sweet the rest of the book might be, once the hero starts calling the heroine a slut, I’m done. It’s just not sexy at all to me. I almost didn’t want to finish this book because it bothered me so much.

Finally, I want to mention the lack of plot. I’ve found that most Melanie Harlow books kind of lose track of the plot in favor of lots of sex for a good chunk in the middle, and I don’t really have a problem with that. I know what I’m getting into when I read one of her books. The problem is that in this book, I don’t really think she got the plot back until the very end, and even then, it was just… kind of convenient? No spoilers, but it ended with one of my least favorite plot twists and I didn’t necessarily feel like the resolution was in character for the hero.

I think Melanie Harlow is a great writer, but this book just wasn’t for me. Despite that, I’m still looking forward to reading the rest of her books that I have on my shelf.

Previously: Frenched • Some Sort of Happy • If You Were Mine • Man Candy

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Have you read Some Sort of Crazy? Has one of your favorite authors ever disappointed you?
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