Better With Ben (How to Tame a Heartbreaker #3) by Casey McMillin
Better with Ben (How to Tame a Heartbreaker Book 3)
Synopsis:
Taylor always thought of herself as being a strong person, but when she stumbled upon a corpse while working at a wedding reception all that changed. She spiraled into a world of crippling anxiety attacks that made her feel like she was out of control.
Just when she thought her situation was hopeless, Ben stormed into her life. He was her friend's older brother and was fresh out of the military. Somehow he knew just what to say and do to ease her fears. His massive stature, gorgeous tattoos, and confidence made Taylor feel completely at ease.
The chemistry they shared was evident, but Ben's new post-military career placed a lot of demands on his life and required the utmost secrecy. He had all but sworn off having a girlfriend before Taylor came along. But if anyone was capable of tempting him, she was the one.
Review:
I was really excited to start reading Better With Ben. I had just read Unbreakable and loved that and this sounded kind of similar. Well maybe not, but it seemed like a good follow up read. I had it on my Kindle for a while and I finally thought let's read this one. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed. Taylor annoyed me greatly and by the end I just wanted it to be over. Some slight spoilers ahead.
So the books starts off with Taylor finding a dead body at work. Not like a super gruesome body or anything, it just looked like someone laying on the floor at first. So fine, Taylor freaks out, has a panic attack and such. Sure I get that. People react in different ways and hers was to have a panic attack. You can't really control it and sometimes your mind just does what it wants. It happens. Well she seems to go on and on and on about finding this dead body. First off she didn't want anyone to know she was the one who found it as for some reason the person who killed the girl would then come after her cause that make sense. So what does she do? Tell a bunch of her friends what happened. Good, you are not telling people. Then she finds out that the killer turned himself in like right away. Great! Now you don't have to worry about him coming after you for some reason. Only she does. She also finds out the killer might have killed himself. Her first thought? Great! That would be the best case scenario. Really? You don't even know what happened and you will be super happy someone killed themselves? I just don't understand that. It just felt like this huge ginormous thing and it was going to be terrible and she is afraid for her life and I just didn't understand. I bet it is upsetting find a dead person, but I just started getting annoyed by how much she was just harping on it. Like she could do nothing for a week because of this. She is afraid something will happen to her, even though the killer is locked up. I kept thinking maybe you should go talk to someone if it is upsetting you this much. If you keep having panic attacks when you are alone and whatnot you might want to talk to someone as that just doesn't seem like a normal or good reaction. You need to learn to deal with this cause this is effecting you a lot.
So then Ben comes into the picture. Well they already knew each other, and they both like the other, but they don't want to do anything about it. Ben has a super secret job that he just leaves town suddenly and does whatever, then comes back. He doesn't want a girlfriend because he doesn't want someone who will get annoyed that he has to leave suddenly and won't be home for a few days at a time. When he sees how upset Taylor is he comforts her and he has the magic touch that makes everything better, makes Taylor feel safe. So she calls him when she is freaking out and he comes and makes everything better. Things progress and they are like dating, but they don't really talk about it.
Things progress and Taylor just keeps getting more annoying for me. For example? She mentions how she has to go visit her siblings the one day and then Ben wants to come with. She is super upset by this as he can't! He will change his mind about her once he sees where she grew up! He somehow finagles his way into coming even though she doesn't want him there and has a great time. He doesn't care, but she is adamant that he does! She is so pissed off at him and all you might think you don't care, but I know deep down you do. How could you not? She grew up as trailer trash! Then he has the nerve to bring up meeting her siblings in front of her other friends and their famous boyfriends! Like OMG! He told some famous guys son about her trailer trash family!?! She is completely crazy when it comes to her family. I just didn't understand it. Like I get that you are embarrassed by how you grew up, but at some point you have to try and get over it. When Ben is just cool with it and it is all fine, maybe you shouldn't freak out so much and insist that it was horrible for him? None of your friend even knew you had siblings and they have known you for years. How is that possible? Do you really think your close friends would judge you for this? Well maybe, since you claim you would judge them if you found out they grew up in a similar way. Maybe that is the problem, she would be judgmental of her friends which is not really something I like in a character. That is kind of terrible that you would judge someone else based on what kind of life they had when they could not choose. Lame.
And those siblings? She is kind of a jerk to them about Ben. Ben visits and she gets pissed, then tells them he doesn't really like them even though he does and told them he does. She is all he just feels bad for you and he won't be back and it is just charity and whatever. It was just like what are you doing? He seems to genuinely like them, and he says he will visit again, so what is your deal? They can't have other people in their lives who are good influences? It just didn't make a lot of sense to me. At some point you have to learn to trust other people and not just go crazy on them. Why hurt your younger siblings like that by yelling at them how Ben doesn't really like them and such? Her upbringing wasn't even that bad in the grand scheme of things. I knew many a person like her in high school and they were fine. There were lots of trailer parks where I grew up and so what. It just seemed like such an overreaction every time it came up that it didn't make a lot of sense to me. She keeps hurting these siblings she supposedly cares so much for when she has no reason to.
Well she also has like a fan girl hero worship thing for famous people as well. Her friend is dating some famous guys son and knows other famous people and whatever. When she gets invited to hang out with famous people and she just acts like they are completely different and better than everyone else. She gets a call one night to go hang out with Cam, the one famous guy, and she was just like well when you get asked to hang out with Cam you don't say no. What? You can't turn down the opportunity to hang out with some guy who happens to be famous? Okay. Cam asks her to stay late, and man it is hard turning Cam down cause I mean it's Cam. Not like she knows him and likes him and all that. No, you just don't say no to someone like that cause they are famous. Seriously. I get at first being a little star struck if you like whatever celebrity they are, but after a while wouldn't you want to actually like them as a person to continue hanging out with them? Later when hanging out with her friend and famous boyfriend she comments on how she is enjoying their company, regardless of if he is famous or not. I just thought shouldn't that be the way it always is? Would you hang out with a complete jerk all the time just because he is famous? Apparently. I mean that is the way it seems whenever you are around these people so....I don't understand that. Famous people are just people. Maybe it is just me, but I don't want to hang out with you if you are a jerk even if you are a famous jerk (not that these people were, but Taylor doesn't seem to care either way. They are famous so she will hang out with them).
So through out all of this Ben and Taylor kind of get closer, but they never really talk about anything. Taylor heard through the grapevine that Ben is not looking for a girlfriend so instead of talking to him about it she just whines about how she wishes he was. I just felt like they should at some point have talked about what was happening and stuff. Instead they both made assumptions about the other person and it cause issues when they could have been resolved if they communicated. They do work everything out in the end. This was definitely not the book for me as Taylor is just way too annoying to me. I didn't understand why she would freak out all the time and be all complaining about things. She kept saying how she was usually a strong person and such, but from what I saw in this book I was not buying that. Ben was better, but I didn't love him either so it just made the book not that good for me. Oh well, I think this author is just not for me.
Rating: ★1/2
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