{Books} and {Gratitude}

On vacation last week I got in a little bit of reading time and wanted to give you guys a review. Then I realized I didn't review that last book I'd read either, so you get two reviews for one click!

I read The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

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Part of the Goodreads synopsis is:

"One night, Mia Dennett enters a bar to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when he doesn't show, she unwisely leaves with an enigmatic stranger. At first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand. But following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia's life. "

The synopsis says that it's an addictively suspenseful thriller. I kind of have to beg to differ.  I was interested in finding out how Mia was found and any other details surrounding that (because the book goes back and forth between before she was found and after she was found). I kept waiting for something to happen and at about 50% through, it finally picked up a bit, but I'd almost given up on it at that point.

One thing I really didn't like was that there was no date, so you couldn't tell how quickly time was going by. For example, after a few chapters, it felt like it had been at least a few weeks that they had been gone, but then one morning they're having breakfast and Colin offers Mia coffee and she says she doesn't drink it. Well, if you'd been together for that long, and had breakfast/coffee every morning, wouldn't that have come up before now?

  In the end, the characters were all pretty predictable for me--the angry/uninvolved dad, the mom/wife who doesn't know "how things got this way", the middle-aged investigator... The ending was fine, maybe a bit unbelievable but at least it was tied up in a nice bow at the end.

If I had to rate the book, I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars, mainly because the last half of the book became more interesting. If I had rated it for the first half, it would have been 1 star.

~.~.~

On vacation I read the first book in the Crossfire series, Bared to You.

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 Karly actually reviewed the series on here while I was away last week! She warned me ahead of time (and then throughout when I would text her about it), that the writing is definitely not going to win any awards. 

Truth.

It is almost the exact same story as 50 Shades of Grey only without the S&M stuff. Naive girl, rich, handsome, unattainable guy. He gets mesmerized by naive girl, then becomes super possessive, they go back and forth between having intense relations, being mad at one another and storming off like children, and then having intense relations again. One or both of them is "damaged" in some way...sound familiar?

I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars, mainly for the "relations" scenes. The story itself was boring mainly because I felt like I'd read it already in 50 Shades. I'm not sure that I'll read the others in the series, because I can only handle so much of the I-love-you-so-much-I-hate-you-so-much back and forth drama.

~.~.~

Today's Gratitude30 prompt was Nature. 

I snapped this photo last week while we were at the beach, and just looking at it calms me. We stood there and watched the sun go down, while everything around us was quiet and peaceful. It was the perfect 'stop and smell the roses' kind of moment. I'm so thankful for beautiful moments like this that allow you to take it all in, reflect on the day that's passed, and look ahead to the start of a new one.

#Gratitude30