Avoiding Commitment

I am not completely sure what to say about this book. I've never read a book where the characters and their actions got me so upset and frustrated that I was screaming at the book. If I would have been reading the physical book and not an e-book, I would have thrown it across the room. The fact that AC can evoke so many emotions in me at once...uggghh I FREAKING LOVED IT!!!! To say that K.A Linde's writing is "just okay" or "pretty good" is a big flipping understatement. Her writing flows and she definitely knows how to create a delicious story worth devouring. I never thought I would become invested in a type of book with people who cheat and lie (not usually my style), but it grabbed a hold on me from the first chapter,dragged me show more through all of the twists and turns in the middle, and would not let me go until the very end.

At first I was in love with Jack, but that love swiftly turned to anger. There were soooo many times when I wanted to reach through the book and not punch him the face, but do some major damage to his manly-hood if you know what i mean. Such a douche bag!! He is a master manipulator who loves to toy with the emotions of other people just so he can have his cake and eat it. I mean how selfish can you be? It's like he cannot even think about anyone else but himself.

And Lexie....she seemed so blinded by her love/obsession for Jack that it clouded her thoughts and there were moments when I wanted to shake some sense into her. There were signs and things that were said and it was like she still did not get a freaking clue. I felt bad for her, but I kept thinking come on sweetheart wake up, 6 years of this guy manipulating you how much more are you going to take?

http://lifeasabookaddict.blogspot.com/2012/08/avoiding-commitment-by-ka-linde.ht... show less

I can't...I just can't. I loved and hated this book SO much. I hate when I find myself cheering for the thing i know I should be against. It makes me angry with myself and that's totally what I found myself doing while reading this book.

It's a roller coaster about dysfunction of epic proportions. Two people that are so bad for each other they should have restraining orders against one another. At the same time, you want them to fix their shit and work it out...because if they did, they could be amazing.

Jack: How I loved to hate Jack. He's selfish, lacks a conscience and totally manipulative. He is also hot as hell. I just want him to get therapy!

Lexi: Needs therapy as well. She will do ANYTHING for Jack. Including screw over any real show more chance at happiness she might have for the hope of happiness with Jack.She is so co-dependent, she can't see past Jack.

Chyna: Everyone needs a Chyna in their life. A true friend that will drop anything to just be there.

Ramsey: On the surface Ramsey seems like the one that could pull Lexi out of her obsession with Jack. However, I feel that there is something underneath it all with Ramsey. I think Ramsey has some issues under there.

Bekkah: I love hating her. However, I have to admit that I can't hate her as much as I want to. She has been manipulated by Jack as well, and I have to give her some props for manipulating back.

The only negative I can give is that I wish there was more about the relationship of Jack and Lexi. I mean, there is constant drama and pull and push, but we never see WHY there is this attraction...other than they are simply drawn together like bugs to a flame of death. I would have loved more dialogue between them outside of the drama. Or maybe it just was the drama that kept them coming back for more? show less

I can't...I just can't. I loved and hated this book SO much. I hate when I find myself cheering for the thing i know I should be against. It makes me angry with myself and that's totally what I found myself doing while reading this book.

It's a roller coaster about dysfunction of epic proportions. Two people that are so bad for each other they should have restraining orders against one another. At the same time, you want them to fix their shit and work it out...because if they did, they could be amazing.

Jack: How I loved to hate Jack. He's selfish, lacks a conscience and totally manipulative. He is also hot as hell. I just want him to get therapy!

Lexi: Needs therapy as well. She will do ANYTHING for Jack. Including screw over any real show more chance at happiness she might have for the hope of happiness with Jack.She is so co-dependent, she can't see past Jack.

Chyna: Everyone needs a Chyna in their life. A true friend that will drop anything to just be there.

Ramsey: On the surface Ramsey seems like the one that could pull Lexi out of her obsession with Jack. However, I feel that there is something underneath it all with Ramsey. I think Ramsey has some issues under there.

Bekkah: I love hating her. However, I have to admit that I can't hate her as much as I want to. She has been manipulated by Jack as well, and I have to give her some props for manipulating back.

The only negative I can give is that I wish there was more about the relationship of Jack and Lexi. I mean, there is constant drama and pull and push, but we never see WHY there is this attraction...other than they are simply drawn together like bugs to a flame of death. I would have loved more dialogue between them outside of the drama. Or maybe it just was the drama that kept them coming back for more? show less

booknook — Young Adult book reviews

I wanted to love Avoiding Commitment, and I think I expected to love it because of all the rave reviews. Unfortunately, I hated it.

Oddly enough, I started out enjoying the book. I expected some incredible romance, a bit of drama, maybe a bit of cheating—but if done well, I knew I could handle it. What I got was:

* Lexi cheating on her boyfriends to be with Jack.
* Jack cheating on his girlfriends to be with Lexi.
* A book that spans six years. Six fucking years. Seriously, this book was way too long.
* More cheating.
* Horrible breakups because of said cheating.
* Flashbacks that show all the times Lexi got hurt by Jack.
* Then Jack cheats on Lexi and she can't believe it. So it's okay for her to cheat on show more her boyfriends but heaven forbid it happens to her?
* etc. etc.

Most of my problems with this book just boil down to the fact that Jack is a complete and utter jackass with no respect for relationships (hence the book title), and Lexi stupidly thinking that Jack truly loves her and wants to commit to being in a relationship with her. Jack continuously hurts her and disappoints her over the span of six years, but she still doesn't realize that he's a jackass. He won't commit to her. He'll cheat on her. She'll always be the "other woman." But she doesn't understand that, and keeps throwing herself into his arms anyway, and crying when he disappoints her. So at the end of the day, I just had no sympathy for her. She brought it all on herself.

Lexi keeps saying she's in love with Jack, but my question is: why? All we learn about Jack is:

He's hot.

He's a douche.

So why does she love him? All I see in their relationship is lust. Anytime Lexi is within two feet of him, all she can think is "sex, sex, sex. Please, fuck me now, even if I have a boyfriend." Honey, that's lust—not love. This book had no romance in it at all—it was just pure sex. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, if Lexi weren't running around saying that she loved Jack and wanted a relationship with him. And Jack was just ridiculous. He fed her lies and false hopes and manipulated her and then disappointed her every time. And whenever he was dating another woman and cheating on that woman to be with Lexi, he would get furious whenever Lexi kissed someone else "on the side." But it was perfectly okay for him to be dating and fucking another woman? Hypocrisy, much? But, the worst part was definitely at the end. Jack is dating Bekah, but tells Lexi that he really wants to be with her. Jack tells Lexi that she's the one he truly wants and that they'll figure everything out. Hours later, Jack and Lexi have sex. The next day, she finds out that Jack had just proposed to Bekah. Yeah, so much for that. He literally just use Lexi for a quick fuck, as far as I'm concerned. No girl should want to be in a relationship with a guy like that.

And the cheating in this book was just ridiculous. Some authors can get me to 'accept' horrible things. For example, take Captive in the Dark. That book is about a man who kidnaps a woman to train her to be a sex slave. That's horrible. That's disgusting. That's completely unthinkable. But the author masterfully makes me fall in love with the book and the story and the whole thing. So the fact that Avoiding Commitment is all about cheating (which I despise), doesn't automatically make me hate the book. The problem is that the author didn't convince me that it made sense. She didn't pull me in or make me fall in love with the story or the relationship enough to make me overlook the horrible acts of cheating. So instead, I just rolled my eyes every time it happened.

The bottom line is that this book was insanely long, very frustrating, and not satisfying. Lexi is absolutely ridiculous, naïve, and had an incredible ability to not learn from her mistakes. I never would have thought that a "smart" law student could make the same mistakes so many times, especially when she has like 5 people at any given time telling her how ridiculous she's being.

I did think it was clever how the author swapped between two time periods: present day, and the past but slowly brought the past forward back up to match with present day. But that interesting way of presenting the book wasn't enough to make up for the annoying main character and ultimately frustrating story. I almost didn't even finish the book because I just felt like it was going nowhere, and even the end was just Lexi finally realizing what EVERY CHARACTER had been screaming at her from page one. Towards the end I was doing a lot of hair pulling and skimming, just forcing myself to finish the book. I almost feel like I don't understand the point of the book. The problem was that as a reader, I knew what the problem was. I knew that Jack was an asshole that she should stay away from. But it takes Lexi the entire book to even realize that. So I feel like I just spent 400+ pages waiting for Lexi to catch up to me. I never felt like I was on the same page as her. I couldn't relate to her or sympathize her. I honestly looked down at her for acting childish. And when the book ended, I was just like "FINALLY, YOU'VE CAUGHT UP! WE CAN ALL GO HOME NOW!" show less

What to say! Oh what to say! This book is a bit complicated for me. I can't quite decide if I love it or hate it. Maybe hate it is just a little too harsh, but I really questioned myself throughout this entire novel. Avoiding Commitment offers that rush of adrenaline and heart pounding romance that fans have come to love. Everything in this story is so action packed as readers unravel the past and present for Lexis and Jack. With just these two aspects I was in love with the story, but no sooner did I fall for the characters and storyline only to be slapped in the face with the reality of this situation. Lexis comes on!!! Stop putting yourself in these whorish situations. Yes you are good looking! Yes you can have any man you want! Yes show more Jack is delectable! All of these things do not mean that you have to continue to spread your legs to him every single time he is in touching distance. I believe in the end my issues with this story are because I cannot be an unbiased character on cheating. It is a choice. If you do not feel for a person strong enough to not cheat on them you are either one totally stuck on yourself and how to get your own jollies, or two you don' t care enough for that person to respect them. Either way it is not a person worth making a long and lasting relationship with. This story churns reader’s emotions, and forces them to reflect on their own choices and values. It is not an easy story, to say the least; characters will constantly shift leaving readers questioning their judgments. By the end of the novel it will become obvious that lies and betrayal are the key components of this story, and the lingering question will be whether we truly knew any of the characters. At this point I don't really know how I feel about reading book two, and I will have to ponder on it for a bit. After this perplexing story I may have to take a moment to process. show less

Perfect! I loved EVERYTHING about this book. If I could give it more than 5 stars I would! Before I decided to read it I accidentally took a peak at the description for the second book so I sort of new where things were headed (oops) That being said I was able to prepare myself which I think helped a lot. I felt everything that Lexi went through, I understood every move she made and why! She could have easily been me! I loved her, best lead female character I've read about in a long time! The story was soooo good! I can't say enough about it! An emotional roller coaster for sure but totally worth it!

I also loved the nod to S.C. Stephens's Thoughtless series with the D-bags t-shirt!

**Spoiler Alerts from this point on...

Unbelievable! I show more felt all of Lexi's emotions, falling in love with Jack, hope that things would develop into a real relationship between them, desperation when it looked like things weren't going that way, her shock and heartbreak when she eventually realized that Jack was a douche and finally feelings of closure. Jack didn't deserve her. He had his chance to be with her and he screwed it up (on purpose I'm sure). It all boiled down to the fact that Jack just really didn't want to be with her bad enough. He was good at the head games. He even admitted to her that when he was around her he wanted to be with her and when he wasn't around her he wanted to be with other people. When given the option to choose who he wanted to be with, it wasn't her. Enough said! Lexi finally realized that he didn't love her the way she loved him and that she had been fooling herself this whole time. It was like this real "wow" moment for me! The only thing that I wish that Lexi would have done was smack Bekah too! That b***** tried to come across as this genius puppet master but she's just as pathetic for getting engage to a guy who just slept with his "ex-non girlfriend" the same night he proposes to her. I don't feel bad for Jack not one bit, he was selfish and deserves to be with Bekah, if not alone for the rest of his life.

Now the next book I suppose includes Lexi and Ramsey trying to make a go at things. I don't have an opinion of Ramsey yet. I can't say I like him or dislike him but a fling with him was not appropriate given the situation as it was unfolding. Also how awkward and painful will it be for Lexi to be with the brother of her ex-non-boyfriend-who-completely-ripped-out-her-heart's (possible) wife!?! Either way I cannot wait to read it! show less

First off, I'd like to say that the 1 star is emotionally based, not on how well written the book is. The book is very well written actually...

If I had 1 word to describe this book, it'd be INTENSE.
Given a few more, I'd add; FRUSTRATING, HEART BREAKING, PAINFUL, UNSATISFYING, INFURIATING,CAPTIVATING, and ADDICTIVE.

And like most addictions, it's not good for you!! Even though this book was very well written, it was meaty, engrossing, and well developed, it had me sick to my stomach, pissed off, hurt, and frustrated! And there just was no relief! There wasn't a good enough balance of pain to pleasure, it was all just heartache.

Actually, half way through it I got a baad feeling about the outcome of this book, so looked at the reviews and show more spoilers for the next one, and HATED, absolutely HATED what the readers were saying took place in it, so I quit reading this. And even the next day, my stomach is still all tied up in knots! HATED this book!!



..............-------Slight spoiler------....................
And as for the leading lady, I thought her an idiot. The heartthrob at first I really liked, but then he did some absolutely heartless, selfish, unforgivable stuff, and I found myself loathing him. And yet, the idea that they don't get together was heart breaking, I didn't want her to end up with the other guy!! I don't care if he's a 'better man' or not.

I hate love triangles!!!!! HATEZ THEM. show less