Beautiful Bastard #1
Christina Lauren
February 12th, 2013
Gallery Books
320 pages
Arc provided by Gallery Books via Netgalley for an honest review.
Amazon/Book Depository/B&N
An ambitious intern.
A perfectionist executive.
And a whole lot of name calling.
Whip-smart, hardworking, and on her way to an MBA, Chloe Mills has only one problem: her boss, Bennett Ryan. He's exacting, blunt, inconsiderate—and completely irresistible. A Beautiful Bastard.
Bennett has returned to Chicago from France to take a vital role in his family's massive media business. He never expected that the assistant who'd been helping him from abroad was the gorgeous, innocently provocative—completely infuriating—creature he now has to see every day. Despite the rumors, he's never been one for a workplace hookup. But Chloe's so tempting he's willing to bend the rules—or outright smash them—if it means he can have her. All over the office.
As their appetites for one another increase to a breaking point, Bennett and Chloe must decide exactly what they're willing to lose in order to win each other.
Originally only available online as The Office by tby789—and garnering over two million reads on fan fiction sites—Beautiful Bastard has been extensively updated for re-release.
I've been thinking about how to rate this book for the past week.
Sure, it delivers what you'd expect. But after a recent conversation with a friend, is that what we really want in a book? Fan fiction is there to be fanfiction, an escape where you can make characters who aren't otherwise having sex, have sex. Or, if they aren't having sex how you'd like it, you can put them in that situation. You can yell, "NOW KISS," as much as you want as you smash their heads together with your prose in a bliss of word vomit.
If I wanted porn with barely any plot, I'd read fanfiction. Publishing it doesn't make it better. Publishing it doesn't make the sex every chapter any hotter or more distinguishable from the sex in the following chapters. There is a reason why there is a formula for romance novels. Some people want build up, plot, character development. And when they don't? The internet has plenty of places to go for fanfiction.
That being said, as a romance novel this book misses the mark in so many ways. The characters are flat, the setting is flat, the sweeping romantic comedy ending almost made me puke in my mouth a little.
As fanfiction, this piece is pure gold. I'm not in the Twilight fandom, but imagine any other fandom AU with screaming and yelling and hot make-up sex. That's pretty awesome. Were this one of my ships, it'd be a glorious escape from realism that would leave me giddy.
This book was seriously hard to review. What merit do I review it on? It would honestly get two different numbers in the vastly different categories.
And so my review ends, leaving me as frustrated as when I began writing it.
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