Ashleigh Paige

See more of my reviews sooner on The YA Kitten!...Why was this author picked up for publication again? Good sales or no, this book's quality is abominable on the same level as Beautiful Disaster. Slut-shaming, glorification of cheating, and more things that make you want to vomit run amok in this train wreck of a novel. Oi, my aching head. The only reason I read it was because I won it and wanted to get it off my TBR. None of the reviews that are already up warned me of exactly how bad it would be.The book tries so hard to make Ashton an angel who likes having a little naughty fun, but she's really just a nasty, spoiled child who hates other women she deems competition in some form or another. Her best friend is the only one immediately safe from judgment. The other two exceptions to the rule get her judgmental attitude until they prove they're not competition for anything. "Anything" includes one of the Vincent boys, her room, and pretty much whatever else you can come up with. She also trivializes rape when she uses that word to describe how Beau's girlfriend is constantly on him. UP YOURS, ASHTON.Beau is about as far from romantic as you can get. He's always telling her how her being around him makes him suffer so much and to me, that reads as emotional manipulation. Let the target know what THEY'RE doing to YOU and simply wait for things to do your way. You control your emotions. No one else does. Blaming them on other people = huge red flag. Trashing his own girlfriend constantly? Ugh! Dating Ashton, who constantly trashes his mother and calls her a slut (albeit in her head)? Worse. He's got no respect for women.The book also does a tricky thing in how it builds strawmen and mixes right ideas with bad ideas/characters. Ashton's father paints an exaggerated, largely untrue picture of Christianity that have even a nonreligious person like me saying it's an insult to Christianity. Nicole says Beau is hers and that means she gets to say who he sees (wrong), but just a page later, she objects to the idea she has to watch him paw at another girl and just take it (right). Not cool.This line on its own should be a cause for worry: "You have no idea how hot he was beating Ryan's face in (p. 82)." Try and tell me this is anything other than romanticizing violence and I will laugh at you.And as previously said, this book glorifies the stuffing out of adultery. Adultery is one of my biggest no-nos in all of everything and there better be some extenuating circumstances if it happens. Here? Nah. They just get hot for each other and stop controlling themselves. Here's a hint: if you can't control yourself, get away and stay away from them no matter how much it hurts. They both suffer for a while, but in the end, they get their happily ever after. They don't learn anything from it and they get a pass with the "it was meant to be!" bull. That's no excuse for cheating. Ever.Nicole. Poor Nicole. She spends the entire novel being forced to be a one-dimensional mean girl love rival who gets slut-shamed, disrespected, and made the butt of the joke at every turn--even by her own boyfriend Beau. Instead of attempting to create a nuanced character, Glines takes the easy way out and uses a cardboard villain. Bad form, Glines. For that matter, poor Honey too. She gets slut-shamed just as often and gets stuck with a name meant to make readers cringe.And how does it all end? One boy hands her off to the other and Beau makes threats that are considered romantic! Gag me. Please. Saying he'll hurt any guy who touches her and he doesn't know what he'll do if she dates someone else? Not romantic. At all. All of this together leaves me baffled as to why people like this series. I try to understand. I really do. It doesn't always happen.Don't even get me started on the one-chapter invocation of the archaic, misogynist spirit girl tradition, where girls are expected to devote their time to the football player who picks them/they're assigned to. Among the things they're expected to do? Kiss them and possible service them sexually, as the text implies. Why was it needed if it's only mentioned in a single chapter? It's unfortunately real, but it's disgusting and best left out instead of propagated by awful books like this one.The next book is about Sawyer and Lana (Ashton's cousin), but I don't give a hoot about them. Nicole, who she really is (because no way is Glines showing all of who she is; I know there's much more to her than that), and how she got that way are a lot more interesting. There's not a single good thing to say about this book and it should be avoided at all costs.