Monday, 22 September 2014

REVIEW; Rule, by Jay Crownover




Rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: New Adult, Romance, Drama

Recommend: Yes/No

Summary:
Rule Archer is a tattooed, bad-ass player. It his ritual to go out and get drunk, pull a girl and get what he wants and have her leave quietly in the morning. He turns heads when he walks in a room and most females swoon after him.

 Shaw Landon has been one of those girls for over 5 years. Having loved him since she first met him at 14 years old, she could never get over him. Following the death of her best friend, Remy, Rule's twin brother, Shaw still found herself wrapped up in the lives of the Archers. 

 Every Sunday she drags Rule from his latest acquisition and drives him to a family meal, in the hope she can keep his family together. They were more of a family to her than her own were, and she doesn't want to give up. 

 Rule can't stand Shaw, or doesn't have much time for her. But after her spends more time in her presence and his friends and family point out her looks, Rule begins to see Shaw in a completely different light, and his feelings and thoughts about her change him. After Shaw's birthday night, their relationship changes and so begins the rocky love life of Shaw and Rule.

My Thoughts:
ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS!! It's definitely on my list of favourites. 

LOVED:

  1. Rule; we're told all the girls can't help but pine after him due to his looks, but that followed through with his personality and attitude. Even with words Crownover portrayed his sex-appeal and angsty attitude that draws you in to his power. I didn't like him to begin with, as in his dismissive attitude towards women wouldn't attract me at all, but as soon as he starts to really see Shaw, we see the real him emerge from his pain and he becomes a bad-ass we can't help but love. 
  2. Shaw; gotta give this girl props, she fell in love with her best friend's twin, and dealt with for years despite him breaking her heart every week when she witnessed his girls being dismissed. The girl had strength! She had awful pressuring parents who didn't listen to her and she finally was able to stand up to them and also confess her feelings to Rule.
DIDN'T LOVE:

  1. Names; This won't seem like much of a big thing, but one thing really stuck out to me from the start and that was the character names- the majority were all 4 letters long!! Shaw, Rule, Rome, Remy, Nash, Gabe, Dale and others. It just lacked a bit of balance as realistically in a group of friends there is a variety in name length! It would be one thing if some were nick-names like Alex being short for Alexander but it was just something that irked me as the story progressed. 
  2. Sex; this book oozed sex appeal and attitude. But as a female, I didn't really like the presentation of sexual topics in this. Rule's attitude was a huge turnoff. He wanted sex and to use girls, but put the blame on the girls being stupid enough to go home with a stranger. It's 50/50. He was a player and Crownover wrote from that POV but he was a bit too flippant that you wonder is it possible for one girl, and of course the one girl who loves him, to change his ways. Shaw had kept herself for him and her first time was absolutely brilliant and amazing... not buying that. 
  3. Plot; it was a little predictable but NA/YA generally is to an extent. At times it felt like it was the same skeleton of a lot of similar stories but just dressed a bit differently. The stereotype virginal goddess falling for tattooed badboy and he of course reciprocates the feelings and is forever changed by the goddess. All the drama too- Remy's death, their mother, Shaw's parents, Gabe- all the trauma and drama surrounding the lot of them at times just seemed too much to be true.
  4. Communication;  At times it really felt like I was missing a huge part of Shaw and Rule communicating. There were too many repetitive conversations about love and their relationship and not knowing what they were doing but knowing they love each other to not wanting to hurt each other, and all of this just in metaphors etc etc. It all just felt a little too much and up in the air for me. 
Although there were a few things I disliked/had issues with, it didn't really take away from the fact that I REALLY LOVED this book. I fell for Rule and Shaw together. Their relationship is depicted beautifully and their journey is far from smooth but it's captivating. It may not be the best written of novels, but it is still mighty good and the novel itself has an attitude that draws you in. 
I both laughed and cried whilst reading this and if a book can cause me to do both, then it's winner to me.

at