Ladies and gentlemen, I have finished this one hell of a mess here, and welcome to the chaotic review including Mel and yet another CEO erotica. I offer you, Rush by Maya Banks.
Here we are with the review of the book which kept me in a reading slump for over a month. Do not think that I hated it though, I did not, I was just too occupied to completely give myself to the book, I was stressed because of work, I got pretty sick and everything that happened around me ended up putting me into a reading slump and the slow start of this book didn’t help me either. I am well used to corporate-themed romances I thought this one would exactly be like the others, and while in some matters it was, the slow start and the slow burn in the romance didn’t really make me want to finish this book faster, do you know what I mean?
Let me start by saying that this book was solid ⭐⭐⭐s for me and I will make sure to continue reading the series! (Actually, by the time I am writing this review, I have already finished the second book and I hope to write a review of it soon!)
Three stars are not the highest rate I could give to this book however considering the things that slowed me down, I found it fair. I cannot say that this book was a bad one. I contemplated whether I should give it two stars or three stars, but I decided on the latter in the end. You see, I’ve been reading erotica for a good while now, I am almost 30 and I’ve read my fair share of these sexy CEO boys and all-over-the-place heroines. Seeing that nothing actually changed over the years makes me kinda sad but oh well, this book was written during the era so maybe I am too old to like it in the way I used to like these books. Back in the OG days, we all binged these books and this particular series has been on my reading list for the longest time. I don’t exactly know why but after reading other types of erotica and learning the endless possibilities of scenarios in this genre, CEO boys didn’t really make me all hot and bothered lol.
The main story revolves around Gabe and Mia, a wealthy CEO and a girl who lost a lot in her past. Their relationship is a contractual one in the beginning, though both characters make it steer CLEAR that they have something else going on with them, and the book develops as they find out what they actually want each other. This sounds pretty decent until now right? WELL, the problem I had while reading this was mainly the use of the word “damn” if it is nothing else. It was so repetitive, at one point I did feel like I was going to go crazy over it. I don’t like it in a book, you see. I lose my interest and focus when the language of the book isn’t appealing or has too many mistakes that could be easily prevented by good editing. If I was the editor of that book, I’d surely tell her that she is very talented and she could use different words to express frustration instead of using “DAMN” in every single paragraph at least three times. This was the first issue I had like I’ve said, though the story started pretty decent and their attraction to each other seemed nice, the language of this book and unedited mistakes completely threw me off.
I am not saying that the writing was bad of course, do not get me wrong, it felt just too… amateur? The language was all over the place and the insights of characters’ thoughts were repetitive, like, for the f*ck’s sake I get it Gabe YOU DO NOT DESERVE HER, but do you have to repeat it every single page when you get some thinking to yourself? Think about how you can get better, think about what you can do to make her feel better about this, think about how you can get over your non-ending list of complexes without actually hurting you both? It was all over the place as I’ve said. The supportive characters were quite decent and cool, they all made some sort of sense the times they had a chance to talk. I also liked the portrayal of the brother and sister relationship between Jace and Mia, after enduring all those hardships from a very young age, it was nice to read about a small family trying to protect each other. Of course, Jace is another male lead in the series and he does have his own book and we will surely read more about his insights but still. It was fairly nice. The relationship between our three handsome CEOs was also nice. They respected each other, they understood their limits and they remained friends (though this is quite odd because all of them are freaks if you ask me lol).
For the romance and steam part though- hands down one of the most beautiful scenes I have read. It was hot, sexy, and caring and from a book written in the golden age of erotica, you usually do not as for more. Both of the characters seemed like people who wanted something but had no idea how to get it. The main part (until the last few chapters) was incredibly slow because of this as well, and these slow signals made me incredibly distracted, though the steamy scenes were COMPLETELY ON POINT.
Nevertheless, I see myself continuing this series at one point in future, I just don’t think I am that hyped now.
See you in my next review! 💘
Luster of Books 