(SN: the books ends in a cliffhanger)
I have mixed feelings about this book – part of which stems from not caring for the female narrators voice and some from the fact that it was so similar to FSOG. From the millionaire dominant with the troubled childhood, to the brown haired ingenue that he finds himself obsessed with, to said ingenue who is naive, uneducated, and unprepared for the lifestyle – it almost comes off as fan-fictiony. That being said, I kinda liked the story. I’m pretty sure I liked Alex as a person more than Christian and while I didn’t like Krystina as much as Alex, I liked her better than Ana. He exhibited more warmth and emotional depth, while she had more backbone. I detested the way they both failed to properly communicate with each other about their pasts considering how relevant they were to the present, as well as their failure to communicate honestly about their feelings towards each other. But I just couldn’t stop listening. Full disclosure, I flipped to my Kindle copy of the book for the female narrators portion and I listened to the whole thing at 1.25x speed. There’s was just a quality to her voice and something about the cadence and her spacing between words that sort of drove me nuts. I give the book 3 out of 5 wine glasses.