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Loading... Charadeby Riley Hart
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Want to know if the whole series is worth reading? Read my overall review of the whole series here! Spoiler Free! I was really excited to read this book. Despite my hate of predictable books, I really enjoy romance books where people accidentally fall in love while “playing a game.” Weird, I know, but I think in the New Adult genre when this happens you really see the connection between the two people (in most cases!). It’s not just the sex or physical attraction between them because they actually talk to and get to know each other and from there, love develops. It makes the relationship that touch more realistic to me and let’s me enjoy the story that much more. This book started off on shaky ground initially for me because it seemed to me that it was going to be a little “high school-y”. The drama between Cheyenne and her ex-boyfriend could have been really juvenile–and to a degree it was–but once you get past that (just a few chapters in) it starts to get deeper into the characters and their past and becomes much more mature. (Also, no love triangle!) The story with Colt’s mom broke my heart. I did cry because it was very well done and made you feel what Colt was feeling. I really liked Colt because he was relatable and understandable. You could clearly see why he was struggling. Same with Cheyenne’s story. She started off a little weak in her convictions but she really grows into a strong, independent woman. Everything was well connected and I really enjoyed that. I really don’t have anything negative to say about this book only that I didn’t like how quickly they switched from a fake relationship of holding hands to “friends-with-benefits”. It just seemed a little out of character for Cheyenne given her background story but it’s not an absolute deal breaker for me–and given the circumstances they find themselves in, I let it slide. To end on a positive note: one thing I really liked about this book is that Colt and Cheyenne’s story ends in Charade. The next book is about Colt’s friend Adrian who appears throughout the book enough that I am excited to see what his story is. I really liked this book. It’s been a long time since a New Adult read made me cry (and I’ve read some pretty tragic ones) so I always think of that as a sign of a good book when you can connect with the characters like that. So you New Adult fans pick this one up! Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps! I really did not want to give this book a 1-star rating. More than that, I badly wanted to like this book. I'm a sucker for pretend-relationship settings, and I had been looking forward to reading this for quite a while (especially with all the great reviews). Alas, it appears the book is not for me. I wasn't able to get into the story at all right from the get go. In the beginning, I think it was the writing style and how the characters were portrayed. I felt like everything was a bit too over-the-top, too obvious, the descriptions of emotions too shoved-in-my-face. It came too much too fast, repeatedly, and way before I could even begin to care about the characters or know anything about them. Perhaps it's because of this that I ended up feeling like all those intense emotions in the beginning were all overly dramatic. The characters' back stories were delved into a bit more later on, but by then, it was too late and too little to make me care. I know I'm saying "too" a lot, but that's what this book was like for me. It was "too" everything, including the extra bit of drama that popped out of nowhere in the end. Contrived, I think, is the word I would use to describe a large chunk of this book - and this applies to the plot, the characters, the dialogue, the execution, and the writing. There were also a lot of problems with basic editing issues like grammar and spelling. I normally don't bother talking about this, because I can stomach quite a bit of mistakes (I read a lot of badly-written fanfiction) and it generally doesn't bug me too much unless it detracts from the story. And in this case, there was a significant amount of mistakes and repetition that got to me on top of my already very lukewarm opinion of the story. I kept plowing forward in hopes that the book would get better, but by the end, it simply took a sharp nosedive with unnecessary drama that made me care even less and finally pushed me into the realm of outright frustration and dislike for the book. From all the sparkly reviews, I guess I'm in the minority here though. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesThe Games Series (1)
BOOK 1 in THE GAMES trilogy. Nineteen-year-old Cheyenne tries to portray the perfect life to mask the memories of her past. Walking in on her boyfriend with another woman in her freshman year in college threatens that picture of perfection. Twenty-one-year-old Colt never wanted college and never expected to amount to anything, but when his mom's dying wish is for him to get his degree, he has no choice but to pretend it's what he wants too. Cheyenne needs a fake boyfriend to get back at her ex and Colt needs cash to take care of his mom, so they strike a deal that helps them both. But what if Cheyenne's past isn't what she thought? Soon they're trading one charade for another - losing themselves in each other to forget about their pain. The more they play their game, the more it becomes the only thing they have that feels real. Both Cheyenne and Colt know life is never easy, but neither of them expect the tragedy that threatens to end their charade and rip them apart for ever. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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I loved everything about this book!! I loved how cheyenne and colt were so against each other at the beginning but revealing more and more about themselves to the other; I loved how their relationship changed and how they both become the other's life-line; I loved colt's mom and her strenght; most of all I loved how, when faced with the reality of their feelings, they accepted and embraced it... ( )