Tag Archives: Chloe Mills

Review: Beautiful Beginning

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It’s here. The last installment of Christina Lauren’s oh so sexy Beautiful series.

I didn’t think I’d be ready for this. While I was quite fond of Sara and Max and Hanna and Will, neither of those couples got to me like Bennett and Ryan. I mean, we got to spend time with them in Beautiful Bastard, Beautiful Bitch and Beautiful Bombshell, and now for the fourth and final time (sixth book in the series), the Bastard and the Bitch are getting married.

What a blushing bride!

What a blushing bride!

We’ve been down the road Chloe and Bennett have to reach this point, and finally, the erotic fairytale is coming to its beautiful ending. Although it wouldn’t be a Chloe and Bennett story if there wasn’t some sort of twist to it. Bennett wants to make sure that their wedding is perfect, so much that he has sworn celibacy from Chloe for the week leading up to the wedding to guarantee that they have room shaking wedding night se. Of course, Chloe isn’t happy about that. Add that to the stress of planning a wedding, and we have ourselves a Christina Lauren story.

I quite enjoyed this novella, solely because the intense physical attraction Bennett and Chloe have for each other – like it’s actually ridiculous how much they want to go down on each other at the most inpportune times – is still as high as ever, but on top of that, they have a love you can actually feel. While they may shag like rabbits, Bennett and Chloe also love each other, and if any point is to be taken away from this final novella, that would be it.

I felt as if Beautiful Beginning didn’t have a clear purpose other than to marry the two main characters from the series. To me, the storyline seemed to be a bit all over the place and at times I was wondering what on earth was happening, but really that point is moot because the ending we all wanted happened. Chloe became Chloe Ryan and Bennett became Bennett Mills.

Chloe is as feisty as ever, as she is the literary manifestation of a 21st century woman. Bennett is, well, Bennett Ryan. Sa-wooooooon. I can’t say anything more about these two characters than I have before. They are both great in their own right and while they may bonk each other more than I care to see, they are both strong characters and protagonists that readers can really get behind.

I love how the other two stories were also wrapped up in this novella. SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THIS SERIES AND PLAN TO. Sara and Max are expecting a baby – and are also still apparently bonking like rabbits – and Will proposed to Hanna at the most unexpected time. Kudos to both of those couples.

Wid-o-meter
Storyline: 7.4/10
Style of writing: 7.4/10
Overall: 7.4/10

Christina Lauren wrapped up this series in a nice little bow, giving readers the happy ending they wanted. Now, it’s time for Bennett, Chloe, Max, Sara, Will and Hanna to step aside as Christina Lauren venture into other characters’ territories.

– by The Black Widow

Edit: Turns out I am wrong. This isn’t the final installment in the series. There is more sexy fun coming your way!

Review: Beautiful Bitch

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So curiosity got the better of me and I went out and got the sequel to Beautiful Bastard, entitled *gasp* Beautiful Bitch. I was so taken by the first novel and totally encapsulated in the world of Chloe Mills and Bennett Ryan so I had high hopes for this one. I had planned to purchase this book after my next pay, but I couldn’t wait and decided to buy it straight after finishing Beautiful Bastard. Besides, twelve dollars to my credit card isn’t going to hurt anyone.

RELATED LINKS: Solstice Satisfaction reviews “Beautiful Bastard”

The sequel to Beautiful Bastard follows the now official relationship between Chloe and Bennett.

The sequel to Beautiful Bastard follows the now official relationship between Chloe and Bennett.

Following the events of the previous book, Chloe and Bennett are now officially in a relationship. Beautiful Bitch takes place a bout a year after the events of Beautiful Bastard and it mainly follows the busy work routine lives of Bennett and Chloe. Of course, however, the business is not explored as much as the lust and desire these two sexpots seem to have for each other. Bennett is just dying to take Chloe away for a holiday so he can have her all to himself but work seems to get in the way time and time again.

The storyline in this one was a sad let down, I must say. It wasn’t as much a sequel as it was a timeline filler, and by timeline filler, I mean this book just revisited scenes that either fit into the first books timeline and wasn’t touched upon or could have fit in the first books timeline but wasn’t.  This book mostly featured flashback scenes, from either Bennett or Chloe’s perspective, and didn’t really bring anything new or fresh to the plate, which I was hoping for.

I thought the extreme personalities of both Chloe and Bennett were quite watered down in this book as well; Bennett wasn’t as nearly as bossy and arrogant as he was in the first book and Chloe wasn’t really sassy or manipulative. The two characters seemed to have had an overhaul just because they finally admitted that they loved each other. I didn’t have the same connection with either Chloe or Bennett in this novel as I did in Beautiful Bastard. In saying this, biffs between the two were still evident and still made me chuckle.

It was written in the same manner as the last book which I liked; it made me feel more relaxed as I was familiar with the style of writing from the previous book. The concept of using two different fonts for Chloe and Bennett was used and the contrast in writing between the two was also evident.

The length of the novel was also a let down; after a stellar first novel which left fans chomping at the bits for more, Beautiful Bitch went for 132 pages and that was it. I was really hoping for longer so we could get into more of the infamous Ryan-Mills relationship but sadly I had to settle for 132 pages.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 6.0/10
Style of writing: 8.0/10
Overall: 6.8/10

Overall, I was disappointed. I found it entertaining but my hopes for a solid sequel after Beautiful Bastard were quietly dashed by this installment. Fortunately for me, a third book in the series is coming out so hopefully, fingers crossed, I am extremely pleased with that edition.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Beautiful Bastard

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Time for another hard-hitting review, and by hard-hitting, I don’t mean hard-hitting at all. A bit of a backstory behind this one: my best friend Rebecca had a Dymocks gift card sitting in her wallet for about 9 months and she insisted that she was “definitely going to use it” one day. Last week, as I peroused her wallet to laugh at her license picture like I always do, I saw the Dymocks gift card still sitting there so I said (yelled) “Are you going to use this bloody gift card or can I finally have it?” Without putting up a fight, she just gave it to me. The next day, I entered Dymocks and purchased myself an intriguing sounding book curiously titled “Beautiful Bastard”… along with an Aquarius bookmark.

So, without further ado, here is…

This curiously titled book has gained an enormous amount of fame, even having its own website dedicated to making a movie adaptation.

This curiously titled book has gained an enormous amount of fame, even having its own website dedicated to making a movie adaptation.

The Beautiful Bastard is an adult romance novel written in first-person from the perspectives of both of its main characters: Chloe Mills, the young, sassy spitfire intern at Ryan Media who works for the arrogant, overbearing and, for lack of a better term, prickish Bennett Ryan. The novel explores the work and personal relationships between the aforementioned characters, the latter of which becomes intense and almost dangerous to a point. This novel is written by two women, Christina and Lauren, who join together to form – gasp – Christina Lauren.

The storyline of the novel was interesting to say the least; the ongoing struggle of power between Chloe and Bennett is captivating and sometimes humorous and as a casual reader, it must be good if it sucked me in and urged me to continue reading. Chloe’s wild sass vs. Bennett’s stubborn chauvinism was an interesting war to witness and the interactions between the two characters were always attention-grabbers. As this is an adult novel, there was bound to be some sex… except I wasn’t expecting as much sex as this novel provided. The main issue I had with the book was the countless amounts of repetitive sex they had; it seemed as if the novel just had the main cycle of “Argue, sex and repeat” as that is what generally happened with Chloe and Bennett.

The developing relationship between the two was entertaining but to me, it didn’t quite make sense. If I genuinely hated someone with a flaming passion, I’m pretty sure the last thing I would want to do is constantly have sex with them. However, it began to get a bit cute when Chloe was girlfriend-possessive of Bennett when he was speaking to other women and he’d do the same to her when she was speaking to other men. In regards to that, the “Joel” factor of the story wasn’t exactly solved and it didn’t quite bring me closure; what happened to Joel? Does he know what’s going on between Chloe and Bennett?

The style of writing was casual yet sophisticated, making it easy for the casual reader to take in. The choice of language made it easy to relate to being a young adult myself. There was a definite contrast of language being used between Chloe’s perspective and Bennett’s perspective, with one notable mention to Bennett’s overusage of the word “Christ”.

Overall, this story was encapturing and entertaining, sexy and spicy and all-around outrageously fun. There were a few tidbits of the story that I wasn’t completely happy with but nothing’s perfect really. I think this story is a great read for young adults alike who either want a good story to get lost in or just want some light, easy reading full of sultry language and sexy scenes.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.8/10
Style of writing: 8.2/10
Overall: 8.0/10

Till next time… Noah out!

– by Noah La’ulu