Blair Holden

I really enjoyed the first look at this book. It came off as a very interesting storyline and something I would be interested to read.

However, the actual story has way too much drama constantly going on. It had a soap opera feel to it which I am not a fan of.

I actually dnf'd (did not finish) the book halfway through because I was struggling so hard to push through.

Also, there were a lot of references to the books that came before which made it difficult for someone new to the series to follow along.

I personally wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. The story had a lot of potential, but instead turned into a "what can go wrong now?" kind of story.

To top it all off, there were quite a few grammatical errors. Normally I can look past these, but there were just too many. It seemed as if it had barely been edited.… (más)

It was a little underwhelming for me. The Bad Boy's Forever is the third book in the Bad Boy's Girl series by Blair Holden and follows Tessa (also known as 'Shortcake') and her bad-boy-turned-law-student boyfriend, Cole, and the ups and downs of their relationship. The book is broken down into two parts, the first of which follows Tessa and Cole in their first couple years of college. In the second part, we get to see Tessa and Cole embark on their new journeys - Tessa to the workforce in New York City and Chicago law school for Cole.

I wanted to like this more than I did. There were a lot of things I really struggled with, and only some of it can be attributed to having not read the previous two books in the series. I felt like there was a decent amount of the characters' history/backgrounds discussed throughout the book to make up for whatever I missed in the first two. I think I struggled the most with the author's particular writing style. Often times, Tessa or Cole would have a conversation or confrontation off-screen (off-page, I guess) and the reader would be treated to a brief recap of the incident rather than experiencing it in the moment as the character did.

I also felt that there was a lot of girl drama that wasn't strictly necessary. For the most part, it felt like its only real purpose was to perpetuate the 'my boyfriend is so hot that every girl wants him, so I'm always jealous' stereotype and create a situation ripe for Tess to throw down. Despite the heaps of drama, there didn't seem to really be an overarching plotline that took precedence and made the reader really invest in the success of Tessa and Cole's relationship.

I also wasn't in favor of the way that several important issues were introduced and then promptly dismissed rather than being used to further deepen or develop the plot. I'm talking borderline alcohol abuse, Cole keeping serious secrets from Tessa, Cole's stepmother trying to make Tessa feel inferior because of her job (mind you, it's her first job out of college and even Tessa admits it's a stepping-stone to her dream job), etc.

I didn't hate it, but I couldn't love it either.… (más)

The premise for this book sounded really amazing and after reading the First Look on Bookish, I was definitely intrigued and wanted to read it even though I haven't read the other books. I had a giftcard to use and bought the kindle version. Well, that was probably a mistake, and while I feel like you could read it as a standalone, there was definitely something missing... at least for me.

I'm all for drama, angst, complex characters, and falling for the bad boys, but this one didn't really work for me. It's quite a fun story and I enjoyed it to some extent, but I just couldn't really connect with the characters like I wanted and that made it more difficult for me to be really invested in the story. Maybe not reading the other books affected my feelings towards this book. It also took a while to really get a good feel of the plot and be into it. The characters are just okay and even though I didn't care about them as much, I thought they're sort of interesting. The plot seems a bit too cringy at times and not in a good way and it took me quite a while to finish this book. I almost did want to DNF, but I paid for it and decided to just see where the story would go. All in all, quite a fun romance. I'd definitely suggest reading the other books.… (más)