#CBR13 Book 14: "Second First Impressions" by Sally Thorne

Page count: 354 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Ruthie Midona is mid-twenties going on old-age pensioner, dressing like a Golden Girls-cosplayer, and has dedicated the last six years of her life to the Providence Luxury Retirement Villa. She doesn't just work the front desk there and go out of her way to make life flow smoothly for the residents, she also lives on-site and hasn't really had any complaints. In her spare time, she cares for the endangered turtles who populate the grounds of the retirement community, having given up on her dreams of becoming a vet because of a lack of funds. The arrival of two new people at Providence, who are both young, vibrant, and exciting in different ways makes Ruthie question her choices. Could there be more to life than just catering to wealthy retirees' every need?

Theodore "Teddy" Prescott has very different plans for his future than his father does. His father is the wealthy property developer who recently bought the Providence Retirement Villa, and he would like nothing more than for his son to one day be part of the family business. Teddy, on the other hand, has spent the last few years mostly living a life of leisure, crashing on the couches of friends, acquaintances and other benevolent guardian angels. He's an artist by nature and wants to save up enough to buy a share in his own tattoo studio. Teddy is tall, handsome, and incredibly charming and generally used to life working out for him. Now that he needs a place to stay, his father makes him get a job at Providence, hoping his son might come to his senses.

Ruthie is the daughter of a minister and only ever had one boyfriend, and a deeply religious one at that. So she doesn't exactly have a lot of experience with men, but even she knows that a man like Teddy is not for her. He may shower her with compliments, but he's obviously going to have very different plans for his future than being a homebody at a retirement home, so while she can practice her flirting on him, she'd do well to stay far away from him romantically. Melanie Sasaki, the temp also working at Providence absolutely agrees. She's beautiful, confident, and stylish, all qualities Ruthie wishes she possessed. Melanie decides to take Ruthie under her wing and help her find lasting love through "The Sasaki Method" a multi-step matchmaking program of Melanie's own making.

It's obvious to both Ruthie and Melanie that Teddy could use some humbling. Since Mr. Prescott wants him to find a job, they introduce him to the elderly and eccentric Parloni sisters, who have had a series of errand boys, none ever surviving a week, due to the absolutely preposterous tasks the old ladies ask them to perform. The wealthy women are bored and devious, and no one expects Teddy to last very long. However, he happily cuts their Big Macs into bite-size pieces, buries unwanted clothing of theirs in the garden, runs their errands, wears whatever they tell him to, and keeps up his cheerful demeanour and charm. 

While Ruthie is fully aware that Teddy seems destined to break her heart, and everyone around her, from the Parlonis to Melanie tells her the same thing, she can't really stay away from him (a task made more difficult since he lives next door to her and the walls are paper-thin). Is Teddy going to mend his roving ways, or is Ruthie doomed to a life of loneliness once he leaves to start his tattoo studio?

The Hating Game is one of my favourite contemporary romances. I adore that book. It may not be perfect, but every single aspect of it works for me. 99 Percent Mine was Sally Thorne's difficult second novel, so eagerly anticipated by everyone, and it was fine. Not awful, not something I regret devoting my time to reading, but also not a book I've ever found myself wanting to re-read. There are very few authors who write books I pretty much without exception adore. I can count them on one hand (probably even if I lost a few fingers). So my expectations should probably have been lower for the follow-up. This is Thorne's third romance, and I'm happy to say that I liked it more than 99 Percent Mine, and I wasn't really expecting to love it as much as The Hating Game. 

There is a lot to like in this book. Ruthie is a wonderful protagonist and I felt for her and the way she'd made herself a safe haven at Providence, unpleasant experiences in her past made it so she barely ever felt comfortable leaving the grounds. Her absolute dedication to her job, or to her favourite TV show in her spare time. Since I moved back to Norway in 2004, I haven't had regular access to a bathtub, and I have to respect and adore a woman whose idea of a good time is nightly soaks. Man, I miss having a bathtub. Anyway, I digress. 

Ruthie is great. Melanie would probably be rather exhausting to work with, but she is a hoot to read about. I would happily read her romance at some point, as well. The Parlonis are also great, although they seem like they might be rather nightmarish as employers. They are apparently a result of Sally Thorne and one of her best friends dreaming up what it would be like if they were wealthy elderly ladies with too much time on their hands. 

Teddy is the weak link here. While he is gorgeous, charming, and quite sensitive, I wasn't entirely convinced he was a good match for Ruthie. Yes, he kept complimenting her, and he worked hard for the Parlonis and made enough money to start his own tattoo studio, but he also seemed quite happy to ingratiate himself into Ruthie's house, eating her food and lounging on her sofa, and I wasn't convinced by his quick turnaround at the end of the book when he's suddenly all in on committing to her. Romances, where I'm not sure the hero is worthy of the heroine, are never going to work fully for me.

Still, your mileage may vary, and I've seen a lot of very enthusiastic reviews of this book. So just because I thought it was merely fine, if more enjoyable than 99 Percent Mine, it doesn't mean it's not going to work better for someone else. 

Judging a book by its cover: I really think the cover designers missed out when portraying these little cartoon people. Frumpy woman, seen from above. Perfectly fine. Turtles, also fine (although at least one of them should have had some sort of red markings on the shell). Guy seen from above - this can't possibly be our hero, who is described as having beautifully rendered ink on his hands and arms - where are the tattoos, cover designer? Where are the tattoos?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 8: "99 Percent Mine" by Sally Thorne

Page count: 368 pages
Audio book length: 11 hrs 23 mins
Rating: 3 stars

From the blurb, because it's now a month and a half since I finished the audio book:

Crush: a strong and often short-lived infatuation, particularly for someone beyond your reach…

Darcy Barrett has undertaken a global survey of men. She’s travelled the world, and can categorically say that no one measures up to Tom Valeska, whose only flaw is that Darcy’s twin brother Jamie saw him first and claimed him forever as his best friend. Despite Darcy’s best efforts, Tom’s off limits and loyal to her brother, 99%. That’s the problem with finding her dream man at age eight and peaking in her photography career at age twenty—ever since, she’s had to learn to settle for good enough.

When Darcy and Jamie inherit a tumble-down cottage from their grandmother, they’re left with strict instructions to bring it back to its former glory and sell the property. Darcy plans to be in an aisle seat halfway across the ocean as soon as the renovations start, but before she can cut and run, she finds a familiar face on her porch: house-flipper extraordinaire Tom’s arrived, he’s bearing power tools, and he’s single for the first time in almost a decade.

Suddenly Darcy’s considering sticking around to make sure her twin doesn’t ruin the cottage’s inherent magic with his penchant for grey and chrome. She’s definitely not staying because of her new business partner’s tight t-shirts, or that perfect face that's inspiring her to pick up her camera again. Soon sparks are flying—and it’s not the faulty wiring. It turns out one percent of Tom’s heart might not be enough for Darcy anymore. This time around, she’s switching things up. She’s going to make Tom Valeska 99 percent hers.

Oh, Sally Thorne. You wrote my absolutely favourite book of 2016, a book I still comfort read every so often. It was always extremely unlikely that your second novel was going to surpass or even match The Hating Game in quality. Sadly, by including a little bonus epilogue for said novel at the end of this one, you just made it even more obvious to me that this book was a sad disappointment. I felt more satisfaction and joy reading that short chapter featuring Lucy and Josh than an entire novel about Darcy and Tom. So, thank you for that extra little glimpse into their world and relationship, but you didn't do yourself any favours.

If that's not become clear already, my expectations for this second romance from Sally Thorne were very high. At least one person I know online managed to score an ARC, and because her comments weren't exactly gushing, I tried to not get my hopes up unreasonably high, but even so, this book was not was I was wanting or hoping for. This is by no means a bad book. To someone who doesn't rate The Hating Game in their top 20 romances of all time (it may even be in the top 10, I haven't re-ranked my romance preferences in quite a few years now), this is probably a perfectly enjoyable and fun little book. I just loved Lucy and Josh and their journey from work foes to lovers so intensely. My reviews are subjective, your mileage may vary.

Unfortunately, to me, this book was merely OK. I struggled with Darcy as a protagonist and I really didn't think Tom was the perfect man, no matter how hard Darcy tried to tell me that he was. I suspect I may have liked both protagonists more if this entire book hadn't been from Darcy's POV (just like Lucy is the only POV character in The Hating Game.). If I had been able to see Darcy through Tom's eyes, and been privy to his thoughts and observations, not just Darcy's, I think the story may have appealed to me more. I generally always prefer the POVs of both sides of the couple in a romance, since it helps me get to know the characters better.

The character I liked the most in the book (barring Darcy and Jamie's now deceased grandmother, who seemed pretty awesome) was Truly, Darcy's best friend. Not sure I liked the reveal late in the story about her and some of the things she kept from Darcy, but she was sweet and interesting, and I would like to read a romance with her as the main character (as long as the love interest was not who it's sort of hinted at here).

While I found Darcy difficult to like, I actively disliked her twin brother Jamie, who is a forceful presence off screen for the first half of the novel and possibly even more annoying and supercilious when he actually appears. The revelation that Darcy's whole family would go off on vacations without her, leaving her with her grandmother, just because she had a heart condition, was just appalling to me. I pretty much hated Darcy's whole family, and cannot believe Tom had so much of his ideas of self and confidence tied up in what Darcy and Jamie, let alone their parents, might think.

While I occasionally read a novel where I find the hero unworthy of the heroine, here I found myself in the opposite situation. Tom would have been vastly better off without Darcy or Jamie in his life. It's been a month and a half since I finished this book, and I still feel sad and disappointed every time I think about the book. I know Ms Thorne suffered from writer's block for a while trying to write this, and it cannot be easy to write a follow-up when your first novel has been so widely embraced by a community as utterly awesome. While this didn't work for me, I also know a lot of people who still enjoyed it. I haven't given up on Sally Thorne, but will try to temper my expectations a bit more with her next novel. I also hope she'll allow herself to include the hero's POV there as well.

Judging a book by its cover: I know it's probably meant to be cute, but I find the almost cartoonish representation of the characters, with their vague and undefined facial and physical features to be a bit annoying. I think a drawn cover can work very well, and these depictions leave more to the imagination about the main characters' physical appearance than a photo would, but this seems almost too impressionistic. I like the cheerful yellow colour, though. That's nice.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 9: "The Hating Game" by Sally Thorne

Page count: 387 pages
Audio book length: 11hrs 29mins
Rating: 5 stars

This is my fourth re-read of The Hating Game, and my original review for the book can be found here. Also this book will contain mild spoilers for the story, so if you haven't read it, drop everything and come back once you have (it's awesome, I promise), you may want to avoid this until then.

It's difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what I find so comforting about this book, but it really does work for me on every level. This was my favourite book of 2016, and I read it three times from early August when it came out until the end of that year. Now, having just had a baby, I spend quite a bit of the dark hours of the night breastfeeding. It's really rather time-consuming and both comforting and rather boring at the same time. As I'm as of yet not really proficient enough to feed my little boy and read on an e-reader (let alone hold a book), having audio books is a blessing, and as I occasionally doze off a bit, it's good to have something familiar and well-known to listen to, rather than something brand new.

As this book is one of my ultimate comfort reads now, it had the honour of being the first audio book I listened to as a mother. Katie Schorr's narration is really good and her voice has now become what I imagine Lucy's must be like. As this was my fourth time through the book, there was nothing really NEW that struck me, except perhaps that Josh really is spectacular and Lucy misses out on so much by not realising sooner 1) just how great he is and 2) that he's madly in love with her.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 94: "The Hating Game" by Sally Thorne

Page count: 384 pages
Audio book length: 11hrs 29mins
Rating: 5 stars

Lucinda "Lucy" Hutton is working her dream job. Well, sort of. Ever since she was a little girl, she wanted to get into the publishing industry, and she's currently assistant to the co-CEO of Bexley & Gamin, two smaller publishing houses with vastly different business ideas, who merged to save both of them. She would love to be more involve in the day to day process of publishing the books, but her boss considers her too indispensable. She is bubbly, charming and well liked by absolutely everyone in the building, with the notable exception of the man who shares her office.

Joshua Templeman is the other co-CEO's assistant and he is pretty much Lucy's polar opposite. Toweringly tall where she is petite. Coldly efficient, rather ruthless, with absolutely no cares about whether his colleagues like him or not. He dresses impeccably and could very well be a physically intimidating robot subsisting on breath mints, as far as Lucy can tell. He is the only one who doesn't seem to like Lucy, and she loathes him right back. All her passwords are variations on how much she hates him. The two spend their many hours in the office playing a series of games, the object of which Lucy thinks is to make the other one crack a smile, or cry. There's the mirror game, where they subtly mirror the other's movements exactly. There's the Staring Game, the "How are you doing?" Game and best of all, the HR game, where they both keep a comprehensive log of the other's infractions.

For all that they seem to spend much of their long work-weeks one upping one another, Lucy cannot deny that Joshua is handsome. She would find it easier if he looked like some sort of warty cave-troll. When the CEOs announce that they are creating a new position, and that they both consider their assistant the best person for the job, the rivalry between Lucy and Josh really escalates. Lucy is determined that she could never have Joshua as her boss, and will resign if she loses. She makes Joshua agree to do the same if she wins. After an afternoon of trading barbs in their new game: "If I were your boss", Lucy has an exceptionally vivid erotic dream involving Josh, and it throws her off. The next day, she dresses intentionally provocatively, making Joshua question whether she has a date.

Unable to let Josh win this new, strange game, Lucy manages to scrounge up a date. That evening, on the way to the bar where Lucy is meeting her date, they share an absolutely scorching kiss in the elevator. Joshua is mortified when he discovers Lucy wasn't in fact lying, and for a while they manage to pretend that nothing happened, but the edge is off a bit in their games. After Lucy pretty much collapses from flu after a company retreat (where they impress the entire company by how fiercely they defend each other during paintball), Joshua spends the next forty-eight hours nursing her back to health. Can Lucy really hate someone who spent so much time taking care of her? Why is Josh so adamant they can never be friends? Could it be because he wants to be more than just Lucy's friend and colleague?

This romance has a perfect example of the "enemies to lovers" trope, or the "I hate you, I hate you, I can't stop thinking about your hair/dress sense/eyes etc". The whole book is narrated from Lucy's POV, but it's obvious when you look for it that Joshua's feelings for Lucy, even early on, are not really antagonistic, just highly reserved and controlled. Based on what we discover later, with regards to his family life, his last romantic relationship and his personality, he's just built a cast-iron shell around himself, never letting any hint of his true feelings for Lucy show. From a family where everyone else is a doctor, he's made himself vastly successful in the business world instead, and he's much too qualified for the job he's doing - staying in a job he detests mainly so he can see Lucy every work day. He despises his boss and doesn't give a fig for the opinion about anyone else in the place, he just wants them to do their jobs efficiently. He despairs at how often Lucy's kindness is taken advantage of by other employees and a lot of his snark is clearly just to try to make her grow more of a back-bone.

Lucy is really a very lonely person. Her mother was a successful journalist until she met Lucy's father and they now run a strawberry farm (that, and the fact that she's tiny, are the reasons Joshua constantly refers to Lucy as "Shortcake" all the time. There is a third reason, but I don't want to reveal exactly why, as it's part of his extremely touching and heart-warming declaration of love at the end of the book), seemingly struggling to make ends meet. Lucy lost her one real friend when Gamin merged with Bexley, as her friend was laid off, and felt that Lucy (despite knowing nothing of it in advance and would have been unable to stop it either way) had nothing to do with it. Her flat is empty and impersonal and she pretty much lives for work. She's not had a romantic relationship for as long as she's worked with Joshua, and even though she asks another colleague (who'll be leaving the company shortly to go free lance), her heart is clearly not in it. After Josh kisses her in the elevator, the day after she had an extremely graphic sex dream about him, she starts to ponder whether her hate is in fact just her fighting her attraction to him.

I pretty much loved this book and read the whole thing in less than 24 hours. It was only released at the beginning of August, but I saw it enthusiastically reviewed on all the various romance review sites that I follow. Because the description reminded me a bit of Act Like It, still one of my favourite romances this year, I determined that I needed to take a break from the Captive Prince trilogy to devour this. As I was reading, I found several similarities. The initially fairly malicious banter turned more affectionate as the couple admits their attraction to one another. The fact that he takes care of her while she's sick. Joshua's fairly dislikable personality (which unlike Richard is actually more of a front to guard his emotions).

As with Act Like It, The Hating Game isn't perfect. I would have liked some more *insert funky bass line here*. I guess that because this is a book published by a mainstream publisher, marketed as more of a romantic comedy than a full-on romance (oh, how I hate that that term is so unfairly stigmatised), they felt that too much smexy times would be inappropriate? I also saw the reveal at the family gathering of Joshua's coming a mile away, and would have preferred to be a little bit more surprised. These are very small niggles, and my first reaction after finishing the book was actually to just start reading it again. Even now, ten days later, I still find myself thinking about it constantly. I've already re-read Act Like It, and might have to re-read this again to try to get it out of my system.

This should absolutely be the next book that a prominent part of the regular Cannonballers reviews. Sadly, this book costs a lot more, but it is totally worth your money. Otherwise, put it on hold at your library ASAP. It's a delightful book and it deserves a wide readership. It's Sally Thorne's first novel, but I will absolutely be keeping a lookout for more books by her. Now if you excuse me, I may have to start re-reading this book from the beginning.

Judging a book by its cover: I like the cover, but it is unlikely that the cover and title alone would have been enough to make me pick up the book if I hadn't seen it raved about on so many different review sites. This is a book published not by one of the major romance publishers, and it's described as a workplace comedy on Goodreads, hence the cover avoids many of the pitfalls so common with other romances. I love that what is basically a straight up romance, with a little bit less smexy times, is being advertised as a romantic comedy in book form. Although it would make a pretty great movie, if they could get the casting right.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.