annen's reviews
1149 reviews

This is Keira Andrews and I love everything she writes but this had a different feel to it. Keira has mastered the slow-burn but this book had mutual insta-lust and the sex happened too soon with very little emotional or sexual tension build-up.
As usual though, Ms. Andrews delivers a well written book, this time with a fast paced and thrilling suspense.

Bear, Otter and the Kid is a truly beautiful book. I can't say enough good things about the quality of writing, it flows so flawlessly in the story telling.
I usually have an issue with one POV in a story but with this one I didn't miss Otter's side of it like I usually do when it's a love story.
I think the author did a great job of writing in such a way that Bear's narration encompassed all the other characters' parts in it without leaving me feeling that I didn't know anything about them.
I felt Bears pain that his mother caused, his feelings rejection both by his mother and by Otter, his confusion of what he was feeling for Otter, his guilt of hurting Anna, his fear of what his feelings for Otter would mean for his friendship with Creed and his resolve to secure and love The Kid.
I loved Otter for his protectiveness towards Bear and his devotion to his love although it did feel a little too much with the picture thing but it was endearing at the same time.
I wish I could read more about Creed and about Anna.
The Kid was adorable, sweet, protective, quirky and of course super smart with a great wealth of wisdom.
I loved this whole story, even the bad was such fun to read.

I DNFed this one at 50%
Insta lust, quickly fell in love and nothing to look forward to for the rest of the book. The writing was boring to me.
I will try book 2 later.

I was really looking forward to reading Ty's aka the Kid's story, it's the main reason I read the second book in the series.
There was a lot to love in this book. It was so funny it had me uncontrollably laughing in public especially during the demonstration at BJ's and the damn hippies who threw a rock and the the stress sweating.
The writing is amazingly good.
The expression of the love among all the characters was so heart warming you just want to keep reading more about each one of them. I still love Creed a lot and wish that I could read his story.
I will say that this being a work of fiction makes it easier to just go with the flow on certain aspects of the story. I don't believe many if any woman would just accept that their boyfriend/husband was pinning for another man all the time they were with them the way Anna and Stacey did. I think the betrayal would be a really big issue and for them to remain as close and friendly as they did seems hard to buy.
Ty and Dom's story thought enjoyable didn't read much like a romance story, this was mostly about Ty and his coming of age, his mistakes and his redemption of sorts. I didn't get to know Dom much.
Lizzie sounded very interesting and I wouldn't mind knowing more about her.
I don't like book series with the same characters but so many of them in these books deserve a book of their own in my opinion, including Corey/Kori, I think we were left in a sort of suspense on what was going on with her/him.
I loved meeting them all and I hope we get to see them again.

Carry the Ocean is a truly beautiful story, so well written and magnificently told from both MCs point of.
The author writes a very informative story of two boys with illnesses that make it hard to navigate through life socially.
We meet Emmet or as he sometimes calls himself super Emmet, he is autistic, has loving parents and has managed to organize his life in an order that makes him happy. In that life he sees the neighbour boy and he sets his sights on him and plans to have him as a boyfriend.
Emmet is literal in most things, his speech is direct and he has had to learn to do things the way society expects even if it's not natural to him, so he practices simple things like introducing himself and saying words that a socially appropriate so as not to offend.
Emmet is also highly intelligent but most people in society don't see this because of his autism and how it presents itself to people.
Jeremey on the other hand has severe depression and clinical anxiety, simple things trigger panic attacks that make it near impossible for him to be out interacting with the rest of society.
Jeremey's parents are not like Emmet's parents and he finds himself fighting his disease as much as fighting them.
The two boys meet and fall in love. There are some sad times for both of them through this journey but they overcome it all together.
I loved that the story seemed realistic and well researched, I don't know much about autism or the level of depression and anxiety that Jeremey had but I felt like the author studied the illnesses well enough and told the story quite satisfactorily.

This book started out slow and stayed slow for a several pages so much so that I thought it was going to be a 3 star book but it warmed up quite nicely at some point which lifted it up to 4 stars.
I will say that Heidi Cullinan is the first writer for whom I would say writing in first person works so much better than in third person.
When I read [bc:Carry the Ocean|23110300|Carry the Ocean (The Roosevelt, #1)|Heidi Cullinan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1409106553s/23110300.jpg|42657999], I thought that she could really personify any character with her words and make you feel like these were her experiences but this book fell short of those feelings. I especially couldn't feel Walter's emotions that well but I did love Kelly and was able to connect with him a little more.
I was disappointed that the author chose to portray Walter's supposed badness by saying that

Spoiler

having sex at 14 years old with a 30 year old man made Walter bad and to go so far as to express that there was consent and that the 30 year old just took a risk as if that is not rape. Just because Walter was a gay boy doesn't make him to blame and bad for doing this and it wouldn't have worked with a 14 year old girl.

Spoiler

I do love Heidi Cullinan's writing and will definitely read more.

I ought to be reading more N.R. Walker, she writes so amazingly well, she does emotions rally beautifully and this book had such a thrilling feel of attraction and tension to it.
It is a very short read and there is really not much in the way of relationship for Spencer and Andrew as much of the book is about Spencer working to get Andrew and his Ex back together although they end up being very attracted to each other.
There really wasn't anything not to like, I am hoping that the book will progress in the same vein with the next two books, looking forward to reading about these two again.

Re-read 2
most of my initial thoughts on the book still stand but I now realize it's even better written and more engaging than I felt originally.


first read.
This book would have been a solid five but the sheer amount of smoking that these kids were doing was annoying. I know that the author was most likely doing it to reflect the times but for a while it seemed like that's all they need and it was serving no purpose in the story in many instances.
Otherwise I really enjoyed the story, it had a good amount of angst but it was a great story of love between two young people in a place and time that didn't accept their love,
This book has hardly got any sex on page, it's mentioned as having happened but it's not explicit but I didn't miss it as the story is very well done you can feel the steam coming out of Cody and Nate it doesn't need to be obviously displayed for you to get feel.

I started and re-started this book several times before I was able to get into it. I don't know why the beginning of the book kept losing my attention. Once I got into it though, I discovered a wonderfully written book and a beautiful if somewhat sad story within.
I am usually wary of military books because they tend to be either too propaganda-ish overt hero worship or men who are some sort of machine such that they can get shot and fight 5 men barehanded and go home and have vigorous sex with their love partner. The main reason I picked this book is because it was set in a British military context and I wanted to see if it will suffer the above faults. I was happy to discover that it doesn't suffer too much of it, there is criticism of politicians for sending men to war without regard for their lives, without providing them with the right gear, there is criticism for the reason behind the war in Iraq but there is the little bit of degenerating the Iraqis that I was uncomfortable with.
This book brings together Nat and Connor as Connor attempts to retrace his dead brother's footsteps in Iraq as he tries to makes sense of how and why he died. Connor doesn't end up retracing his brother's journey instead he is embedded with Nat's team.
I think these two were strong characters in a very macho environment and for that reason we didn't see much of their softer side and since most of the book was set in a war zone surrounded by several people we didn't see much of their intimate relationship, the moments they were together were few and they were usually tired and they didn't go in depth in communication with each other.
I loved the book though even with his heavy military and war theme mainly because it's quite well written.

I liked this book but I didn't quite love it, I think the main reason for it is that the blurb sort of misrepresented the truth. I expected some sort of enemies to lovers story, I thought we would see more of the conflict where Ed and Laurie were supposed to dislike each other but that was glossed over and the entire reason for me picking this book was taken away.
The subject matter was also not as interesting for me, this is probably a story that would be awesome on film but it doesn't translate that well for me on paper. I especially couldn't picture Ed dancing so well, what with his size and his neck issues.
I was not also convinced that Laurie's issues were that critical for how he seemed to be emotionally scared by them.
The sex is not too much and it's well written over all but there is a scene that kept being hinted at that I didn't think the author would follow through with but I was disappointed that it did and it lost some of the romance for me.
I usually like Ms. Cullinan's writing and the quality of it is still top notch here.