Review: Twisted (Tangled #2) - Emma Chase

(★★✦ - 2.5 of 5 stars)

Hello again! Like I promise in my previous post, I'm bringing Emma Chase's Twisted (Tangled #2) review.

At first, I wasn't going to read it, but the description caught my eye and I finished pretty fast. I must say that it was more of the same I read in the first book, but from Kate Brooks's perspective (the female main character).

Most of the people who liked the series enjoyed the sassy, almost cynical personality of Drew Evans, the principal male character, so maybe the fact that Kate tells us what happen next is an upside downer. 

But in my perspective, Chase kept it pretty casual and followed the lead of the first book - funny conversations, smart remarks and direct contact of the storyteller with the reader.

So you may ask why I'm giving it half of a star less - the main reason is the plot! And here is where, if you haven't read this book, you should STOP because the SPOILERS start now.

Basically, this book is based 2 years after Tangled and when you start reading, you can see how Drew and Kate have been sharing a lovely relationship - living together and apparently still having sex like rabbits ALL THE TIME (pretty fictional, huh?). And then, something mysterious happened and destroyed the perfection that they've been sharing.

At this point, you want to know what was that mayor fail that set these two apart. Then, you start to understand what is going on - Kate's pregnant!! She mixed antibiotics with birth control pills and something when wrong along the way (For the record, this is a TRUE FACT, so be careful to mix this two and have sex without extra protection, if you're not interested in having a child in the immediate future :P)

Here is where my issues with the story begin - because what happens next? She gets pretty scared and doesn't take a regular pregnancy test (you know? the one where you pee in the stick?) and of course, she doesn't tell Drew anything; instead she lies to him and waits to go see the doctor - a really close friend that she never introduced to her living-together boyfriend!!! Do you see where I'm going with this? If you don't, don't worry I'll be there in a paragraph!

Before I tell you, I have to remark Drew's stupidity - because, after he invades Kate's privacy by reading her agenda without her consent, what does he do? He follows her and, believing that she is cheating on him, he hires a F%$&ING striper!!!!!!! And waits for Kate at home, sucking the striper's mouth in the mean time! Now you get it??

This two have some BIG COMMUNICATION ISSUES!!! And they cover them with a lot of sex! What great paternal figures they're going to be, huh??

After all this mess, they spend several weeks without talking about maybe one of the most important subjects a couple should talk, THEIR BABY! Because apparently she thinks he can read minds and know, somehow, she's pregnant - even when he didn't know this Bob was her friend, less her OB/GYN. See what I mean? Total communication issues!

However, beside the entire mess in the story, the book is still fresh and light reading and you can certainly enjoy the intelligent come backs of the characters, which give us a hint of how the author thinks. Whether fun facts like the comparison of men and women orgasms, life expectancy of single/married men vs single/married women, women behaviors in our OB/GYN's visits; or just small jokes about women's PMS, why does men cannot conceive and how they should learn to say sorry when women are angry! All these details make the reading enjoyable and funny - maintaining the same tone from the first book of the series.

I really liked that we could learn a little bit more about the secondary characters - like Billy, Kate's mom, Delores, the Evan's family, etc - I was gladly surprised to get to know them through Kate's perspective. And, about her, let me say that for a serious girl she was pretty crazy back in her days: alcohol, drugs (several kinds!), breaking and entering and stealing cars, all activities of her repertory! This fact was quite shocking but breaks the good girl image and and I applaud the author's efforts to think outside the box!

To end this review, let's just say that I spent almost the entire book HATING Drew!!! And I still don't know if I forgive him! Cheating is never the answer, man!!!

And that's it - hope you had enjoy my POV about this book - you can always agree or disagree with me below ⬇️

Thanks for reading and see you between the pages!

Review: Tangled - Emma Chase

(⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 3 of 5 stars)

Hello guys!! If you're a new reader, WELCOME!!! and  if you're a returning one, I'm happy to see you in another book review! ;)

For those who haven't read the book, I can tell you that it's a pretty light reading - the aim is to entertain and spend a while in someone else's life instead of yours.

A romance novel wrote from the male point of view, it gives us a hilarious idea of how a single man thinks. Plus the main character, Drew, is funny, smart and so full of himself that allow us to have a good time with his crazy thoughts. Is like if we get caught in a little boy's mind.

Kate, Drew's love interest, is a serious girl - with goals and a structure life, until she meets Mr. nothing-is-too-serious and from then on she gets Tangled in his web. She already has a relationship and we get to see how this struggles with Drew's persistence actitud towards her.

If you're looking for a simple book to read after a heavy day, this could be what you want! You're going to enjoy the prose and most of the intelligent remarks that Emma Chase introduces through her characters. Plus, the author counts the audience as one active participante of the book - what makes it even more interesting. 

Now, if you haven't read this book, STOP HERE because I'm gonna drop some SPOILERS!

Now, let's talk about the depths of this book - Sure, it is an entertaining reading material, but it has its ups and down around the story.

We have flat characters, simple and without any development underneath them. Drew, as funny as he can be, is the male version of a spoiled brat with to much money in his hands; Kate is the small town girl that ends up working in a big company and wants to take advantage of her opportunity and, of course, as a small town kind of girl, she needs the we've-been-together-forever boyfriend Billy - the poor Billy is portrayed as a useless person that only sings for a living and who doesn't appreciate his girlfriend, but let's be real! She has 11 years with him so something good he must have to himself (I'd have loved to know what was that and for him to be a better competition to Drew). 

The rest of the characters are just more of the same pattern - The Bitch (who I thought was a really good sister, by the way), the friends, the parents and the coworkers - some secondary filling that at times you could have subtract from the equation. 

As a positive point, I like the way the author includes their jobs in the story - like is something important in their lives! Not only their love life, like in most of this kinds of books. They discuss clients and spend a lot of their time in their offices actually working (well, at least Kate does) so good for you, Emma!

I already said this before in this post, but the author makes a lot of smart remarks through her characters that I enjoyed a lot - like when Mackenzie wants to be a princess and Drew is alarmed - "I need to talk to my sister. Disney is dangerous. Corrosive brainwashing bullshit, if you ask me." 

This kind of little comments give us something else to think instead of the book and I found that refreshing while adding Chase's point of view.

Personally, I love Disney, but thinking that Prince Charming exists is really corrosive at an adult age! hahaha

Another of my favorite remarks is the one made about men vs. women behavior about orgasms - with the entire description about the UCLA and NYU researches and the explanation of how this affects both sexes! Really cleaver and funny!!! 

And like this examples, you can find lots and lots of hints to the authors mind that makes this reading refreshing and enjoyable!

But before this post is finished, let's say what most of you probably thought during the reading: Drew,  man, you're a mayor asshole with the girl you supposed to be in love with!!!!!!! - c'mon, you could have listened to her when she came to tell how everything went with Billy!!!!!! You could have saved yourself all the trouble you put Kate and ourselves through afterwards!!

Having said that, I gave Emma Chase's Tangled three stars and I'm starting the second book of the serie, Twisted - I wasn't sure to read more of this series but the description of the next story caught my eye! Of course, I will tell you what I think about it! ;) 

Here's the description to Twisted, in case you're interested ---> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17977710-twisted?ac=1 

Hope you had enjoy this review and, as always, see you between the pages!!! 

Reading is NOT overrated!

In an era where the media consumed us and TV shows and social media is all we can do in our free time, there are still some sentimentalists - like myself - that rather to spend this time with a book in their hands.

Why? In my case, is a matter of excess of free time - I always loved reading but I used to do it when I was on vacations or at night because I couldn't sleep. The rest of my time was divided by work, friends, TV and lots of WhatsApps, FB post, Instagram photo, tweets, etc. And, don't get me wrong, I still spend a lot of time doing those stuffs, specially in social media; I found it amazing how a page can connect people all around the world!!!!

But one day my life changed and I found myself with a lot of time to spare, so I took the easy way and started by watching TV shows and movies - and you know what I figured out? That this wasn't enough!! I got excited with a lot of this stories, but at the end, I always wanted MORE - so I started to get bored by it. Plus, my eyes were begging me to stop staring at a screen most of the day! (You may think that know I am killing them with words, which is correct! hahahah)

That was when I grab my first book at 9 in the morning and started spending my days immerse in the pages of it. This was about 3 years ago - and I committed the big and amazing mistake of started with something like the Game of Thrones series!!! 🙈 I got so obsess that I finished the entire 5 books in two weeks, which is no easy task considering the amount of characters involved in the story.

By the time I finished, I was exhausted so I felt into something a little bit lighter - The Fifty Shades of Grey series - I know, completely lunatic change of taste, right? Hahaha. Well, it turns out that, aside form the fact that E.L. James cannot write a shit, I loved the way this book made me feel. At least the first one and couple of chapters of the second one. And I found myself addicted to this kind of feeling! Seeking it in every book I read from then on. I re-read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility - then I started looking for book adaptations so I went from The secret diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (Fun Fact: this one is amazing and their even making a movie out of it). 

Then I moved myself to romantic novels with a bit of spice on it - Novels by Erin Nicholas, Katy Evans, Noelle Adams, Toni Aleo, Kelly Oram, Lauren Layne, etc. Of course, I also revisited some of my YA favorite books - The Twilight saga, The Hunger Games - and added new ones to my list of read-books - Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Vampire Academy and Bloodlines by Rachelle Mead, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare, and Fire and Thorns series by Rae Carson. Finally, I came back to classics such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and, recently, Emma.

You can see that I read almost anything that cross my hands and the point of this, and of the story I just told you, is that reading a book is not about the author, or how well is written, or how many awards won, is about the way you feel when you finish it. Is how you can get so involved with the characters and the story that you become one of them, and you suffer or laugh with their adventures. Is about the way you want to know more about the universe where the book take place. And finally, is about traveling without leaving your own house, because a book can take you places that you never knew before. For me, this is the essence of READING. And no TV show or social media can do this, at least not with the same strength.

So GRAB A BOOK!!!!, any book - because reading, as dreaming, is NOT overrated!