Saturday, March 8, 2014

[Kame's Review]: "Working It"



Working It by Kendall Ryan
Publisher: Atria Books (February 18, 2014)
Series: Love by Design, 1
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance



Emmy Clarke is out of her depth in New York City’s fashion world, but when she lands a job as an assistant at a modeling agency it seems like the perfect mix of business and pleasure. Working under the notorious Fiona Stone is a nightmare, but there’s one distinct perk: ogling the ridiculously hot male models who parade through the office—particularly rising star Ben Shaw.

Ben is everything Emmy’s not: exquisitely gorgeous, highly paid, and well-traveled. He’s also got more issues than Vogue. Emmy looks after Ben on photo shoots, but she refuses to become another one of his lusting groupies. Ben finds Emmy’s refreshingly real attitude to be surprisingly attractive.

Against a backdrop of the most fashionable cities in the world, casual flirting turns into an illicit affair, but when Ben’s twisted past is revealed, and the bitter Fiona catches wind of their relationship, their careers and hearts are threatened.


Note: This book is intended for mature audiences. It contains sexual encounters and graphic language, including a m/f/m encounter.





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Kame's Review:


Started out as a 4 star for me and during the last 1/3 of the book moved down to a 3 Star


Emmy is following her dream in NYC as an assistant in a major modeling agency. She is annoyed by her boss Fiona who communicates mainly with post-it notes. It is known that Fiona finds young female assistants threatening and everyone is shocked that Emmy has lasted more than a week and that Fiona is taking her to Paris to help her during the fall fashion period.  Ben is the agency’s biggest star and Fiona’s main focus. Of course Emmy notices Ben the minute he walks into the room, but much to her surprise he notices her too.


Emmy, I liked the make-up of her character, a girl from a Tennessee town with working class parents. She isn’t experienced in all the ways of the world, but she isn’t a shy virgin either. She may not have experienced everything in life, but she isn’t naive to not realize there are some dark sides to the world of modeling. At first I thought she started her “thing” with Ben as a fling, something to enjoy, and then as they progressed I just thought she was being dumb and allowed herself to be used – maybe showing she had little self-respect.


Ben has been involved in the modeling business for years and it seems there is little that intrigues and surprises him, until he meets Emmy.  To me he acted like he was mature, but did not behave maturely. Maybe Emmy is the first one to challenge him to find himself. He seems to be everything everyone wants him to be but can’t figure out who he wants to be. His constant connection with Fiona wore on me.


The plot, or I should say the major conflict of the book simmered since page one. Fiona was at the center of it, and Ben’s lack of foresight to see it coming bothered me. Ben and Emmy kept on describing their time together as a fling to themselves but did not act that way at all and both seemed rather stunned when they realized they had feelings for each other. The scene that brought that to light was shocking to me. This book was categorized as a romance but I would question that; yes there are romantic parts of this book, but there is a lot of just steamy scenes that are fueled by lust and there is also a few romantic triangles that tangle together to form a romantic square.  There were other intimate scenes that would make this book erotica in my classification; there is some voyeurism and multiple partners too. However even though the scenes were awkward to read because of a character’s response they did move the plot in a way that maybe could not happen otherwise.



As I said this book started out as a 4 star read the first few pages, I enjoyed the every so often change in POV from Ben to Emmy. It helped me see how confused and rather immature Ben was even though he exuded confidence on the catwalk. Where this book took a nose dive for me was Ben’s continued immaturity and both characters lack of dealing with Fiona.   The book took its final spot at a 3 star for me when I realized this book had no HEA (I am barely convinced Emmy and Ben will make it to the next page together) and left you to know that the story would continue in the second book to be released months from now. There is also a third book planned with two secondary characters from this book that intrigue me – so if I don’t pick up book 2 there is a high probability I would pick up book 3. In my opinion do not pick up this book unless you have full intentions of reading the entire series. It does not function well as a stand-alone you will be left frustrated – sort of like when you buy a great looking dessert at a restaurant and it just doesn’t taste as good as it looks. 

    
   3 STARS!





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Kame received an e-copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for her honest opinion.
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Meet Kame:

Kame is part of a family of readers; one day she picked up the Nook she purchased for her husband and discovered her love of e-books. A few months later he purchased one for her so he could have his back! Kame’s Nook is never far, and she is hard pressed to pick a favorite book, genre or author. As long as there are characters that make her want to sit down and have a chat and a plot keeps the pages turning, she’ll read it.

Kame's GoodReads 




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Thanks for the review, Kame! :) I'm glad that you gave us such an honest review; I know it's not easy when you hit a book that EVERYONE LOVES . . . but you (or so it seems!). 

The simple truth is that there is no such thing as a book that will be loved by EVERYONE. If you love a book, that is great! But that doesn't mean it will work for another reader, and vise versa. 

It's too bad Working It didn't wow, but the cover is nice. :D 


Have you read Kendall Ryan? Even though the book didn't work for Kame, does it sound like something YOU would like to read?

If you've already read WORKING IT, and loved it, please share a few of your thoughts on it in the comments. I'm curious to see why some loved it and others didn't. 











Enjoy!


Until Next Time,

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  *TBQ's Book Palace is a member of both the Amazon and Barnes and Nobles affiliates program. By using the links provided to buy products from either website, I receive a very small percentage of the order. To read my full disclosure on the matter, please see this post!

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