Review: Pretty Perfect by Riley Hart & Christina Lee
SYNOPSIS:
Jesse
After spending the first part of my life trapped in a small town where it wasn’t okay to be a makeup-wearing boy who liked boys, I swore I’d leave and never be anything but loud, proud, and unapologetically me. I’ve kept that promise. I’m following my dreams, have an apartment with my bestie, and get to dance my nights away at one of the hottest gay bars in Portland.
The only downfall is Dane, the sexy bartender with a perma-scowl always aimed my way. The tension between us is so strong that even the clubgoers notice, and they eat that stuff up. Our boss makes us dance on the bar together every Friday night. I might shake my booty a little more with Dane just because I love getting under his skin. It’s not my fault he doesn’t know how to have any fun…but I kind of want to teach him.
Dane
I got burned bad by my last boyfriend. Thankfully, my sister, Bree, and my niece, Hailey, make my days a whole lot brighter. I’m getting back on my feet, including a decent job as a bartender. But working in a gay club makes it harder to keep to myself. No way do I want to get reeled in by another charming, pretty face and get hurt again, and definitely not by someone like Jesse, whose audacity frustrates me to no end.
So why do I want to shove him against the wall and screw that boldness right out of him?
Only…sometimes he’s pretty sweet, especially with Hailey. As we go from enemies to angry hookups to friends, our feelings are changing and moving into uncharted territory. This can’t go anywhere. Jesse and I are like oil and water; we just don’t mix…right?
REVIEW:
Riley Hart and Christina Lee’s combo work is always hit or miss for me and unfortunately this book was a miss. There wasn’t anything wrong with it per-say but it lacked any substance or depth. I found myself bored, so bored that it took me over a week to finish this one story, which is unheard of, I usually DNF by that point.
So the story starts off with Jesse and Dane, the tension between these two is palpable. They are complete polar opposites, but there is an undeniable undercurrent of sexual chemistry there. For a while they play the will they or won’t they game, spoiler…we all know how it ends. Things progress from there, Dane realizes he was a judgement jerk and while he had his ‘tragic’ past, it felt unfair that he pinned those biases on Jesse. But Jesse takes Dane’s assumptions in stride.
Yet once these two finally get together, the story fizzled. Sure there were some cute moments with Jesse, Dane, and his niece (Hailey), but these moments weren’t enough to carry the plot. There was some drama with Jesse and his family but again, this felt sprinkled in as an after thought to make the story longer. The more I reflect on the book, the more it could have been a novella. Instead the story was dragged out, and now I am left debating if I will even pick up book 2… probably not.
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