Naksed's Reviews > Love in Rewind

First, I smelled him, then my body sensed him, and then I saw two large tanned hands placed on either side of me on the granite countertop.

"Are you trying to make me come in my pants in front of all my clients, little girl?"
he asked.

And that was it. I was hooked on this roller-coaster and did not get off until the last page. By times romantic, funny, poignant, at other times, smutty, lewd, infantile, implausible, both its qualities and its flaws had me riveted to Tali Alexander's Love in Rewind.

It is definitely a go big, or go home type of book. Everything is ultra magnified, embellished, puffed up. The first person narrator is living not a dream life, not an enchanted fairy tale, but more like an alternate reality where every single thing she could have ever written down in her teenage journal comes true: The older, suave, former rake who gets "mine, mine, mine" obsessed with her, giving her his heart, soul and his huge, throbbing dick. Yup. This was what it was like reading the book. One minute, you are swooning in a frosty Katy Perry video complete with rainbows and unicorns, the next you are in the middle of a raunchy porn flick. It was offputting but hilarious.

I was torn with the rating. 80% of the book was great. The last 20% was a hot mess. I was intrigued to see how the author was going to turn this Perfect with a capital P romance and show us how it went wrong. It would have been interesting to explore what happens after the proverbial HEA when the Prince swings the Princess up on his horse to lead her to the castle. Unfortunately, I got the Great, Terrible, Misunderstanding. It kind of ruined it for me. Not many writers are able to explore what can go wrong in a relationship and how two people who messed up can work to get back maybe not what they had but maybe something even better and stronger. I can only think of one contemporary romance that was able to deal with the "after the HEA" in a plausible way and that was Nina Lane's Spiral of Bliss series. I didn't get that here. I got a soap opera.

However, this is not to say I did not enjoy the story overall and I am very tempted to read this author's other work to see if maybe with her later books, her writing has been able to mature and calm itself. I see great potential here. Spoilers ahead for people who want details of the plot.

(view spoiler)[Emily Marcus meets Louis Bruel when she is an eighteen year old straight out of high school waitressing at an event for his real estate company. The guy is HAWT, a major player, and quickly zeroes in on her.

They have a whirlwind courtship, marred by Em's insecurities about herself and her ability to hold his attention. He, on the other hand, is an obsessed, mine, mine, mine Alpha hero from the get-go. In other hands, this kind of over-the-top insta love would quickly become trite but in Louis Bruel, the author has constructed a very plausible portrait of a man who never fell and once he did, he plummeted without hope of return. The old adage that reformed rakes make the best husbands seems to hold true here.

Anyhoo, fast forward ten years later and their perfect marriage has hit a snag. She thinks he is cheating on her and once again, showing she has not matured at all in the ten years that she has become wife and mother herself, she decides to hightail it out of here without a single word to him. Real good decision *eye roll*

This is when the story began to lose me. If she had done this at eighteen, it would have been another story but to just up and walk away leaving the kids behind (yes, sure with an army of nannies and housekeepers and grandparents and aunts and uncles, but STILL) did not sit right with me. She should have the strength to stand up for herself, confront him and then, if needs be, kick HIM to the curb.

So where does she choose to go to find solace and think about her life? Why, a five star spa retreat at St. Lucia of course where, as soon as she lands, she meets up with the gorgeous hotel manager and they proceed to drink, dance, and flirt their sorrows away. NOT COOL! And totally implausible. Yes, if she was a college girl who broke up with her boyfriend, sure. But a thirty year old mom of two who on top of it leads a very public life and her mishaps can prove to be very embarrassing for her family? I no likey.

Finally, we get the POV of the H and naturally explains away the Great, Terrible, Big Misunderstanding. Like Emily, Louis has his own insecurities and ten years of a loving, devoted marriage has done NOTHING to dispel them. This is both a flaw of his and an insult to his wife. How can he believe she will leave him if his company gets bankrupt? How does he not trust her enough to share in financial problems that involve both of them and their children. His attitude was disheartening. There is no trust and no respect. She is his "little girl", a doll to be put on a shelf and taken out for play when he has time.

The story concludes by having a life and death crisis reuniting the two protagonists. The author almost pulls the rug from under us, tricking us quite cruelly that this story is going to end in the death of one of the protags. But it was just a cruel trick.

We realize at the end that the introduction of the OM at the eleventh hour was to tease us into reading his story which is supposed to be told in the next volume. I really hate this kind of manipulation and contrived plot twist and think I could have very well done without this entire episode and still be interested in reading the next book in the series.

So in a nutshell, those were my major problems with the book. Duh And. (hide spoiler)]