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The Girl in a Cafe

Loving Books Since Before It Was Cool! All reviews can also be found on my main blog!

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Frigid

Frigid - J Lynn INITIAL REVIEW:All that blank space up there? That's me, after just finishing this book. Which I'm surprised I did, considering the amount of times I stopped reading to look at the clouds outside my window that were infinitely more interesting than what I have just read. Dear Lord, and here was me being nice and giving "J. Lynn" another chance. As soon as the Convenant series is done, I am done. Done with everything.NOW THAT I'VE SIMMERED DOWN: In the interest of those who actually want to read this book: Consider yourself warned. This review isn't going to be a lightly hashed recap of what I didn't like. This isn't going to be me being all nice and lovely like I usually am. I'm annoyed, more than usually so, and this time, I've had enough, so I'm going into full haul rant mode, and frankly, if you don't want to read a rant, then skip along to the other reviews. This will have spoilers, and I repeat again, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Also, any views shared here are my personal views, and by all means I don't think that you HAVE to share them. And yes, I am well aware that this is fiction. And it's just a book. And I didn't have to read it. But I don't care.Okay, so with that out the way, let's begin. I don't really have any major qualms with Jennifer Armentrout. I love the Covenant series, and the first time I read Obsidian, I really enjoyed it. I've never read any of her other adult books, and after reading Wait For You, I was extremely let down. But the fact is, I wanted to give her another go. And Frigid was that go I was planning on giving. I pre-ordered my copy and psyched myself up thinking that if anything, the whole 'fall in love with your best friend'trope would prove some satisfaction. After all, this is the girl who has for the last three weeks, after being sick, has lived off stories of bad boys and best friends on Wattpad. For the first 20% of this novel, everything was going fine. Then Kyler and Sydney started arguing in the car, and from there everything went downhill with one big eyeroll. Let me explain what I hated about this book:Last time I checked, it took two people to be in a relationship, whether it was strictly platonic or not. Sykler (I'm only giving them the nickname because I can't be assed writing out their names all the time), simply put, do not understand the meaning of communication. Which for two people who were supposed to be best friends, they lacked - a lot. All I got from the book was that Kyler was the guy that Sydney was in love with and they just happened to know each other from childhood. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, throughout the whole entire book that made me believe that they were the epitome of inseparable. Even when Kyler moans about Sydney hooking up with Nate. Not when Sydney is bitching about all the girls that Kyler's hooked up with when they were young and how he left her countless times for other girls. Nothing about their supposed friendship was believable. Instead, all I got from them was how perfect the other was, which was mindsappingly nauseating. Sydney, for someone who was 21 and graduating university, was the most stupidest, sappiest idiot I've ever read. What makes it even more hilarious is that she's studying Psychology, and she hasn't got two freaking brain cells to make up her own decisions and choices. Even in the end, it's other people that point out to her that just maybe she was being too harsh on Kyler. SPOILER: So basically the whole shebang of the story is that they are trapped in this and some psycho is outside cutting power awhile there's a snowstorm outside, turns out its the crazy boyf of a girl that Kyler hooked up with ages ago, and then when the storms stops, Kyler goes out to look for humanity and Sydney ends up going to find him but finds out instead that he's at the girl's house so apparently they *have* to be doing the dirty, and yeah...the rest is just insignificant words on a page. So Sydney's all cut up because of Kyler supposedly being a man whore(which, may I point out, SHE KNEW ABOUT. Because hey, isn't that the point of the whole book?) and won't give him the time of day to explain what really went down before she was attacked by Mr. Crazy (more on that later), which is actually that this Sascha chick wanted Kyler to help her put tarp in her windows because her cray cray boyfie went cray cray and shot them all out. And because Sydney thinks that Kyler is a cheating man whore slut, she doesn't bother to listen to his side of the story...so the big blowup at the end could have all been avoided if she had just TALKED TO HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. She was also highly immature. If at any point she'd been rational in her feelings, maybe half the stuff that happened wouldn't have happened.And let's not get started on Kyler. He was so superficial it made me want to barf. He declares that he was in love with Sydney since forever, but he never once shows her that he's in love with her. He's all, I'm in love with her, I'm in love with her at the second half of the book, saying he'd been in love with her for ages, but the whole start of the book is him being completely clueless about Sydney. I mean, I understand if you've just realized that you've been in love with your whole life, but jeez, make up your mind kid! He treats Sydney like shit all the time as well.Which leads me to my next point. When will there be a line drawn between New Adult and Adult Romance/Erotica? I swear, at least 30%, if not more of this book is devoted to sex. And the most random sex too. Now, I'm not a prude. I do like some sex in my novel. But what makes it okay to have most of it in your novel? I mean, I get that this is a genre about exploring who you are and all, BUT WHY ALL THE FREAKING SEX? I'm sick of it. Wny does being 18 to 25 mean that you have to fill a book full of sex scenes instead of creating real, mature and relational characters? I don't want to be reading about sex. If I did, I'd be reading a Mills and Boons. I'm sick of reading about guys that are ruled by their dicks. So I'm not a guy, but seriously? Kyler's form of showing love was a boner and a jack off session thinking of Skyler. And this novel, ohhhh it took the cake. Because as soon as Skyler discovered their feelings for each other, it was just them having sex. Seriously, at least give your characters more backbone than that. There's a scene - the most weirdest scene I've ever read in my life, where Sydney says that she wants to have sex with Kyler because she can't tell him that she's in love with him (say what? you'll have sex with the guy because it;s the only chance you'll have to be 'close?' NO. JUST NO.), and Kyler's all like she's more than a one night stand, and Sydney's all like, "You don't want me?" and Kyler doesn't explain himself so of course they think the worst of each other, and then Kyler pushes Sydney up against a freaking FLOOR LENGTH WINDOW and started to 'pleasure' her. Okay, firstly, WTF? I know it's a blizzard, but for someone meant to be as meek but in control as Sydney is supposed to be, she's okay with being slammed against a window? Nah ah. SOMEONE COULD SEE YOU. And guess what? THEY DO! Crazy guy shoots the window and it explodes! Alright, so now it's time to explain - or try to - Crazy Guy. So the weird subplot of the book was that this Crazy Guy was out there playing serial killer during the storm. It was a plot that could have made the book better than it was, but just fell flat. The climax was when Kyler left to go do something at the Lodge, and was pulled away by Sascha, Crazy Guy's ex, and while he was 'fixing her windows' Crazy Guy was assaulting Sydney. Who Kyler supposedly was madly in love with at this stage, and couldn't just say no to Sascha. Here's how the conversation should have gone between Kyler and Sascha:S: Hey Ky, want to help *wiggles boobs* fix my windows that my horrible boyfriend broke?K: Aw Sasch, I'm sorry, but I've actually only come out to get some more firewood, I don't have time to fix your windows because I need to get back to my girlfriend.S: Aw Ky, baby, you don't do girlfriends. help me.K: Sascha, there's like a freaking resort full of people here that you work with. Get them to help you with your windows. I'm a guest here, not the maintenance guy. *flounces off to be with Skyler*But it didn't and it took to, I kid you not, about 10% of the book left for him to actually admit that he shouldn't have gone off with Sascha in the first place. What the hell dude, if you're in love with a girl, you don't just leave her to crash and burn if another chick whose clearly looking to get into your pants is hitting on you, whether your a good guy or not.The final icing on the cake for me was a bit of a personal one. This is where I stress again this is my personal opinion, and am in no way meaning that it has to be yours, but if it's one thing that annoys the hell out of me, it's Christmas. And I love Christmas. I love that despite the fact that not everyone in the world is Christian, people can come together on one day of the year to be with their loved ones. But there's one thing I do not tolerate: people's blatant disregard for what Christmas is really about. It's about Christians celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ."What about the presents?"Yeah, I don't think that's what Christmas is about."Andrea huffed. "That is what Christmas is about. Anyone who says differently is trying to make themselves look all spiritual and shit. I keep it real."OH HELL NO. HOLD UP. I draw the line there. I don't care if Christianity got the actual date wrong. Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. It's not about receiving presents. The whole freaking reason you get presents is because of the 3 Wise Men bestowing gifts on the baby Jesus. I get that not everyone is Christian. Not everyone believes in God. But the fact still remains, this is a Christian celebration, not some excuse for you to get presents. That's completely materialistic way of looking at it. It's like saying Happy Holidays because you don't to offend non-religious people. It's bullshit. Anyway, I'm not going to get caught in a religious debate.So I'm leaving my rant there. As you can guess, this book ruined pretty much any hope that I'll read another JLA novel, whatever name it's under. I'm so freaking sick of New Adult being some sort of mindless sex romp for unrealistic new adults who have no concept of the real world and how to act in it. NA is supposed to be about wearing the big girl's panties, and all we get is a load of rubbish. Now, that might sound hypocritical coming from "me", but whatevs. I've had enough. When someone's able to portray realistic characters, then I'll pay attention.I really hope that if you do read this book, you'll enjoy it. I don't ever want to say to someone never read a book because I hated it. It's not fair. I will admit one thing though: if you want to read something that you don't have to think twice about later on and insipid characters are what you want, then be my guest and read the book.