On the Plus Side by Alison Bliss Series: A Perfect Fit #2
Published by Forever on June 27th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 297
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
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The second book in a laugh-out-loud new contemporary romance series from Alison Bliss!
Big girls don't cry. They go after what they want.
Thanks to her bangin' curves, Valerie Carmichael has always turned heads-with the exception of seriously sexy Logan Mathis. Just Valerie's luck that the object of her lust-filled affection is also best friends with her overprotective brother. But Valerie's determined to get Logan's attention . . . even if it means telling a teeny little lie to get a job at his new bar.
Logan can't remember a time when Valerie didn't secretly fuel all his hottest fantasies. Now the curvaceous she-devil is working behind his bar, tempting him every damn night. It's only when he finds Valerie's naughty things-to-do list that Logan decides to break every rule in the book-by making each red-hot deed a reality.
No one warned them that they were going to fall this hard. And no one warned them that sometimes the smallest secrets can have the biggest consequences.
This will likely be a short review. My opinion of this book is just No. Just – no. To all of it.
To expand on that a bit – Valerie Carmichael is presented as a confident, take-no-shit woman. She’s apparently bigger than the average romance heroine, but it doesn’t matter because her confidence guarantees her any man she wants. Except… that’s not the Valerie we get here. This Valerie doesn’t have any hangups about her weight, that’s true. But she takes all the shit. All of it. Every last bit of shit that gets thrown her way, she takes. And there is a lot of it.
Let’s start, not with the hero, but her older brother. Brett. I know that I’ve railed against the older brother trope before, and that it is well known that I hate it. But this was over-the-top and ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Brett literally tries to beat up men who bump into her. Not because they were rude to her or knocked her over and didn’t apologize or anything, but because bumping into her meant that they touched her, and no one is allowed to touch his baby sister. He tells her what she can and can’t wear, where she’s allowed to go, and who she’s allowed to date – for the record, that’s no one. And Valerie just takes it. She changes her clothes when he tells her to, stays away from bars because he doesn’t want her to go to them, and doesn’t tell him when she dates anyone. He’s literally punching people for glancing her way, and she just lets it go. This is the woman we’re supposed to believe takes no shit.
But, wait, you’re saying. Sibling relationships are weird. A lot of people do things for their siblings that they wouldn’t do for others. So let’s move on to the hero, Logan. Logan is equally a piece of shit. He was judgemental, rigid, and completely ridiculous. He never listened to Valerie. Not once. She catches one of his employees stealing from him, and when she confronts the man, he sexually assaults her. Logan walks in on it and tells her that she’s a whore and that the next time she feels like fucking someone in his bar, she should think again. She tries to tell him what happened, and he shuts her down. He reiterates that she’s a slut and that she needs to get out of his bar, then walks away. The topic comes up again later while they’re actually dating, and he does the same thing. And he doesn’t just do it regarding her sexual assault. No matter what she tries to tell him, he shuts her down and refuses to listen. And she lets him. Not once does she get in his face and tell him to fucking listen to her for a change. She just lets him talk over her and walk away from her and says nothing.
And the breakup toward the end. I couldn’t even believe what I was reading. Valerie didn’t make a mistake or screw up a conversation with Logan. She lied to him and continued to lie to him. When it finally came out, it seriously screwed up Logan’s life. He lost his bar, almost lost his mom’s house, and was threatened with a financially devastating lawsuit. Yet somehow it fell to Logan to apologize to Valerie for… I don’t know being mad at her for it? It didn’t make any sense.
I was iffy on the first book and this one wasn’t nearly enough to make up for it, so unless I hear something amazing about the next one, I’m likely done with this series.
About Alison Bliss
As the youngest of five sisters, I have never turned down a challenge…or been called by the right name. My writing career may have started out as a dare by one of my sisters, but I haven’t put my pen down since.
I grew up on a small island off the Texas Gulf Coast, where most of my childhood vacations consisted of camping or hunting trips to the deer lease. Although I’ll always be a Texan at heart, I currently reside in the Midwest with my Iowa farm-boy husband and our two sons. With so much testosterone in my home, it’s no wonder I write “girl books.”
I am an animal lover, a closet video game enthusiast, and believe the way to know if someone is your soul mate is by canoeing with them because if you both make it back alive, it’s obviously meant to be. I am an avid romance reader who enjoys penning the type of books I love to read most: fun, steamy love stories with heart, heat, laughter, and usually a cowboy or two. As I call it, “Romance…with a sense of humor.”
