Book Review: Reflected in You

Oh, Sylvia Day. Sigh. I loved Bared to You. It was sexy, fast-paced, full of passion. But Reflected in You? Full of angst, cliches, stereotypes. Yuck.

Source: sylviaday.com via Michelle on Pinterest

From Goodreads:

Gideon Cross. As beautiful and flawless on the outside as he was damaged and tormented on the inside. He was a bright, scorching flame that singed me with the darkest of pleasures. I couldn't stay away. I didn't want to. He was my addiction... my every desire... mine. 

My past was as violent as his, and I was just as broken. We’d never work. It was too hard, too painful... except when it was perfect. Those moments when the driving hunger and desperate love were the most exquisite insanity. We were bound by our need. And our passion would take us beyond our limits to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession...

What the summary doesn't tell you is that instead of being an alpha-male who is maybe a bit overprotective, Gideon Cross turns into a creepy, controlling ass. His driver follows Eva everywhere. He gets angry when she walks to work {instead of having his driver take her} and is jealous of every person she talks with. Red. Flag. Especially considering that Eva knows what is going on here, and recognizes what he's doing and instead of saying, "no, you will NOT do this to me," she plays mind games. Oh, she says she doesn't like it, and then proceeds to act like a 12 year old complete with retaliation for perceived injustices. How about using the ovaries God gave you and telling the dude that he doesn't own you? And then sticking to it?

Then, we start getting the idea that everyone has some sort of dark past that's impeding the communication process and making a healthy relationship impossible. At the end we get a few nice morsels about why everything has happened the way it has, why {ugh} everyone has been acting the way they have, etc. Personally, I wanted more. I wanted the author to respect me enough as a reader to not drag me through this "he loves me, he loves me not, he talked to another woman, he must really hate me," nonsense of a plot and get to the real story.

We find out that not only does Eva have some serious issues from her childhood {which we knew}, but so does Gideon. They're real-life issues, and they're hard, and people have to make the painful decision to face that every. single. day. Yet, Ms. Day couldn't do better than her stereotypical angst-fest? Add in everyone's first cell phone and we've got ourselves a high school romance.  Like Twilight. The whole up-and-down reminds me very much of Twilight.

In all, I give it two stars. The sex scenes {Day's strongsuit} were enjoyable and a selling point of the book. There were not enough of them to save the plot, or really make me consider buying the conclusion to the series in December. I'll wait until I can check it out from the library.



Linking up!