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stephanie_inman 's review for:
Goody Two-Shoes
by C.L. Cruz
Age gap romances can be hit or miss for me. Unfortunately, this one was a huge miss.
It was everything I hate about age gap, all in one novella. First we have a bit of a power dynamic issue. Charlotte is 18. Tank is 28. Charlotte needs a place to stay, and Tank offers to let her stay with him. (I don’t even remember why exactly Charlotte was visiting Juniper Creek. I just remember that Charlotte’s dad and Tank’s dad are friends. Charlotte is supposed to stay with Tank’s dad, but he’s an unreliable alcoholic and leaves her at the bowling alley Tank owns). Basically, Charlotte is a barely adult and Tank is responsible for her for the time being. So, yeah, power dynamic.
Then we have the “good girl virgin who never had a life” thing. Charlotte wants to get out and let loose. She acted like a teenager, which she was, so that’s not the problem. The problem is that a 28 year old business owner would be pursuing this kid. I could see if Charlotte was mature or in any way seemed like an adult. She didn’t.
She was also unbelievably annoying. I just couldn’t like this character.
Then there’s Tank’s lack of judgment and all around skeeziness. She goes out one night to have some fun. Again, fine. But this puts us in a timing situation that didn’t work for me at all. She drinks. After weeks of Tank fighting himself to stay away from her, he decides the night she’s been drinking and he’s angry (he was jealous, and went and picked her up from the place she was hanging with a guy her own age) is the night he will “take her virginity”. Definitely didn’t seem like the right time.
But what really did it for me was Tank’s inner dialogue. He would think about how young and (this is where I nope-d the hell out) “tender” she was. As in “she’s so young and tender”. Not sexy, dude. Creepy as hell. I ended up skipping the sexy times between these two because I honestly couldn’t have been less interested. Had this been a full length novel, I would have dnf’ed it.
While I didn’t like this one, the first two books in this series are good. And I’m writing this review after reading the rest of the series, so I know there’s more good than bad to this series.
This one just really didn’t work for me.
It was everything I hate about age gap, all in one novella. First we have a bit of a power dynamic issue. Charlotte is 18. Tank is 28. Charlotte needs a place to stay, and Tank offers to let her stay with him. (I don’t even remember why exactly Charlotte was visiting Juniper Creek. I just remember that Charlotte’s dad and Tank’s dad are friends. Charlotte is supposed to stay with Tank’s dad, but he’s an unreliable alcoholic and leaves her at the bowling alley Tank owns). Basically, Charlotte is a barely adult and Tank is responsible for her for the time being. So, yeah, power dynamic.
Then we have the “good girl virgin who never had a life” thing. Charlotte wants to get out and let loose. She acted like a teenager, which she was, so that’s not the problem. The problem is that a 28 year old business owner would be pursuing this kid. I could see if Charlotte was mature or in any way seemed like an adult. She didn’t.
She was also unbelievably annoying. I just couldn’t like this character.
Then there’s Tank’s lack of judgment and all around skeeziness. She goes out one night to have some fun. Again, fine. But this puts us in a timing situation that didn’t work for me at all. She drinks. After weeks of Tank fighting himself to stay away from her, he decides the night she’s been drinking and he’s angry (he was jealous, and went and picked her up from the place she was hanging with a guy her own age) is the night he will “take her virginity”. Definitely didn’t seem like the right time.
But what really did it for me was Tank’s inner dialogue. He would think about how young and (this is where I nope-d the hell out) “tender” she was. As in “she’s so young and tender”. Not sexy, dude. Creepy as hell. I ended up skipping the sexy times between these two because I honestly couldn’t have been less interested. Had this been a full length novel, I would have dnf’ed it.
While I didn’t like this one, the first two books in this series are good. And I’m writing this review after reading the rest of the series, so I know there’s more good than bad to this series.
This one just really didn’t work for me.