The "L" Word
Looking Inside by Beth Kery
Eleanor is your typical frumpy librarian who is shy and enjoys looking at old things in the basement of the museum she works at. Trey is your typical 30-something billionaire who has a lot of time to do whatever, and whoever, he wants. But this isn't your typical girl-meets-boy scenario. No, that train derails pretty early on and the book starts off with Eleanor staring out her sister's high rise condo guestroom window directly into the bedroom of Trey. Apparently the two high rise buildings are close enough that Eleanor can get detailed views of the goings on of Trey, but not close enough that Trey feels the need to close his curtains, not even when he's pleasuring himself, or other women. Eleanor, who we assume has never actually seen a man naked, is transfixed, and watches Trey for nearly a year. Eleanor is just your typical Peeping Tom until her dying sister tells her to live her best life and she decides to take it a step further and actually seduce Trey. However, she's worried that he won't even notice the old frumpy dumpy Eleanor, so she dons her dead sisters fashionista sexy clothes, and stalks Trey at a reading event put on by her employer. The narrator tells us that Eleanor is so uncomfortable in these sexy clothes and doesn't know how she'll ever make this work. All of five minutes later she is literally flashing her panty-less crotch at Trey from across the room. Apparently crossing her own line, a flustered Eleanor leaves the event early, but not before dropping a note in front of Trey that tells him to look out his window later that night. The demure librarian then proceeds to do an exceptional strip tease dance for Trey, the finale being her rubbing one out while he watches from his apartment next door. Again, apparently their apartments are so close that he can see all of the details of this, yet never once questions all the things he's done in his apartment with his curtains wide open.
They both arrive at the reading event the next night and she continues to tease him from across the room in her dead sisters sexy clothes. She a little flustered this time though because her mom just told her she's playing pretend in her dead sister's sexy clothes because she is grieving like a freak, and Eleanor begins to wonder if she's just trying to fuck Trey because she's sad that her sister died. Whoa. They give each other fuck-me eyes across the room until Trey's had enough and tells her to meet him in the bathroom. They leave early and get interrupted by some other freak (that never appears in the story again although he makes a convincing antagonist), so they end up having drinks at the bar in Trey's building. Eleanor spills the beans that she's seen him, and he spills that he finds her irresistible but isn't interested in the "R" word because he has trouble with girls. So they agree to have a no-strings-attached sexual relationship, which the audience immediately knows will have so many strings it'll be a tangled mess. Sexual shenanigans ensue...
I'd like to call this Fifty Shades Lite, because once the two main characters decide to take it all the way they are doing it ALL. THE. TIME. Pages and pages of sex. And when they're not actually doing, they are thinking about doing it. They can't be alone together for longer than 30 seconds without having to find somewhere to go because they just can't keep their hands off each other. Call me a realist, but I just can't stand romance novels like this. Nobody has time to be doing it ALL THE TIME. Not to mention, they are adults, with self awareness and self control, not animals. This "undeniable urge" to rut in public is just bullshit. I listened to the audio version of this book and found myself fast forwarding through the lengthy sex scenes just to get somewhere in the book.
Another potential downside to listening to a book rather than reading it is that I might catch on to repeated words more easily than reading them. Enter the "L" word. For a romance novel, the author had by far the most gratuitous use of the word "labia" than anything I've read before. I applaud the author for knowing anatomically correct terms for parts of the female genitalia, but the use of it once would have been more than enough, and the word is repeated so many times I lost count. In addition to terminology being distracting, some of the descriptions of various acts were distracting. At several points in the book Trey is described as "pressing his balls against her outer sex" whatever that means. In another scene Eleanor is awed by his sexiness when he finishes eating her out and his nose, mouth and chin are glistening with her "juices". *shudder* Just no. Gross.
Aside from the lengthy sex scenes with distracting depictions, the character development is sub par. Eleanor is supposed to be a bookish Plain Jane librarian, but we don't ever really see this side of her except when she's obsessing over the fact that Trey might discover that she's really dull. Her self rationalizations of her keeping her squeaky clean secret from him don't make any logical sense, and I found myself rolling my eyes on more than one occasion. By the end of the book we find out that (surprise!) Eleanor really is a freak and not dull at all! Who'd have thought? I can buy whirlwind romances, if they're convincing, this one is not. Eleanor and Trey realize they have fallen in love with each other after approximately a week of knowing one another. Most of the interaction they've had with each other by this point is purely sexual and primal, so excuse me if I don't buy it. Love? No. Lust? Yes. Yet it seems to work and by the end they get a happy ending.
Read it again? I'll pass.
Champagne Rating
-Megan
I'd like to call this Fifty Shades Lite, because once the two main characters decide to take it all the way they are doing it ALL. THE. TIME. Pages and pages of sex. And when they're not actually doing, they are thinking about doing it. They can't be alone together for longer than 30 seconds without having to find somewhere to go because they just can't keep their hands off each other. Call me a realist, but I just can't stand romance novels like this. Nobody has time to be doing it ALL THE TIME. Not to mention, they are adults, with self awareness and self control, not animals. This "undeniable urge" to rut in public is just bullshit. I listened to the audio version of this book and found myself fast forwarding through the lengthy sex scenes just to get somewhere in the book.
Another potential downside to listening to a book rather than reading it is that I might catch on to repeated words more easily than reading them. Enter the "L" word. For a romance novel, the author had by far the most gratuitous use of the word "labia" than anything I've read before. I applaud the author for knowing anatomically correct terms for parts of the female genitalia, but the use of it once would have been more than enough, and the word is repeated so many times I lost count. In addition to terminology being distracting, some of the descriptions of various acts were distracting. At several points in the book Trey is described as "pressing his balls against her outer sex" whatever that means. In another scene Eleanor is awed by his sexiness when he finishes eating her out and his nose, mouth and chin are glistening with her "juices". *shudder* Just no. Gross.
Aside from the lengthy sex scenes with distracting depictions, the character development is sub par. Eleanor is supposed to be a bookish Plain Jane librarian, but we don't ever really see this side of her except when she's obsessing over the fact that Trey might discover that she's really dull. Her self rationalizations of her keeping her squeaky clean secret from him don't make any logical sense, and I found myself rolling my eyes on more than one occasion. By the end of the book we find out that (surprise!) Eleanor really is a freak and not dull at all! Who'd have thought? I can buy whirlwind romances, if they're convincing, this one is not. Eleanor and Trey realize they have fallen in love with each other after approximately a week of knowing one another. Most of the interaction they've had with each other by this point is purely sexual and primal, so excuse me if I don't buy it. Love? No. Lust? Yes. Yet it seems to work and by the end they get a happy ending.
Read it again? I'll pass.
Champagne Rating
-Megan
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