2.5 stars. A difficult book to rate. All the way through, I felt uncomfortable with the basic premise. I've enjoyed books with older woman/ younger ma2.5 stars. A difficult book to rate. All the way through, I felt uncomfortable with the basic premise. I've enjoyed books with older woman/ younger man before, although it's not my fav trope. e.g. I really liked Nia Forrester's The Fall, but in that one the age difference wasn't so great, and the H, though younger, was a still mature man who knew himself. And there you have it - that's what my problem boils down to - the HUGE age difference. The h in this book is LITERALLY well and truly old enough to be the H's mother. She's about to turn forty (but luckily still extraordinarily beautiful....). And the H is 20! Yep - not even old enough to legally drink. Hmmmmm.
I think I would have liked this book a whole lot more if the age difference wasn't so vast. I kept bumping into it all the way through, and I kept thinking, no, that's just wrong. Ewww. No!!! I know it's part of what creates the basic tension of this book, but for me it was too much.
Hayes is gorgeous. He's in a hugely successful British boy band, and is hot, sexy, clever and arty. And he is attracted to older women. Mommy issues maybe? This is kinda hinted at but never really explored.
Solene is divorced and has a 13-year-old daughter who happens to have a crush on Hayes. Oh yeah, it's gonna get messy. Thinking about it, Solene was one of my problems with this book too. Because she did not have much personal strength, a quality that I admire. Having just reread Mariana Zapata's Kulti which has one of the best h's in Sal Cassilis, who is full of inner strength and integrity, Solene in contrast seemed weak and self-indulgent. She was the mature one in this relationship, but she didn't step back when she should have. It was going to blow up in everyone's faces. She knew that all along, but did nothing to stop the train wreck that was coming. And the feeble excuses she kept making as to why it wasn't the right time to tell her daughter about the relationship. Weak.
The writer did a decent job of moving the story along, although I did get a bit sick of the sex scenes (Weird, IKR?). Yeah, Hayes is 20 and has a high sex drive, but some of the semi-public scenes etc. Really guys? You couldn't wait, even though you'd been together for months? Hmmmmm. And he's 'ready for action' again after 3 minutes? *cue eyeroll* And he gave Solene eight orgasms one night? *cue eyeroll* And promised her nine the next night? Riiigghhhtttt. As a reader, I don't need that kind of crap. I was convinced he was sexy. No need to go OTT.
By about 2/3 of the way through it was starting to drag a little, and yes, I did do a bit of skimming. But the ending was a reasonable one for the story, although it did feel a bit rushed.
But I'm afraid I just couldn't get over that age difference. It didn't work for me. Inconsistent of me maybe, as I would possibly find an older man/ younger woman easier to accept? But with this age difference? It would have to be a pretty great writer to make it not seem creepy.
I just kept wishing Solene wasn't quite that much older than Hayes. Yeah, she was supposed to be so beautiful, but Hayes needed someone a good ten (or more) years younger. I understand his character's frustration with the young models and groupies he had previously hooked up with. He was too mature for their obsessions with Instagram etc. But Solene could have been his mom...... just no.
So, if you can deal with the age difference (which plainly I couldn't), it's not a bad book. Not brilliant, but reasonable. And yeah, Hayes is a super hottie, so there is that. And there have been lots of rave reviews. But it just wasn't for me. ...more
