Hey there Beauties,

It is time again to review another book! It is time to review my February 2024 book!

“Breaking All The Rules”

By: Amy Andrews

** (2 stars)

First and foremost is that for this particular book I like the fact that the author was able to give a disclaimer to what to expect in the book. The disclaimer was talking about death of a family member, and mostly and importantly about the intimacy that goes on in the book. Before it can begin it lets you know that this book should not be in the hands of kids, because there are very explicit details that they don't need to read.

Besides the disclaimer, I really like the writing structure between the pages. It is a very easy read for the most part, and there are some words that need to be looked up. The words that need to be looked up were used in the correct way, so it wasn't like the words were randomly placed. (Sadly, I can't remember the words exactly. I am going to have to write them down in future books I am reviewing.) In saying that though, she repeated certain words and phrases that made me the redundancy that shouldn't happen in a book when you want to catch the reader's attention.

The main characters in this story is Beatrice that was a recent let go advertising office 35 year old woman, and a small town cop Austin aged at 25 years old. The two met by having Beatrice let go from her job and moving to a new location of a small town where Austin lives and work. The basic decision of this was Beatrice simply throwing darts at a map, and the process ends there. She wanted a change, and by moving to this new town she got a new change.

I honestly would mention everything I could that stood out from what I read from the book, but there isn't too much to say. With not much to say it explains quite clearly why I gave the rating to the book as I did. About 95% of this book is complete intimacy. It starts with Beatrice having a mental breakdown from losing her job and dressed so sloppy to have 25 year old Austin completely turned on basically everything she says and does. 

I was quite disappointed when reading this book. It wasn't the fact that it was explicit of details of their intimacy of each other. I don't mind that. It was the fact that it was the only thing in this book. I felt like I was reading the "After" or "50 Shades Of Gray" books with how many sexual occurrences that were happening. It was the fact that it was supposed to be a romance novel, and nothing in this book was "romantic." It was complete and ultimate intimacy each time the characters were in each other's presence. I honestly didn't see any character development. I understood the age brackets where those 2 ages are in their prime when it came to sexual desires, but it was WAY TOO MUCH. 

I mean an ex co-worker of Beatrice offered her another job for making cartoonish greeting cards called, "Cranky Bea," which was an interesting change of pace. The Austin character was very supportive of this for her, and never complained about it.

Which brings up another thing. What made it a challenge was that if I am reading a story I like to relate to the characters. I couldn't relate to either Austin or Beatrice. Beatrice was a void character. I really didn't know who she was... the only thing I knew was that she was good at her advertising job better than anyone, and she is inspired by her mom's paintings and thinks her own doodles suck... and that it is pretty much it. Austin was this perfect guy. WAY TOO PERFECT for my taste where it isn't believable for me while reading. He is so understanding to Beatrice's choices no matter what they were, and listens to her concern of things, while being an off duty cowboy, be boyfriend material when he clearly states that he was fine with being sex partners with no label or emotional attachment.

I honestly felt lied to by the author. Considering majority of the book was sexual in every possible way, within the last 40 pages I forced to believe that they loved each other. There wasn't any lead up for the transition. There was a page I remember just listing things out that caused the transition. As a reader that didn't help. The author wanted me to believe they were in love and I didn't see that at all between the characters. I felt that the ending was just made up at last minute just to finish the story on a good note. I didn't buy it. I didn't believe it. 

Even though I was deceived massively from this book it isn't the most terrible book. I have read things more terrible, so giving it 2 stars is very generous considering of the circumstances.

Peace out!

Sandra M. Dorazil