Title: Girl Gone Viral
Series: Modern Love #2
Author: Alisha Rai
Genre: Romance
Edition/Pages: Audiobook, 9 Hours, 56 Minutes
Goodreads page

I received an ARC copy of this from Avon via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review

Summary

Katrina King has always been private. So her world is turned on it’s side when an innocent interaction at a coffee shop goes viral. Now the whole world thinks she’s romantically involved with a man she doesn’t even know. Before she can spiral in her anxiety, her bodyguard Jas whisks her off to his families cabin in rural northern California. Alone on his family’s farm, they are forced to finally acknowledge the feelings they’ve been harboring for years.

Overview

➸ POV: 1st Person alternating between Katrina & Jas’s POVs

➸ Katrina King: Very private, Best friend to Rhi (from book 1), Traumatic past, Widow, Ex-model, Panic disorder

➸ Jas Singh: Katrina’s body guard, Head of security for her late husband, Ex-military, PTSD

➸ Content Warnings: PTSD, Panic disorder, Kidnapping, Blackmail, Abuse

My Thoughts

Oh man this was a huge miss.. and unfortunately I think I’m officially done with this series. I really wanted to love this book because I loved the idea of a bodyguard romance set at a cabin. But this book was so oddly paced and I never connected to the romance or characters.

First I really appreciated the diversity and mental health representation in here. Asking for help and healthy coping mechanisms is a major focus in here and think it’s really important to see the highlighted in literature. Both Katrina and Jas are haunted by their pasts and they slowly work thought those struggled together, with their family and friends, as well as professionals.

However, it wasn’t enough to carry the meandering pace of this book.

It takes at least quarter of the book for the characters to even reach Jas’s childhood home – which is something that is in the dang synopsis! And once they’re their the plot comes to screeching halt. We spend so much time just watching these character cook and go about their day. Hinting at their dark mysterious pasts without ever clueing the reader into what actually happened. And even after things were finally revealed, I feel like they were so quickly brushed over and forgotten about. If you’re going to make the build up that dramatic, at least let us sit with it for awhile. Make it crucial to the story.

While I liked Jas’s family, the inner workings of their history overshadowed the romance. I feel like the familial plot was so much more dramatic and intriguing than the entirety of the rest of the story. But I didn’t pick this up for familial drama… so I was frustrated that so much time was spent walking us through every family member, divorce, and minor slight.

And the sex scenes… woah was I uncomfortable. There was nothing sexy about it. I didn’t feel the chemistry between the characters, the dialogue was extremely awkward… it was just not for me. If a book is going to go the smutty route, I prefer my characters to be confident and comfortable in their sexuality. And this definitely did not fall into that category…

Overall I found this book be extremely underwhelming. I thought this book had really good intentions with it’s commentary on mental illness and found family. But this book lacked a driving plot and romantic chemistry between the main characters. I was really underwhelmed and unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be continuing on with the series. I’m just not invested enough in the characters at this point.

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