Go Home Book, You're Drunk!

 

Expected Publication:  October 15th, 2013

Naked Sushi

By: Jina Bacarr

Cosmo Red Hot Reads from Harlequin

ISBN-13:  9781459254817

 

From Jina Bacarr comes a sexy and provocative new release from Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Harlequin.

One day I'm getting canned from my job as a computer programmer for having wild copy-room sex with a guy I thought was the new game designer. The next, I'm crashing my ex-boss's business lunch in a creative attempt to get my job back and men are eating sushi off my naked body!
That's when I realize:

a) My ex-boss is a hiding corporate secrets

b) Hot copy-room guy is an undercover FBI agent

c) I would make a kick-ass spy!

Then Special Agent Hottie brings out his cuffs, and things get really interesting…

 

Review

 

     Pepper is a very geeky girl, working in a job that can bore her to tears on some days.  So when she comes across the hot guy in the copy room, late at night, making copies of her boss' classified documents she can't help herself.  They get caught having sex in the copy room and Pepper loses her job.  Determined to get it back, she goes undercover as a naked sushi model for her boss' business meeting.  And the hot guy from the copy room just happens to be one of the guys at the meeting!  Turns out he's an FBI agent undercover, who is trying to expose her now ex-boss for less than savory business practices.  She decides to help him, in the hopes of resuscitating her failed ambitions to work for a government agency that she thought were long since dead.  Can they keep their hands off each other long enough to catch the crook?  Will they find something more than just hot sex in the person they least expected to connect with?

     This is going to be a short review because I have very clear and concise opinions on this book.  I kind of think it was pretty horrible.  I like it when a book knows what it is and where it's going.  This one tried a little too hard, never deciding between erotica or a plot.  It tried to have both, but couldn't really manage it all that well.  Pepper starts out kind of likeable.  That goes out the window immediately after she and the random guy have sex.  She gets fired and really thinks she can get her job back and seems almost surprised she lost it in the first place.  Okay, whatever.  She also goes from freaky-smart, super geeky girl to giggly, sex-obsessed and empty-headed fluff ball.  And we're supposed to believe that she has a shot at being employed by the FBI.  Also, FBI-guy is a serious douchebag about his encounter with Pepper.  He has to be the least stealthy, least covert undercover FBI agent ever. 

     The whole Naked Sushi thing barely takes up any of the plot at all and really is just a minor event.  The sex was boring and almost straight-up, porn type sex with nothing that interesting or great about it.  Overall, this was a (thankfully) short, time-wasting read.  But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and I definitely won't be reading it again.  A true disappointment.  It only gets as much credit in the ratings as it does, because I was able to finish it and it didn't drag unnecessarily.  It needs to go home, sober up and get some more depth to its characters.  Then we'll go on another date!

 



VERDICT:  1.5/5  Stars

 

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley.  No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book's expected publication is October 15th, 2013.*

If I Was Invisible...Wait, I Already Am

Expected Publication:  August 1st, 2013
Invisible
By: Marni Bates
K-Teen
ISBN-13:  9780758269386

Jane Smith has survived three years of high school without making a single enemy, all by keeping a low profile. Not even her three best friends, Kenzie, Corey and Isobel, can say the same. But with Corey dating the lead singer from ReadySet and Kenzie in a relationship too, being invisible tends to be lonely. But now she's written an article for her school newspaper that has accidentally snagged the attention of some celebrities. Turns out, people get really upset when their innermost secrets are splashed all over the front page. And new her well-ordered life is being blasted to hell, with results that are wildly unexpected.

Review

 

     Jane Smith has managed to fly under the radar for her entire time in high school and she liked it that way because she still had the support of her truly awesome best friends.  But than Cory started dating a famous lead singer and Kenzie became America's Most Awkward Girl AND got the guy.  Now they never have any time for her and are always going places/doing things that they don't invite Jane along for.  Not to mention they take her for granted any time the opportunity arises. This does nothing for her already non-existent self-esteem.  Than she punches school bully Scott in the lunchroom and gets forcibly teamed up with Scott, a boy she can't stand (because of a perceived snub) for a front page article in the school newspaper that she never even wanted.  All Jane wanted was for someone to let her add a fiction page into the paper - quietly!  Now she's breaking rules, making changes and forcing everyone to actually look at her for once.  But not everything that happens as a result is good and Jane ends up hurting the people she cares for most unintentionally.  Can she fix things before she really does end up invisible and alone?

     To be quite honest, if you have read the first book with Kenzie you may be kind of wary of this one like I was.  And the synopsis is really misleading, because the blow-up with the article doesn't even happen until the last 25% or so of the book.  The main focus is Jane learning to stand up for herself and assert her own needs to the other people in her life.  Also, learning that we can't choose who we have romantic feelings for and that you shouldn't be a douchebag because of it (that last part is something she's REALLY slow at learning, but having Scott on the other end does nothing to help the point across!!!).  Jane got on my nerves for a good majority of the book and that's putting it mildly and politely.  She was one of the most milquetoast 'heroines' that I've read so far this year in the realm of YA.  Yes, teens are not a species of perfection which is perfectly okay.  But she has no self-respect, which kind of detracts from when she does something really awesome (like punching Scott in the face or...yeah can't think of anything else right now).  The whole book is spent with her whining about how no one sees her and her friends are ditching her.  Of course she does NOTHING about it until she blows up at Kenzie closer to the end of the book.  Also, there's something borderline call-the-suicide-prevention-hotline about coming up with ways to die when you're bored, etc.  It kind of creeped me out.  I loved Isobel and honestly thought a book with a romance between her and the girl in the baking club would have been lots more interesting and majorly cute (Mabye I'm inferring something there, but that's what I saw anyways).

   The romance with Scott wasn't swoonworthy at all.  He spent most of the book acting like a complete manipulative, blackmailing douchebag to Jane (who spent the whole book being an a-hole to him cause she wanted to pretend she didn't like him).  Scott crashes her first date, provides the pictures for the ruinous article and goes to a horrible family dinner at Jane's being her fake 'boyfriend.'  All while doing his best to be an arrogant jerk and make her life a living Hell!  And this is supposed to make me root for them as a couple?  WTH???  Their whole dynamic is borderline abusive and after spending the whole book just wanting him to jump off a cliff and with the meanest interactions possible, they suddenly like like each other?  A world of no!  Just not a thing I could get behind.  I did like Jane's crazy old lady, bookstore boss who wanted them to take a picture in the makeout section.  She was hilarious.  The real highlight character-wise for me though was the nice side of somewhat mean-girl Chelsea.  At times she was a better person than Jane's supposed best friends.  By the time the story broke, I had already started skimming through it because this book was boring me and making me cringe.  Some may identify with this book and really like it.  They may even find it somewhat funny and cute.  I just really didn't and wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.  Just re-read Awkward instead, it'll be a much more satisfying experience!

 

VERDICT:  2.25/5  Stars

 

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book's expected publication is August 1st, 2013.*