Princess Bookie (Virginia on GR)

This should have been a book that I really liked. It could have been an incredibly sweet love story. I was torn all the way through this book. I liked the two characters and the story possibility. A possible story of Joey and Kevin bringing their strengths together to help each other and learn that they were stronger together than as individuals. At the end of the book, however, I was pretty disappointed.

I liked that Joey was constantly trying to build Kevin up after his previous abusive relationship. Help him build confidence and be on his own. The scene where Joey shows Kevin how strong he was by having him go back to office and address the attack was one of the best scenes in the book. Through Joey's strength, Kevin was learning how strong he was. There were also some very tender scenes between Joey and Kevin as they fell in love. The bar scene at the end when Kevin's confidence was showing was also fun, sexy and showed how far Joey and Kevin had come. So much story potential.

However, there were way too many scenes that I couldn't get past. The language for one was had my eyes rolling way too much. Then, all the talk about Joey being bigger, therefore dominant and superior, while Kevin because he was smaller was submissive and weak. I hated that he was constantly described as "weak". I get that part of the storyline was that Kevin feeling he was weak was part of the storyline following his abuse but it just didn't fit. Here was a guy who apparently left his abuser and held down a job despite very limited support.

The BDSM was mainly just some "sir" and light bondage. The dom/sub scene seemd to fit the characters initially but I was left pretty confused by it and where they were at when the epilogue hit.

Plus, there was the writing, Kevin was constantly being described as having "puny arms" and being high maintenance and other terms which felt like the writer was trying to hold the character down as well. Then, the reaction when him and Joey broke up and Kevin considering taking his own life. It all felt wrong. The scene with Joey and pills seemed so out of character for where Joey was at in his life. He had learned to be more confident and was building himself up. It made no sense that his reaction was to consider suicide. The scene should have been him looking at those pills and flushing them.

The Joey scene with his family was also pretty out there. Joey never considered telling his family he wanted Kevin at his side to help raise Simon? He never even tried to talk through his decision with Kevin? Just made up his mind and that was it? Made no sense.

Overall, pretty disappointed at what could have been in this one.