Format: ebook
Published: November 3rd, 2013
Age: New Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Goodreads
Rating: 1/5 Stars
Buckle up, kids – this is going to be a rant style review. The only reason I didn’t DNF this book is because it’s relatively short. Kissed was marketed as a ‘Best Friends Rock Star Romance’, with a focus on a trip to London for when ‘things change forever’ for besties Beth (aka ‘Bethie’) and Jacob (Jake).
Problem 1: ‘Rock Star’ is hugely overselling Jake in this book. Maybe it comes into play in later books, but throughout this we get told how talented and incredible he is, but we never see it. We never even get any indication of what kind of music his band plays, we get no idea of who his bandmates are, and dude is the epitome of a rich white boy playing at struggling artist.
Problem 2: Beth and Jake meet when Beth is 14 and Jake is 16. Instantly it just feels weird. She has a crush on him (which, totally fair, 14-year-old girl and all that) but there’s just way too much backstory here. It makes their friendship look more like big brother and little sister than best friends or even best friends heading for more. She is very clingy, he is extremely overprotective, and it just feels toxic from the very moment they even meet. His mum comes from old, ‘probably owns an estate’ kind of money, but we don’t find that out until Beth begs her to take her to London when she visits. Which…Beth can only pay part of? Yeah, travelling from the US to London is expensive, but she seems to have this expectation when her parents won’t pay for the rest (which is fair) Jake’s mother will.
Problem 3: both characters come across as entitled, and there’s very little actual personality or redeeming qualities that come through. Good romance writers tend to show us how a couple act not just around each other, but around other people, too – we don’t really get any of this, despite the parents playing a fairly big role, we get told a lot about the other characters but shown very little. This applies to the settings, too. Beth is on her first trip to London, from the US, but it might as well have been set in a different part of the US for all the scene setting we actually get. There’s nothing here that particularly feels like London, even with the characters travelling in and out of the city, by road, with so much ease, and where even is the giant house Jacob’s mother owns? There are servants, but they get nothing more than a passing mention, again adding to this sense of entitlement between Jacob and Beth. The most we get is how he really doesn’t like the ‘new cook’ because she doesn’t smile and laugh like the old one and oh how awful she doesn’t act like ‘part of the family’ (she’s not, Jake, she’s literally paid to be there).
I could go on with the issues in the book, but truthfully, for me, the absolute worst was the fact Jake is English. Supposed to be English, anyway, but it felt like the author had never actually met a Brit in her life. We know Jake is English because again it’s something we’re told, and because he puts love at the end of every single sentence. He calls Beth ‘Bethie’ and there’s a mild attempt at English slang but it all goes wrong, especially when he tells Beth that knackered means drunk. Oh! And he goes to university in London and talks about the general ed side and majors which aren’t a think in UK universities!
Overall, this book just ended up feeling like a waste of my time – it’s poorly written and poorly edited and doesn’t feel like the writer bothered with any research, the characters and setting are completely flat, and the relationship between the couple felt strange and forced.
Reading Challenge
Avengers Challenge!
Prompt: Winter Soldier – best friends
Progress: 6/6 Completed + 40% (2) Bonus Prompts
Unwrapping Words 