Sweet Thing

At 65%: I know I shouldn’t compare an author’s books, but I can’t help it. I LOVE RC’s writing. It is so Taylor Jenkins Reid to me LOL and that’s great because TJR can’t write fast enough to suit me!Just like Before We Were Strangers, ST is angsty goodness, only maybe a tiny bit too angsty. Mia can be trying. And I totally get it; she’s grieving and scared of her own life. But at 65%, I’m ready for the angst to wrap up! It goes on and on and on. Which, is good AND bad. Bad because, what purpose does it serve to drag it out this long? Unlike when I read BWWS, I can put this book down. Like Will, I don’t know when Mia’s gonna pull her head out of her ass.But, it’s good because I love reading them. Yes, it’s an anomaly. Part of me wants it to hurry up and get to the “happy,” but another part of me wants this book to just go on forever.Just like with TJR books and BWWS, I feel like I swallowed a tennis ball during chapter 1 and have yet to spit it out. I love that feeling. I’m weird. But it means I’m invested.At 100%: I just finished the book. I believe Mia needed to be as trying as she was so that her transformation at the end would make more of an impact. I love how Mia and Will were brought back together. I hate how the second they get back together, the book ends. But, that’s most romances!This one is a hard one for me to rate. It’s definitely at least a 4 star, but not quite a 5 for me like BWWS was. I’m very happy there’s a novella because I feel like I need more closure! I’m going to bawl if that’s not what it is!! I have a feeling like RUSH, it might be Will’s time away?? Don’t tell me. I’ll find out soon enough! Hmmm…maybe that will give me closure. Dunno. Whatever it is, I need more Will in a bad way.

I have to say I was really excited for this book. So excited, that maybe that was why I got disappointed. I am three years younger than Mia, and let me tell you, Mia is super annoying, even for me. Reading her definitely will make me think twice in the future about complaining. Will is worth it though. I feel like this book was written by two different authors, because I loved the first half so much and I can honestly say I hated the second half.Let's start from the beginning. The first half of the book is wonderful, Mia is funny and put together, her ideas are sometimes weird, but I could see myself in some of them... The man she describes as her type is my type, except unlike Mia, I don't have a soft spot for musicians... She was clearly lying to herself - like we saw when she met the incredible Will and the not so incredible Robert. Her whole thing with Robert annoyed me to no end... Not all bankers/Wall Street/whatever guys are like that, it put me off. She treats Will like crap over 75% of the book, which also put me off. Not in the beginning per say, because I could see where she was coming from, he was a stranger, he said he lived in a storage, he worked as a bartender. So at the naked eye, the first impression, Will gives is he doesn't really know where his live is going or what to do with it. I get why she didn't want to date him and get involved.NOW, after she got to know him, after they had. become friends and after EVERYTHING, ohhh Mia... I wanted to slap her across the face more times than I could count. Will is sweet, caring, talented, he has a brain people! He clearly adores her! And despite his flaws, he seems to have some kind of a plan - this of course, is pointed out by the other characters in the book, but Mia refuses to see it. -.-Also, she has NO IDEA what feminism is, please don't believe feminist is a woman who doesn't want to cook for her husband or have his babies! A feminist is a woman that maybe cooks for. her husband and then he cleans the kitchen, or cooks for her on another day. EQUALS PEOPLE. EQUALS. A feminist is a woman who after she yells to the cab to stop and let her leave DOES NOT blame the man for allowing her to leave the cab. It took me a long while to get over that scene in the cab with Robert... I wanted to email the author and yell at her! The message being sent in those three scenes are just horrible!I read in some reviews people were slightly annoyed about how long it took the two main characters to get together, that didn't bother me. I understood Mia wasn't ready for Will. She REALLY wasn't. It bothered me however how the so called feminist went about her life AFTER the break up... I can't even begin to express how those endless chapters were to read. I wished she had mourned her father instead of Will. I could get on board with that!So, to me the first half was five stars, it was wonderful how they met, how they found each other again, how organic things seemed and how much potential the story held. I was excited and already a little bit in love with the crazy , wild, underdeveloped Will. And the second part is two stars... Which lands us on the 3.5!I still think people should read it, this book would have been wonderful if not for Mia. So maybe of we had some chapters in Will's POV mixed with Mia's, this book would have been a five stars throughout!

Oh this book. How do I put my thoughts together and review this adequately so not to offend the overwhelming amount of fans that loved it. I am going to try to be as clear and concise as I can so please here goes:Mia - I tried to like Mia and I actually did in the beginning. I thought what she had with her Pops was really sweet and I liked that she's a smart protagonist that went to an ivy league school. But as the story continued, I started to like her less and less and by the end, was just totally annoyed by her. Here's the thing, I find it really interesting that she's just so afraid of being left by Will and that's the main reason why she refused to be in a relationship with him. I get that her Pops just died and I think losing someone and dealing with that loss is a serious issue. And I'm glad the author decided to tackle it. But to me, I feel that Mia had a really great life. Although her parents are divorced, but she has a great relationship with both of them and she was raised with a great step father that loved her like his own. So this damaged side of Mia where she's just afraid to commit to someone who truly has given her every reason to trust him just didn't make sense to me. Thus the drama that took SO long to resolve in this book just seemed stretched out and I didn't think it was necessary or even interesting.Narration/Voice/Writing Style - I'm not sure how to categorize this but I felt the writing style was a little off. I felt like we were always inside Mia's head and there was hardly any dialogue in the book. Wait, let me rephrase that. There was dialogue...just not dialogue that helped move the story along...do you know what I mean? I feel that Rainbow Rowell has a gift for doing this. Her books are very dialogue heavy and without going into someone's head too much, she's able to move a story forward by just two people talking in a room. I didn't feel the case here. In fact, a lot of the times I almost felt like I was reading a letter from Mia. Or rather, like an email recounting her year in NYC. It's hard for me to explain and I'm not doing a great at it, but rather than being immersed in the story due to rich context, great dialogue and good prose, I was left with just a retelling of someone's experience.Timeframe - The timeframe in this books stretches about a year but it seemed really rushed and choppy. There were many times I was reading a paragraph and like a span of 3 weeks would have gone by. Again, this I think didn't help with my complaint above about the writing style...but it just felt like someone's recounting what happened to them in a letter! I wanted more detail! I wanted more witty dialogue and actually I just wanted more communication between Mia and Will! I felt like a lot of their problems would have been resolved if they just sat down and talked instead of leaving things unsaid. If they truly cared about each other like they said they did, they would sit down, talk to one another and really listen to what each other had to say!Winks - OMG the winking! There was so much winking and just the flirting in general. I hated how Mia and Will were just like we're friends and called each other "buddy" but then they'd be so physical with each, kiss each other and touch one another in places that I'd never touch my male friend...even if I knew he liked me! I don't know...maybe I'm a little old fashioned. I understand there's physical attraction between the two...but the execution of the flirting was too much. In this genre I feel like Colleen Hoover does it really well in Maybe Someday. There's flirting and it's wrong but the two characters do it anyway and once it's done, they face the facts and talk about what happened. That would have been a more mature way for Mia and Will...but nope...not talking just avoiding!I unfortunately will not pick up any other books by Renee Carlino which is sad because I really wanted to go with the masses on this. I am sorry I did not like this as a lot of other readers but if the majority did like it, I'd say give it a try and decide for yourself.

Sweet Thing was one hell of a rollercoaster ride of emotions for me. I liked the plot and fluidity of the story. It was very interesting through and through. The only reason why I'm not giving it full on five stars is because of Mia. I mean, while I understand what she was going through in losing her father and how difficult the grieving process was, I just got so mad at her throughout the story. She nearly drove me insane with her stupid choices or lack thereof. I mean, I loved Will. I admired the kind of person he was and how musically gifted his character was. So it really hurt me that she would push this wonderful man away when he was so willing to give her all the love in the world. All I can say is that my gosh, he's quite patient and it takes a lot of love for one person to put up with someone like Mia.Don't get me wrong, she wasn't totally moronic. It's just that she had a tendency to make things harder than they ought to be, along with putting herself through a lot of heartache all because she was "still searching for the right path in life". And then in the beginning and at certain instances it seemed she was too concerned about Will's status and whether or not he'd make money. I don't know if I misinterpreted her intentions on those occasions but it kind of turned me off a bit and made her appear materialistic.But what was clear was the fact that she was desperately seeking the next step. And like I said, that is understandable, but holy crap it took her a really long time to make up her damn mind. And to be honest, I wasn't empathetic towards her when her hardheadedness finally drove Will away. I wanted her to taste the kind of pain she was putting him through by denying his feelings and hers. It's really like they say, how you never know what you've got till it's gone and Mia learned that when Will was no longer apart of her life for a while. I know it's mean, but I wanted her to suffer longer just for giving me a headache throughout the story, too.Overall, it was a great read. Very interesting writing and solid characters with their own unique qualities. I liked how it all worked out and especially enjoyed seeing things from Will's perspective for a while there. Also, I like how Lauren's character impacted their relationship. At first when the story opened up in her POV, I was like okay, who is this and where has she disappeared to because I didn't read the synopsis. But then when all was unraveled I got it. It was a great way to connect the dots. This is a very talented author and I look forward to reading the next one.

When I was deciding what I wanted to say about this book, the word that kept coming to my mind was "perception". I had Sweet Thing on my Kindle for some time but it had the old cover. I'm not even sure when or why I downloaded it but my "perception" of the cover made me pass over it time and time again. Recently, a blogger had the new cover posted and it caught my eye giving me the "perception" that this book would be one I would find interesting, and it wasn't until I tried to download it that I realized I already had it. As I started reading, I "perceived" it to be a romantic, boy meets girl, their paths cross unexpectedly, they fall in love, HEA. I thought I knew where this train was going and I was happy to get on board....but reading under this "perception" made me continually frustrated with Mia and Will. It was when I started thinking about why they were behaving the way that they were, my "perception" of their relationship and this book totally changed. I began to "perceive" Mia as a woman who was living by the rules of others, believing her life needed to be controlled, structured, and practical in order for her to be happy. When things don't go as planned, Mia tries regain her happiness by desperately trying to maintain that control giving her the opposite results. Mia's initial "perception" of Will caused much of her heartache. At first my "perception" of Will (who is ridiculously hot - my perception of that didn't change lol) was that he was a bit aimless and too laid back. Again, when I really looked at Will, he had more layers and emotional maturity than I had originally "perceived" making him the perfect companion as he joins Mia's heart wrenching journey of self discovery and personal evolution. Days after reading this, I am still thinking about it... and that my friends is what makes a great book! The only thing that held me back from 5 stars, and this could just be me, was that there seemed to be a lot of narration where I would have preferred to experience some of these things through dialogue. Overall, an awesome book ... one not to miss!