Fierce by Clarissa Wild
Series: Fierce #1
Publication date: January 27th, 2014
Pages: 274
Synopsis (according to Goodreads):
Fight for your dreams. Fight for your life. Fight for love.
Nerdy girl Autumn Blakewood is the prime example of a goody two-shoes. She studies every night, is never late for class, and always follows the rules. She has never felt the need to step out of her comfort zone. That is, until she meets Hunter.
Hunter Bane is a cocky, confident bad-boy, who's nothing but trouble. He's a dangerous distraction to everyone around him. Sexy and strong, Hunter enjoys the swooning effect he has on women. Especially those who aren't used to attention, like Autumn.
Autumn finds it hard not to give into Hunter's advances, even though it all seems like a game to him. Trying to understand him is impossible, because she shrouds himself in mystery. What she doesn't know is that Hunter has more baggage than anyone should have to carry. When she discovers he's in an illegal frat club to save the one person that matters to him, Autumn realizes this could mean the end of her undeniable connection to him. Even their lives are at risk.
But it's too late to turn back now...
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Review:
I received an e-copy of this book from the publishers at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Why did I choose to read this book? Two words. Cover. Appeal. Who can honestly look at this cover and say 'nah, not today'? I was curious about Clarissa Wild's writing since I had not read anything by her as of yet. I figured while I was exploring new authors, why not try this New Adult read out and see what I think. On a side note, the downfall of e-books is you can't close the book and admire the cover without losing your place. It's unfortunate in the case of this book.
Autumn is your typical nerd girl. She doesn't normally go out and have fun because there is studying to do. Her parents are not well off so the fact that they saved every penny they could to send her to college just makes her that much more adamant to do her best. She has never had a hard time focusing on schoolwork before. That is, before Hunter. He comes into her life with his smug smirks and stormy gray eyes and completely unsettles her. Autumn finds herself doing things she never would have thought she'd do. But Hunter has secrets that Autumn is dying to get to the root of at any cost. The boy that intrigues her so much is a mystery she loves to unravel.
Hunter has secrets all right and they all seem to center around his brother. He is involved in something nefarious and he just wants to do what he has to do to survive, but Autumn is a road block he wasn't prepared for. Hunter tries to push her away. He tries to tell her he is no good for her, but the sweet bookworm doesn't seem to believe him. Hunter has had a life of being seen as a bad seed, but Autumn seems to see him as much more.
Can Autumn find out what is going on with Hunter and help him find his way out of his troubles? Or will she simply be another smug conquest of Hunter's?
When I first started reading the book, I longed to love it. I wanted so badly to find a book about a nerd who finds love with a hunky bad boy. But it just wasn't there for me. The writing was a little lackluster and the story just didn't jibe well. It spent most of it's time relaying how scared and emotional Autumn was every single time she thought about Hunter, saw Hunter, touched Hunter... it got tedious and I found myself rolling my eyes a lot of the time. I wanted to fall in love with the characters but they just didn't feel real to me. They didn't suck me in like other authors have been able to do.
Also, there was a gross overuse of the word 'chortle' and 'fazed'. I ended up more focused on shaking my head and grumbling over another use of either of these words than I was on getting engaged in the story. In the case of 'chortle', it got so bad that now, if I see the word I internally grimace. It's a weird word to begin with but having it uttered almost every ten pages made the word painful within the confines of my mind.
One last pet peeve I found in the book was the fact that the author seemed to gloss over the word 'lesbian' but had absolutely no probably saying words like 'pussy'. If the homosexuality was such an uneasy topic that the correct term can't be uttered, then why include it at all?
I really wanted to like this book. I was DYING to love this book so I could buy a physical copy for my shelf of hunktastic cover models, but it wasn't there for me. It was just not written to the level I would have liked and the characters were not developed as thoroughly as they should have been.
