Helpful Score: 4
Considering the phenomenal "professional" reviews (from critics and bloggers) I am a little bit stunned to report that this book is absolutely terrible. I've read books that were well-received that I was disappointed in but this...this book's only saving grace is that there are no glaring grammatical errors.
Fitz is a spoiled manchild who spends eight years punishing everyone around him because he chose to marry money instead of running off with his "true love". He sleeps with other women, even while on a special birthday vacation trip with Millie, doesn't hesitate to spend the money he married her for, never hesitating to remind everyone around him what a martyr he is, and as soon as Isabelle is available again he rushes off to start a life with her. Neither he nor Isabelle are evil. They're simply self-absorbed, self-pitying, lazy, and uninteresting.
A good example would be the painful to read scene where he and all of his siblings know full good and well that Millie is going to be coming along for a family meet-up soon but even though he knows it will hurt Millie's feelings, he lets Isabelle come along. Never actually does anything to prevent someone he considers a close friend from getting their feelings hurt, just sort of vaguely wishes Isabelle had more discretion and watches everything happen.
I do not require an alpha hero. But I don't know that Fitz even has enough backbone to qualify as a beta.
Ultimately, he basically decided to stay with Millie because it was easier but he did no groveling, there was no major realization, nothing that made for a fulfilling scene that made all the dramatic reading before worthwhile. And to the very end he considered Isabelle's feelings just as much as he did Millie's.
It was excruciating to read from beginning to end.
Fitz is a spoiled manchild who spends eight years punishing everyone around him because he chose to marry money instead of running off with his "true love". He sleeps with other women, even while on a special birthday vacation trip with Millie, doesn't hesitate to spend the money he married her for, never hesitating to remind everyone around him what a martyr he is, and as soon as Isabelle is available again he rushes off to start a life with her. Neither he nor Isabelle are evil. They're simply self-absorbed, self-pitying, lazy, and uninteresting.
A good example would be the painful to read scene where he and all of his siblings know full good and well that Millie is going to be coming along for a family meet-up soon but even though he knows it will hurt Millie's feelings, he lets Isabelle come along. Never actually does anything to prevent someone he considers a close friend from getting their feelings hurt, just sort of vaguely wishes Isabelle had more discretion and watches everything happen.
I do not require an alpha hero. But I don't know that Fitz even has enough backbone to qualify as a beta.
Ultimately, he basically decided to stay with Millie because it was easier but he did no groveling, there was no major realization, nothing that made for a fulfilling scene that made all the dramatic reading before worthwhile. And to the very end he considered Isabelle's feelings just as much as he did Millie's.
It was excruciating to read from beginning to end.
Helpful Score: 2
I really wanted to like this book. For once it is the woman in love with a man whose heart belongs to another as oppossed to vica versa. However, it takes the vast majority of the book before the hero even begins to love the woman in return. It took so long that I thought he wanted to be with her because she was already his wife and it was easier for him.
