My rating: 3/5 stars
L.J.Shen is a challenging author for me, because she always finds a way of getting me out of my comfort zone. In a way, she is very twisted and knows what she is doing, because her love stories can be very sweet or extremely dirty, having a very thin line between them. The question is, what do we do when that line is crossed? Do we love it or do we flinch?
In “Wildest Dreams“, I think I flinched and continued doing so throughout the whole book, a feeling that was not very familiar to me in her writing style. I love a challenge, and I am not afraid or ashamed to say that I enjoy a dirty love story, but with this book, it was a little uncomfortable for me.
Dylan is our main character, a single young mother who must figure out a future for herself and her daughter, Gravity. She comes to NY to find that balance, but doesn’t have a plan or an education to do so. She is just pushed to do better by her brother, Row, and from there on, she is totally fazed by being alone. When Rhyland, her brother’s best friend and the biggest man-whore in NY, offers her a fake relationship deal in exchange for money, she takes it without breathing. Plus, she always had a crush on him, but those are minor details. The two of them embark on a dangerous ride, where feelings can be hurt and boundaries seriously crossed.
Dylan was a very cool heroine, and I liked her a lot. Always living in the shadow of her brother, she suffered a lot because she couldn’t go to college, but had the immense privilege of being Gravity’s mother. Their bond was so nice and so sweet to see, and she is definitely a woman to admire. She had her ups and downs and insecurities about the father of her daughter, leading to a distrust in men in general, but she is strong and smart and deserves someone to love. She takes the money Rhyland is offering because she needs to take care of Gravity, but she is pulled into his atmosphere only to discover a great man with issues, but someone who is fully capable of committing, even if he is not very aware of that. He just needs a little push.
Rhyland had a neglectful family, and he was always finding a way to escape and to make money. When he managed to do so, he was lost in this illusion of richness and made mistakes, which led him to become a male escort. After an incident, he quit everything that had to do with that and started his own business, a dating app, but he needed finances to develop it. Because Bruce, the person he wanted, was a family man, he thought that faking a relationship with Dylan might actually be a good idea. But in the process, he caught feelings, which totally changed his mindset and way of seeing his future. He fell in love with both Dylan and Gravity, which was very sweet to watch.
The book became interesting in the second half, with some added drama and a LOT of Taylor Swift, but my main problem was the sexual relationship between the characters, which didn’t feel like sexy or hot. Most of their scenes were out of my comfort zone, and I didn’t enjoy them as much as I would have liked. I liked the way their story developed, and enjoyed Rhyland’s transformation from lazy man-whore to responsible adult, but the story was flat and revolved around his app financing. I was just not in the zone with it, and therefore, I gave it only 3 stars. 😦
Ramonisme 