Ashlyn:A lonely society princess living in NewYork City.
Daddy hired you to be my bodyguard.
Colin: Childhood enemy, now her protector.
Daddy thought I’d be safe. He thought I’d never fall in love. He thought he could keep me forever.
Charles: obsessed with keeping her safe, keeping her his, he hires the one person he knows she could never fall in love with: Colin.
Daddy was wrong.
(Blurb from Goodreads)
What's it About?
Ashlyn is a seventeen year old girl who has been protected by a bodyguard from age 5 after her nanny had kidnapped her. The nanny was in love with the father and wanted them to be together with Ashlyn. Since then then her high powered lawyer father has made sure his little Princess was kept safe from everybody. They moved from California to New York and Aslyn's every step is monitored, literally. This has led to a lot of resentment between the two and Ashlyn craves freedom. After her last bodyguard is fired because he fell in love with her. Her Dad decides to hire her childhood nemesis Colin Brennen whom she hates. But after they meet again after 10 years, her feelings start to change...
Review (Some spoilers ahead!)
I'm so happy this was free on kindle so I haven't actually wasted money on this. The premise seemed fun, I love high society insight because the people who live that life fascinate me. But instead I spend half of this book wanting to punch Ashlyn in the face and cringing over the shallow characters.
The beginning was alright. Ashlyn seemed like an ordinary girl, she goes to school, has fun with her best friend and adores playing the piano. Except her bodyguard Stuart, who does not behave like a bodyguard to me. He's in love with Ashlyn -which she knows- and seems disinterested from the whole body protecting part of bodyguarding. After she gets away from him -he seemed like a lousy bodyguard in the first place- because she wanted freedom, he doesn't tell her father. She tells her dad herself and he fires Stuart. The father is very overprotective but besides calling his daughter princess a lot there wasn't a bond between them. She wants to please him but he doesn't pay much attention to her and doesn't see her as a person, more as a child. Her father hires Colin Brennen as her new bodyguard, who bullied her when she was a child. She can't stand him and her father knows that. To me it seems that when you hire a bodyguard the one that needs protecting must trust said bodyguard. So that was the first thing that felt off to me. If you can't trust and respect your bodyguard will you listen to him when it counts? Secondly, the reason her father hires Colin is because he hates him and because Colin wants to work for the FBI when he's done studying (he's 21 now).
WTF! You want your daughter to be safe and you arrange such crappy security??? To me it felt like the whole bodyguard thing was just a plot device to set up the romance. An excuse for them to be close to each other, fall in love yadadada.
From the moment she looks at Colin she is overcome by lust and it never goes away. The entire story she is talking about how hot he is and I felt I never really got to know him. He had an ordinary childhood, is sorry for bullying Ashlyn and now wants to work for the FBI. I have no idea why he even likes her because she acts like a spoiled brat most of the time. She acts out and then regrets it because now Colin will think she's immature. But this cycle continues the entire book and she doesn't learn from her mistakes. They never really have conversations with each other either.
What also bothered me was the best friend, Felicity. She existed solely to react to Ashlyn and never becomes a fully developed character with a life of her own. Felicity's "teenage speak" (OMG!, seriously, no way!) felt forced and the jokes fell flat.
Problematic in this book was the portrayel of other girls at her school. Besides Felicity she has no friends (because her father does not deem them appropriate) and the mean girls who dislike her because Colin is hot are being described as skeletals who never eat and that's why they look like models. Felicty is a little bit fat but as Ashlyn tells us: you should look further than what people look like... What do you want to tell me??? This is complete bullshit. I don't get why that link is contantly made between fat - is nice- and skinny -is bitch-.
I can go on and on how the characters aren't consistent, the suspense was laughable, the stupid decisions Ashlyn made, and how the central relationship wasn't founded on anything beyond the superficial. It was confusing overall and I'm not planning to waste more time on it.
Quotes I hated
“Danicka asked where you were. I told her you and Colin were taking a long lunch eating- something she and her friends might want to take up since -clearly- Colin is a man, and men like meat, dogs like bones.”
"Being domestic for Colin felt amazingly good. I had a ridiculous fantasy of myself, donned in a flirty apron, making him meals-as his wife."
WTF..!
"Pressed into the cushion, I felt like a delicate eggshell on a downy pillow."
Yes I think that too everytime I sit on a pillow....
In Short
It could have been an interesting story but bad characters and mediocre storytelling made this one sink. Don't even get me started on some of the subliminal messages it was sending.
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