Collide by Gail McHugh

How I felt reading this book.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Premise: Young, sweet teacher Emily struggles to choose between her increasingly abusive boyfriend who helped her through her mother's death OR the newfound dark, smoldering hottie that happens to own her boyfriend's business.


She's pretty basic.

Pacing: MAKE UP YOUR MIND EMILY. This book felt like it stretch on until infinity, coming in to 395 pages of JUST F%$#ING PICK ALREADY. It could have been accomplished a hell of a lot faster, saving me time and patience.


ProTip: You should choose Gavin.

Plotline: The plot is fairly simple. She moves to New York as a relatively poor girl, and meets all of these insanely rich people, goes to crazy house parties in mansions, and meets the hottest of the hot bachelors. Of course, she's loyal to her boyfriend who is in all likely hood cheating on her with at least one woman, and who also gets more and more violent and possessive as the book goes along. This book, for me, smolders for a very long time before igniting in one quick, brief, wow-that-was-short spark at the end. It left me feeling very disappointed, especially with the "cliff hanger" type ending.

Writing Style: The writing itself was not too bad. The sex scenes were short, sweet, and to-the-point, lacking all of the over-the-top flowery writing that a lot of authors seem to love.

Characters:

Emily is a door mat. That's the easiest way to describe her. She's wishy washy, emotional, and beaten down. She's not the kind of character you can empathize with or sympathize. I wanted to bitch slap her less than 20 pages into the book. At some parts, she chooses to settle with one guy, because he's the next best thing, even though he's cheating. GIRL. Get it together. You're so passive, it's like you're a mouse. Utterly unlikable.

Dillon, the savior boyfriend, is meant to be unlikable. I would have liked him a lot better if he had had redeeming characteristics, instead of slowly becoming more and more villainous. It would have been a lot more interesting if he was a really awesome, stand up guy.

Gavin the hottie falls for Emily much too quick. It's tragic, because I'm sure he could do much better.

I also didn't like how super nice and friendly Gavin's family was compared to the ultra bitchy family of Dillon. Jesus, author, could you be trying to make your point any more clear?

Final Thoughts: This was an okay read. A bit lengthy for the amount of material worked with, like stretching a pizza dough too thin. I wouldn't read it again.