Synopsis:
Drew Evans is a winner. Handsome and arrogant, he makes multimillion dollar business deals and seduces New York’s most beautiful women with just a smile. He has loyal friends and an indulgent family. So why has he been shuttered in his apartment for seven days, miserable and depressed?
He’ll tell you he has the flu.
But we all know that’s not really true.
Katherine Brooks is brilliant, beautiful and ambitious. She refuses to let anything - or anyone - derail her path to success. When Kate is hired as the new associate at Drew’s father’s investment banking firm, every aspect of the dashing playboy’s life is thrown into a tailspin. The professional competition she brings is unnerving, his attraction to her is distracting, his failure to entice her into his bed is exasperating.
Then, just when Drew is on the cusp of having everything he wants, his overblown confidence threatens to ruin it all. Will he be able untangle his feelings of lust and tenderness, frustration and fulfillment? Will he rise to the most important challenge of his life?
Can Drew Evans win at love?
Tangled is not your mother’s romance novel. It is an outrageous, passionate, witty narrative about a man who knows a lot about women…just not as much as he thinks he knows. As he tells his story, Drew learns the one thing he never wanted in life, is the only thing he can’t live without.
Review:
There have been a lot of references to this book being similar to Beautiful Bastard. Others have compared it to Wallbanger. And still others have said it's a combination of both. Yeah, I can totally see that, though it's not close enough to either to feel like a rip off to me.
Drew is Part Simon and part Bennett. He's definitely got some of Simon's sense of humor with a dash of Bennett's Devil May Care attitude, though he's lacking some of Bennett's alpha tendencies and Simon's sharp tongue. Of these men I'd have to say Simon is still my favorite. Drew and Bennett are neck and neck.
While this novel is definitely funny, it isn't the hilarity that was Wallbanger and sometimes it felt as though it was trying too hard. The repetition of the conversational elements, specifically when the protag was speaking directly to the reader got to be a bit cloying. I found this especially true when being asked to visualize a scene. This level of direction drew me out of the story and felt very contrived. In addition, the need to perpetually regress during the storytelling in quasi-flashback style was a tad distracting as well.
I will say that the second half of the book flowed a lot better than the first and was certainly more engaging. It if weren't for this portion of the book, the rating would have been lower. The story took off and became very immersive during the latter half and the humor was sharper and felt less staged.
What truly garnered my praise was the characters. Both Drew and Kate were really well written and fun. Their sometimes witty, sometimes caustic banter was really great and they certainly had fantastic chemistry. It also helped that this story was told from Drew's POV. It was intriguing to watch everything unfold from his perspective and the author certainly navigated the mindset of a man with startling percision. I wish more books were written from the male POV.
The story is fairly linear, no real shockers abound, but I was never once bored which is always totally huge for me. I have the attention span of a gnat so I'm easily sidetracked. Oftentimes I find myself reading paragraphs ahead, just so I can get to the next thing. Bad habit, but that's just me. Well, that never happened with this novel. It's fast paced and constantly engaging which is a win for me and my gnat brain.
If you enjoyed Wallbanger by Alice Clayton or Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren then this is a must read, I doubt you'll be disappointed.
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