Saturday, February 2, 2013

Review: On The Plus Side by Tabatha Vargo

One the Plus Side by Tabatha Vargo
Genre: New Adult Contemporary  Romance
Rating: Four Scoops!

Big girls need love, too, but at what cost?

Lilly is loaded, not only with money, but with weight. Both things she could do without. But even with her undesired millionaire status, she doesn’t hold on to false hopes of finding true love. So when a sexy stranger comes into her life dripping with seduction, she finds it hard to resist. The bigger they are the harder they fall and Lilly falls straight through the floor in love with Mr. Sexy. Too bad he’s there for all the wrong reasons.

The chance of losing it all will make you do some crazy things and Devin’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep his life together. All seems lost when out of nowhere he’s approached by a Millionaire Momma with an offer he can’t refuse. But even a womanizer like Devin has a heart and when the short, chunky girl with the carefree attitude breaks through his icy façade, he finds that losing everything takes on a whole new meaning.

Delicious Details!

So I jumped the pile a little on this one, but I was just so excited to read an upbeat NA! This book's been getting some buzz and rightly so. It's fun, sexy, and an all-around good time. We have an equal balance of serious themes to the funny and I just get a kick out of that!

We have a plus size gal who happens to be a rich heiress. She's self-conscious about her weight, which makes it hard for her to nab a man. In comes in the delicious Devin. He's been bribed to date our heiress by her mother. In return, mom will pay his debts. Little did he know that he would fall for her making it nearly impossible to stick to the deal. 

The whole thing sounds crazy, right? But it works. And oh-so-well!

The Tasty Highs!

Now some people have been giving this book a lot of flack for it's unbelievably, (a mom paying a guy to date her daughter), but a crazy concept like this is what I love about romantic comedies and why I shell out the dough to continue seeing movies like The Wedding Planner! They're fun and should be taken with a grain of salt. This book was amazing and I loved how we got to see both the happy and sad sides of heroine Lily and her hero Devin. We watched these two fall in love, a love that wasn't based off the instant attraction, but real meaningful love. Seeing Devin's struggles with the deal and his hurtful past and seeing Lily's struggles with self-image and acceptance I could feel the the whole way through. 

This book was hilarious at times, then made you grab tissues in the next second. It's great balanced read that gives the readers something different today in NA!

A Few Things that Soured the Flavor...

This book was self-published and there is nothing wrong with that, but the typos and grammatical and formatting errors were distracting at times. Front quotes would be missing and just incorrect tag usage that could have been cleaned up were sprinkled throughout the novel. The book also had tense issues (switching from present to past) that could have easily been corrected with a good read through.

There was lots of narrative summary and telling versus showing. I felt I could have seen the characters grow more if I got to see certain things. An example is the couple's first date. I saw none of it. We breezed through and a scene was shown at the end of the date at Lily's apartment. This also messed with my sense of time passage. I felt like lots more time passed than was being explained in the text, which can lead to plot holes.

Speaking of...

Plot holes. I did find a few. Like why after Devin made arrangements to have his loan paid, did his dad not ask where he got the money? Things like that. Nothing too big though and I thought the story was still great despite the issues.

The Completed Sundae!

Rating: Four Scoops :)


Sunday, January 27, 2013

Stacking the Shelves 1/27



So this is not only my first Stacking the Shelves, but my first meme ever! So excited. Okay, so for this meme we post our haul for the week. I'm very new at blogging so I all I have are what I bought for the week. Enjoy!

Bought:















Review: One Week Girlfriend by Monica Murphy

One Week Girlfriend by Monica Murphy
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Rating: Five Scoops!

Temporary. That one single word best describes my life these last few years. I’m working at a temporary job until I can finally break free. I’m my little brother’s temporary mother since our mom doesn’t give a crap about either of us. And I’m that temporary girl all the guys want to get with because I give it up so easily. According to the rumors, at least.

But now I’m the temporary girlfriend of Drew Callahan, college football legend and all around golden guy. He’s beautiful, sweet—and he’s hiding way more secrets than I am. He’s brought me into this fake life where everyone seems to hate me. And everyone seems to want something from him. The only thing he seems to want though is…

Me.

I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I know is, I think Drew needs me. And I want to be there for him.

Forever.


Hey everyone! 

It's my first review of the blog and what better way to start than with an NA Five Star (Scoops)! Let's get right into it!

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Delicious Details:

So I want to start off by saying I've been a bit humdrum with the NA available lately, readers. It's all starting to read the same. You got the tattooed badboy who mets the innocent girl who tries to change him. So when I saw this book getting a bit of traffic I kind of thought the same thing by the cover. It's a bit smexy, and I was thinking yeah, okay, yet another of the same, but boy was I wrong!

You got hottie football star Drew Callahan who has a bit of a problem. He needs a girlfriend for a week during his Thanksgiving break. You may be thinking: why does this hottie-hot need a girlfriend? Well, he has some issues at home and needs someone who won't get attached. He finds that in barmaid Fable...

Yes, the girl's name is Fable. I was rolling my eyes at this, BUT got so drawn into her character that I completely forgot the name. Fable has a record for being a bit loose, but we quickly find out that it's a front for the world. She agrees to be Drew's girlfriend and the two set off for home!

We quickly find out that things are weird in the Callahan household. We have his freaky, straight-up messed-up stepmom, and his dad isn't far from the creeper zone either. Drew uses Fable as a shield and during their time together they start to fall for each other.

The Tasty Highs!

I have to say this book was refreshing. We have a clean cut boy who has a lot going for him, and is also the one who is hesitant about getting involved intimately in relationships. He has good reasons for this and it was great to see the boy stepping away from the physical instead of the girl. I was really connected with Drew and found him adorable and utterly charming.

Fable was a great leading lady to Drew. She helped him overcome some deeply rooted struggles and didn't blink once when Drew needed her. It was great.

A Few Things that Soured the Flavor...

There were so few things that I didn't like that I couldn't brush away a scoop (star). Some examples were the wording of some of the sex scenes. I found myself taken out of it by certain words, but overall I dismissed them. NA sexy is really tricky to get right. It's not YA and it's not adult. There are certain ways things have to be worded and this book had a few issues there.

The ending could have ended a bit differently to be more satisfying. I get what the author was trying to do, but it just came off wrong to me. Like an attempt to keep me in for a sequel. The attempt wasn't needed because this book was good enough to keep me coming back for more. 

The Cover. It is sooo misleading. This book looks like it could be erotic, and it's totally not. There is sex, but it's not terribly graphic. I would have like a more serious cover with a hint of flirtiness. This is a nice picture, I just didn't feel it went well with the content of the book.


The Completed Sundae!

Rating: Five Scoops :)

First "Sweet" Post!

Hey friends! My name is Valerie O'Neil and welcome to my blog The Scoop on NA!

I started this blog to feature all the new adult goodies that I devour on the daily. I'll be doing all the norm: reviews, cover reveals, promo events, dishing on NA news, and more!

I hope you enjoy the blog and find some tasty NA treats to enjoy :)