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Author:
Alicia Renee Kline
Genre:
Chick-lit, Romance, Humor
Book
Rating: 9
Personal
Rating: 9.5
The
third installment of the intoxicated series was my favorite. It may not have been the funniest of the
three, or even the steamiest, but the plot was executed the best. It had far less of those little intentional
drama points in chick lit fair that stretch the limits of real life drama. Basically no matter how outrages a situation
got in this novel, it actually made good logical sense.
Why
not start of with my favorite character, Gracie. She is just mind-blowingly hilarious. Says the types of things you expect a best
friend to say. Just cold hard unfiltered
math that makes you want to strangle her and love her all at the same
time. The parts she gets in this book
were my faves. She gets the best
dialogue and thankfully there’s more of her in this book. And if she doesn’t end up with who I think
she should be with in the next book I swear I will never read another one of
these novels…. Okay that’s a lie but she better get the man I want her to have.
Blake. I was worried about her big secret, and yaay
to me for being right. The reason I was
worried though was because I was afraid I’d feel the same way I did about it as
I did Lauren’s bad decision at the end of book one. No need to fear when you couple age, emotions
and the need to grow your own independence it’s perfectly justifiable that she
did what she did, when she did. My only
problem was that she held on to it for so long.
Really, keeping someone mad at you for something you know you did when
you were a stupid young teen is ridiculous.
Almost a decade. Who pretends to
be mad at someone for that long, someone who is madly in love with them, for
something they don’t even know happened?
No one knows accept Blake. Lauren
was right and Blake needed to suck it up and talk about it. But gladly her friends sorted that nonsense
out for her.
Okay
Mathew and Lauren’s wedding. Nothing
like a good solid romance, to balance out the turmoil that was Blake and
Chris. And they even have a
surprise. Man, love is in the air and
it’s infectious. Well to everyone but
the self induced brooding Blake. Not
much to say there except their two characters were handled very well in this
book and the wedding was… well you’ll have to read it.
Chris. Well he pulled through after being such a
jerk towards Lauren. You cant hate
someone who loves a woman for ten years especially when she goes out of her way
to loathe the very ground you walk on.
The balance with him and Blake was handled well. When they avoided eachother it didn’t reach
annoying over dramatic heights. When
they had to stare at eachother, the mutual fake loathing was just enough to
bare without screaming ‘get over it already’, and the suspense of them being in
the wedding together and either completely screwing it up or maybe finally
getting back together was delightfully held on edge right up until the point of
collision. Brilliant.
The
pacing. I was going to hate on the flash
back style of the beginning. It was like
‘we already know about this’ and blah blah blah. I could piece together what went down back in
the day with the two arrests of Mathew and jail time and so on, on my own. But firstly, right when I was about to be
like ‘enough’ they were over. Perfect timing. And secondly even though some of the
information I still think was repetitive.
The other stuff was very good character building in showing where Mathew
has come from, showing how the sibling bond grew so strong when it was fairly nonexistent
in the beginning. It shows the events
that molded her into the powerful single independent woman she is. The type of life she lived with the parents
neither she or Mathew claim. And it
shows this love with Chris she had and just how strong it was. Basically all the things needed to firmly
place us in the we care for everyone frame of mind was there, and in just the
right dose to not be annoyed and scream get on with the story. Another job well done.
Okay
that bit of pacing aside the rest went well too. When all the big reveals and such happened I
looked at my page count. Nothing seemed
to drag, and always happened at a point where I was “hmmm this much pages
left. Not a bad place to put this
then.” And I like that feeling. It means things are happening fast enough and
there is the right amount of book left to develop what is happening with out
overdoing it or rushing it. Much better
placement then in the first two. So overall
the book had good flow. That is until
after the secret.
Revealing
it once yes. Confusion over eachoters
reactions to that first conversation, okay.
But kind of like how I felt in the first two books, the ending was
filled with too much of the same conversation.
The same fears, the same I didn’t want to cause, and I wish you would’ve
told me cause, and so on and so forth.
There were lots of thought processes linked to the big reveal that were
brilliant, because they were attached but by way of dealing with something
else. Those I loved and of course are
the type of spoilers even I can’t reveal.
The other stuff that seemed solely about the big reveal always seemed to
be the same convo just worded differently.
Just too much of it and again it seemed to pull me out of a rather
excellent novel. Thankfully this only
lasted for a while. It was at the beginning of the third act so there was still
some book to go once this was all done.
So
did I love this book? Yes. It was great in the sense that I can’t really
think of any of those annoying things that happen in chick lit that happened in
this book. In fact everytime one did
happen it played out in rather entertaining ways that were completely not the
way they would’ve if the author went garden-variety chick lit fashion. This book was funny, romantic, intense, just
a joy to read. But I like this entire
series so maybe my opinion is flawed.
And yes I’m a man who loves chick lit.
Nothing beats sexual humor. It’s the
realest humor you can find and everyone uses it when chilling with their
friends at the bar hashing stories about their lives past, present and future
and also while cruising the people at the bar.
If
you’re looking for a fun read with a little bit of drama, a dash of romance and
splashed with funny one liners, you can’t go wrong here. This is definitely a good glass of wine screw
the world I’m reading today kind of novel.
A pic me up on those well needed days when life is screaming it’s
annoying realness at you. This will help
you relax and wind down, and block out the real world with something much more
rewarding. And there’s another book
coming. I can’t wait to read it.
