Archie was a man who loved women, many of them and extremely often… at least until Jezebel and a sexually transmitted disease. The two may have happened at about the same time, but one did not cause the other. Needing to refrain from having sex, caused Archie to come to realize that he was a sex addict, and that Jezebel was special. She was someone he could actually fall in love with and see himself being with for more than just sex.
This was an interesting story. I will admit that I began by not really liking Archie, but through the story, something almost shifted, and I began to feel some sympathy for him. But I am afraid that the ending left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied and once again beginning to dislike him. While he has improved and grown in many ways, I am not really sure I can feel any true sympathy for him. Part of me feels like he grew as a person as his actions at the end were, in his mind, meant to protect Jezebel, but the other part of me sees them as much more about protecting himself from his own previous poor decisions. I have a hard time feeling like he actually did learn his lesson and feel like he will wind up returning to his own previously poor behavior, and will likely end up in more trouble than he was attempting to escape from.
While the book ends suddenly at the event that led to the beginning of the story, I felt like I wanted just a bit more. (I had to go back and reread a bit of the beginning in order to remember what happens to him after the book ends. Sounds slightly confusing to try and explain doesn’t it?) I also need to warn you that there are some pretty descriptive sexual encounters throughout this book.
It’s not a bad story. As I said, the character descriptions are vivid, and the character personalities do shine through quite clearly. I received a review copy of this book, but I don’t believe I was the intended target audience. I’ve heard this described as “lad-lit”, which might explain my luke-warm feelings about it. (Think “chick-lit” but targeted at men rather than women. So my being female may have colored my perceptions about the story somewhat.) I think that there are others who might enjoy it more than I did, particularly those who enjoy stories involving introspection and vivid descriptions, romance, and love vs lust stories. There is a lot of sex and a lot of sports and sports-related violence. There's also some instances involving what I perceive as male dominance posturing toward other males who are attracted to the same woman.
But for me, I felt like there was something more that I wanted from this story. I know that not all stories will have happy endings, but this one just left me feeling rather disappointed and unsatisfied. (Probably because as I mentioned above, I don’t feel like I was the target audience for this book.) Of course, if you really want to know why and what I’m talking about, you’ll have to read the book yourself to decide if you agree or disagree with my feelings about it.
Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.
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