Friends With Partial Benefits by Luke Young

Friends With Partial Benefits
Synopsis:

The first novel in the six book best-selling Friends With Benefits series is free on all the major eBook sites.

Jillian Grayson is a disillusioned divorcée and best-selling romance novelist who suddenly can't write a chapter without her hunky male heartthrob suffering ED, an STD, or even worse. Brian Nash is a tennis-obsessed college senior who's unlucky in love and the roommate and best friend of Jillian's son, Rob. When Rob brings Brian home for Spring Break, and Brian meets the surprisingly young and tennis passionate Jillian, their shared interest quickly develops into an intense mutual attraction. After nearly giving in to their feelings, they hatch a plan, while under the influence (of something more than just the perfect Miami night), to be Friends With Partial Benefits, complete with rules to define the boundaries. Will the lonely pair continue with this distinctive relationship, actually explore their desires, or discover all of it is a really bad idea? 

NOTE: This book contains explicit language, sexual content, slightly inappropriate humor and is recommended for mature audiences who like that sort of thing. This book is also a less explicit version of Ian Dalton's novel Inappropriate Thoughts.

Review:

If you follow my reviews you know that I almost never stop reading a book once I start it. If I am really not liking a book I have a rule for myself - I must read 50% of the book before giving up on it. I figure that is long enough to really get to know the story and usually by the 50% mark I am like well might as well finish this now that I made it this far. And who knows, sometimes the books actually get better and I find them to be pretty decent reads by the end. 

I started Friends with Partial Benefits the other day and I made it to 26%. Twenty six. I really just cannot read further in the book. I debated writing a review, but really for the story to be that upseting, that not cool with me that I put it down at twenty six percent I thought why not. This is definitely not my kind of book and I just had to put it down and say no more. Well actually I did decide to press on a few times to get to that 26%, but I didn't get very far each time. 

So why didn't I like this story? Well first the writing was came across as this strange reading something that has already happened without actually being in the past. Not sure why, but I always felt like I was reading the past even though it was supposed to just be the story like normal, just the present. It was alright, not great, until Rob and Brian come home for spring break. 

So Jillian, Rob's mom, is a romance author but since her husband cheated on her she can't write good sex scenes. She is trying to write one where the female comes into the bedroom while the male is sleeping, pulls the sheet off him and starts pleasuring him. It was written kind of strange for me, the story within the story, made it seem not really appropriate, but I thought whatever. Hopefully I don't have to read more of her work. Couples can do that, this is her romance within this book, I'm just going to not think about it. Well the morning after Rob and Brian arrived Rob goes to see his girlfriend leaving Brian sleeping in his room. Jillian goes up to see if he wants some breakfast and notices he has a hard on. So what does she do? Well takes the sheet off so she can stare at his hard on that is now sticking out of his boxers. And keep staring and yeah. It was about then when I just thought wtf am I reading? Is this supposed to be okay? Is this supposed to be funny? You do not know this kid at all and you are just going to ogle him while he is sleeping? How would you like it if you found out some random dude was checking out all your private parts when you slept? I found it quite disgusting. 

Then she calls up her bff, who I hated with a passion. Apparently the bff is all about sex all the time. Which fine if that is what you want, but the way she was written...I really didn't care for her. Bff immediately comes over to ogle hot sleeping guy as well, wearing a teeny tiny bikini that just barely covers her and turns transparent when wet. Yep. Jillian warns her not to go in the water as it wouldn't be cool to show off to Brian, but bff does what she wants. She is left alone and so she goes to check on Brian who is working out. And she gets him to "help" her while accidentally losing her bottoms and it was just written in a way that it was disgusting to me. I did not care for it at all. It wasn't hot or sexy or funny or anything. It just creeped me out. Not cool. Jillian just doesn't seem to have any boundaries and it is supposed to just be okay. I mean I would much rather read porn than this cause this just made me feel icky. At least with porn I would know what I am getting into.

And Jillian catches bff and is like what are you doing? And bff is just like oops! Teehee. Silly me, I lost my bottoms. Teehee. And that is where I stopped. These scenes made me very uncomfortable, so much so that I had to put the book aside. I don't care what consenting adults do with their own time, but this was just....not cool. Starting with the staring at him naked while sleeping and ending with the horrible friend who doesn't have boundaries. I can only imagine that it gets worse from there and I just can not handle that. So yeah if that sounds like something you would find entertaining then this is the book for you. If not then just stay away. It might get better and turn into an okay book, but I doubt it. Even if it did I don't know that I would be able to get these early scenes out of my head enough to enjoy it. Not cool. 

Rating: 1/2

Available on 

Amazon * Amazon.de * Barnes & Noble * Goodreads