Review: Fallen Too Far by Abbi Glines
Publication Date: December 14, 2012
Synopsis:
When Blaire shows up at her dad's new address after the death of her mother, the last thing she expected was Rush Finlay.
All she needs is a place to stay for awhile, and Rush offers to take her in until she can find her own place. With her father off on vacation with his new wife, Blaire takes Rush's offer.
But soon, their attraction starts to complicate the living situation more than either of them expected.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Date Read: December 26, 2018
Thoughts:
I've never read New Adult, and I've really had very little desire to do so. My understanding of it was always that this is just YA with sex, or rather without the fade to black sex scenes. But what I've heard of the writing had never really appealed to me because it always seemed to be more about the sex than an actual plot. Also, lots of talk about unhealthy romances.
I chose to listen to this because I knew it would be a quick listen, and also because I wasn't about to have the physical copy of this in a house with an 11-year old boy. So I listened to this while I set up a lot of my bullet journal and tried not to cringe at the writing and the romance.
If it's not really been stated before, I don't do books that are straight-up romance and only that. I need books with more substance, and that's why I rarely read contemporaries if I can help it. So choosing to listen to this, where the romance is basically the main plot, I struggled at times to understand the point of what was going on.
This is a pretty unhealthy romance in terms of how Rush treats Blaire and how their relationship proceeds. For someone who keeps pushing her away, he's very possessive over her and keeps insisting that she's not allowed to talk to other guys. That's not fair to anyone, and it's really unhealthy because this is somehow seen as romantic. Personally, I wouldn't be okay with my boyfriend or love interest telling me that I couldn't talk to other guys, male friends, if I was with him. It's not up to Rush to determine who Blaire can and can't interact with, and it's ridiculous for it to be seen as romantic.
There's also the matter of their attraction being nothing more than purely physical. Blaire never mentions anything about Rush's character or personality that attracts her to him, but that's also probably because he doesn't really have much character or personality. They just think the other person is really hot and want to jump in bed together. And to balance things out, Blaire doesn't really have much of a personality either. She's just a very empty character who guys love because she's really hot.
The sexual tension in the book is pretty clear, but I find it hard to believe that it can be enough for both of them to want a relationship. The way I saw the tension, it was clear that they would work as sexual partners, but not as a romantic couple because they didn't really know anything about each other and there wasn't anything other than their physical appearance that led them to want to have sex.
To her credit, Abbi Glines did do a decent job with the sex scenes. She actually had her characters participate in foreplay before just having sex, and she made sure to mention that they used protection. The scenes of Blaire and Rush together before they actually had sex were pretty mild, but their first time was well done. She made it fairly intimate and gentle, considering the kind of person Rush is. The fact that he cared about Blaire being a virgin was unexpected, and his wanting to actually please her was also unexpected.
But once they had sex, the rest of their sex scenes felt really random and kind of pointless. They were doing it for the sake of doing it, and the sex wasn't adding to the plot or anything about their characters. Especially the last scene between the two of them, that was completely ridiculous and I have a hard time believing anything like that would actually happen.
There's also this whole thing about a big secret that we're told throughout the book, but the secret itself was really disappointing. The whole reveal was a let down after all the build-up that we got. It was supposed to be this huge plot twist, but it felt really mediocre. There could have been better secrets to reveal, and much better ways of writing the reveal.
I thought that the ending was really dumb. It didn't make any sense and I just stared at my phone in disbelief that it was the ending I got. For that reason, I highly doubt that I'll ever finish these books. It was just a book to add toward my Goodreads challenge and I have no interest in seeing what happens to these characters in the future.
Character(s):
Blaire was literally just a hot girl. She had no personality and nothing for guys to actually be attracted to romantically, aside from her body. Sure, she had the sad backstory, but it wasn't enough to make up for her lack of personality.
Rush was equally bad. He was just a hot guy and playboy. I don't know why that's always seen as an attractive thing, but it really isn't. He was another shell of a character, and I think his overprotective possessiveness was one of the most unattractive things about him.
Overall:
3 stars. I would never recommend this to anyone because it barely has a plot or actual characters. The sex scenes aren't worth it to pick up this book, and it's really not that great. If you're looking for something steamy, there are probably other books out there that do a better job.
