Ben Hart doesn’t do love. He’d been there, done that. The two times he’d chanced it, they’d both broken his heart. He has everything a Junior studying at The University of Arizona could want; a great fraternity house to live in, his best friend as a roommate, and more girls then he knows what to do with. Life is good. Even perfect at times, until the one girl from his past, walks back into this life, changing everything.
Paige Pearce has one goal - to get as far away from her old college as possible, desperate to forget the one night that should never have happened. Attending school with her older cousin Tommy 3,000 miles away, seems like the safest place to begin a new life. However she doesn’t bank on being drawn to the one boy she left behind years ago, and who just might be able to help save her, if she’ll let him.
This is a new adult book. Intended for audiences 17+
Young Adult/ New Adult author. Lover of books, fine wine, chocolate, and movies. Mom to two awesome kids, and one insanely crazy boxer, who keeps me busy.
Oh God. I really did try to give this book a chance. I think the beginning was really fast but I did get into it toward the beginning of the middle. Paige, a shy girl with so many baggage she needs a fricken cart, was honestly pathetic. The way Ben is described not just physically, I know he could hold his own in a fight. I saw that, other readers saw that, heck, even Paige herself saw that when Ben fought Carson. She just wants to protect him from Carson. Give me a break! He can handle himself, which is more than I can say about her. Ben, oh Ben. He doesn't have the balls to tell Paige what he's feeling (I took that almost exactly out of the book) but has the balls to look her in the eyes after he fucks half of the girls around school (and almost including her roommate! :o - which is something I'll get back to). The book dragged on and on and on, holy FUCKING shit, and on! It was so dull in the middle that instead of reading my biology text book to help me sleep, I read this novel. I mean really? Paige is leading Ben on and everyone fricken knows it. Both of them too. So in the beginning when Ben wasn't going to fall in love when her AGAIN, I believe it and sympathize with him a little. But then when she declined his proposal to start a relationship for about the eighth (or ninth?) time, I gave up all hope for this guy. I mean really?! Oh Ellie, the roommate. Every character needs to have someone to rely on and she's the one for Paige. They never seemed to be on the same page, which is ok, until she almost had sex with Ben. How was she suppose to know that Paige was in to him even though Paige kept leading him on?! (sarcasm) So after that, I guess she blames Ben even though Elie's a bit of a slut... Bros before hoes kind of thing in the girl way? I've no idea. There obviously need to be other guys than Ben, right? Oh there was! About four or five... Because she couldn't be with Ben because he won't win a fight with Carson but the others can. I swear I don't understand that AT ALL. Suffice to say, I didn't find this enjoyable.
This is my every first book of Kelly Mooney. There are moments that I'm feeling this book is very slow to read. I loved their the story of Ben and Paige. And there are several times that it really pisses me off the things they do to each other. Why oh why they can't just be honest to themselves and just move on. I'm glad Ben never gave her up and still pursue her until she says yes to him.
Well truly satisfied at the ending. I loved that thru the years they finally decided to settle down for good.
Sex crazed college frat boy. Virginal/Pure (but can be slutty!) girl. Lots of booze and frat parties.
The writing was decent, but the story/characters just blew my mind away (and not in a good way). When Ben wasn't busy screwing a new girl every other chapter, it was a buildup of sexual tension between the H/H. I kept thinking, did I accidentally stumble onto an erotica?!
Mostly finished the book because I was just so "WHAT?" ...
(Technically 2.8, rounded to 3 - For grammatical errors as much as for plot)
I'm riding the fence on this one. There were so many typos and grammatical errors that its was difficult to read. The sexual situations were also tough to read because they were so brutal and harsh. But the underlying storyline was worth reading and the characters were engaging.
One wish I had was that they were more open with each other. So many problems and heartbreaks could have been avoided. But that's life isn't? I bet if we sat back and looked over our lives like a person reading a book we'd say the same about ourselves. Maybe why it's so frustrating... because it is so realistic.
I personally thought that Ben was incredibly stupid and flat for most of the book. It wasn't until the last third that he started to grow up. Watching him make the same mistakes over and over and over.... it was boring and irritating. I almost felt like Mooney was glorifying crazy behavior. Having gone to college myself, I know most students did not live that kind of lifestyle. Even the Greek houses. It seemed over the top. When Ben did start growing a brain, he becoming endearing and lovable. Why did we have to wait so long for that to happen?
Paige did not seem like your typical victim and I had real issues with how Mooney portrayed her. If you were raped, you would not act like a tennis ball during a match at Wimbledon. One minute she was timid and reclusive and the next she was dragging strangers to her room in a skimpy dress. It just seemed like she was having an identity crises instead of dealing with rape and physical abuse. Also, if she was trying to stay under the radar she was doing a poor job. Especially if she was trying to protect her loved ones.
There was some real genius to the underlying plot, but I wish it had been polished some more. Scene after vomit inducing scene of Ben humping random girls did not help the plot. We get it. Move on. Are you writing a NA book or an adult erotica?
The pace was constipated for most of the book. It mainly consisted of boy denying his feelings by going animal-mating-season on every chick on campus while the girl lives in fantasy-denial-let's-just-be-friends-but-jealous-as-heck land. It was a study on immature, juvenile, dense, simpleminded, imbecile and obtuse behavior.
The ending was too simplistic and hasty. It was a blip on the book radar and I wish Mooney had spent more time cultivating the relationship and the conclusion than on Greek house hook ups.
If Mooney had molded the book a bit more and developed the characters further along in the book, she would have had a major winner. I cautiously recommend this book but it is NOT for under 18 years of age.
I give this book 3 stars.. I had high hopes for this book, but it just drove me crazy insane.. I was in love with Ben.. I mean the name is just sexy enough, but he was just a text book college guy with such a sweet heart.. I loved all the characters in the book, I hope there is a series..? The part that killed the stars for me was Paige.. She was well loved for me in the beginning but then she just drove me nuts..! I swear I cussed her so many times towards the end.. I think the loop the loop roller coast of emotion was draining.. I mean we could tell how Ben felt about Paige and I could feel the chemistry was mutual it just made me scream when she either had a reason to stop, or there was a distraction, or the scene just derailed.. I love a story like that but it was too much after the 3rd time.. The ending just happened so fast.. The love story happy ending just happened and ended and so did the dark part of the story.. It seemed so easy in the end.. I really hoped for something different for this book.. Would recommend but only if you have a great amount of patience..!
I normally don't care about grammatical errors...I suck at those myself. But DAG ON! I had to reread multiple sentences because there was either a missing word or a word in there that didn't belong at all.
Also - the story line. Like the premises....but so repetitive that I felt I was never going to get out of the story.
I felt that as the book went on Paige got alittle to over obsessed with not wanting to be with Ben. Ben kept making changes to himself and she would just kept making him feel like he made no change at all. It was clear she was scared but it was just to over the top. Everything in the book was awesome though!
ADORABLE! This book was so easy to jump into & I fell in love with the story right away. Ben was a typical college boy...sleeping with everything that moved but when he met his old flame....oh my. The way that the people were described in this book keep me giggling & I even was angry in a few places. I encourage anyone to read this for something quick & fun.
From the blurb, I knew this was the kind of book I needed as I tried to get over Silver Shadows, the 5th book in the Bloodlines series. The last one comes out in 2015, so I needed a mushy read with no paranormal elements.
Until I wasn’t.
I overlooked the typos and that jazz because… because sometimes that escapes our control, so it was alright.
The no nonsense critic in me was screaming: Stop! You know it only gets worse!
But… I didn’t listen.
To be honest, I liked the idea, but we all know ideas aren’t enough. What first put me off, was the introductory info dump. We already know Ben’s had his heart broken before, but the first thing I know about him and Paige, is what I’ve already been told, but in detail.
The second thing I didn’t like, was this weird personality disorder Paige seemed to have. One second she was the good girl who was disgusted by Ben’s reputation, and the other she was completely fine with it and even wanted to score a few points on her own.
Paige has her own issues too. Ben’s have nothing on hers, but she certainly didn’t act like it. I don’t normally feel the need to rant about a particular character’s behavior, but I do with hers now. I mean, seriously girl? Do you or do you not love him? Are you, or are you not going to do something about it?
Of course, she wouldn’t answer these questions since the story would’ve lost a lot of pages if she had.
It was this attitude, what spoiled the book for me. I didn’t connect with her, nor did the big secret entice any response out of me. I didn’t even feel happy when I got to the end except for the fact that IT WAS THE END.
And Ben… I actually felt very sorry for him. I wish he’d just fallen for someone else. I liked his point of view way more than I did reading Paige’s. Everyone was out to get him.
On one occasion, Paige had officially told him to leave her alone, that they could only be friends, practically ripping apart Ben’s heart because he’d finally said he loved her.
He was understandably angry, because he felt it was not fair for her to not to give them a chance, because of (silly excuse), but he sucked it up, and left. Being the person he was, he got completely thrashed afterwards and then was about to hook up with this Michele girl. But he didn’t.
The next day, guess what? Paige had found out and was not happy. (This reminded me of Beautiful Disaster) I don’t know if a lot of people like this situation, but I hate it. I hate it when girls in books behave like this. I mean, if I loved one guy, and for either my sake, or his, I decided to end things, and then I found he’d been with someone else, I’d feel horrible, but I’d acknowledge I have no say over what the guy does after I’d called things off.
Besides, this kind of conflict is getting old.
Returning to Paige… -Seriously, this is how much I disliked her. Her hot and cold antics were frustrating. I don’t get what was attrative about her that was not physical. I mean…
This book was not for me. I’m sure there a lot of people out there that would enjoy it. Maybe, if we’d seen more of other characters, and the perspectives had broadened, I’d have liked this one more. It wasn’t a bad book, but it could’ve been better.
Though I was extremely hesitant on buying this book because of all the low reviews, I thought I'd give it a try. The plot sounded interesting and it had a twist in it. Though I agree with some of the reviewers in the fact that the characters were very indecisive and didn't want to hurt each other the entire time, I couldn't help but think that in reality, that's how people are. You don't want to tell your feelings to someone because you're scared of rejection (well I am anyways). So I understand what the characters were going through. Although I don't get why Paige was always scared of "hurting" Ben. Ben's a big boy and can take care of himself. I found that part pretty irritating. But overall, I finished it in 2 days. It was a quick read and kept me occupied. I'm currently into the kind of books where the guy is a womanizer/celebrity who gets a lot of girls but falls in love with his childhood sweetheart. I love rekindled romances, so if anyone knows of any good ones, send them my way! Overall, okay read. Not the best, but not as bad as the reviews make it out to be.
Ok, this isn't the type of book that I normally read, but my reading group chose it. The writing was ok, the story was ok, but a little predictable. However, where I had problems was with the editing of this book. I will admit to having problems with badly edited books. And this was a book that was put out by what is supposed to be a reputable publisher, as opposed to a vanity (i.e. self) publisher. Sentences ended abruptly, sometimes in the middle of a thought. When dialogue was happening, sometimes the paragraph didn't change when the speaker did. So it would read as if one of the characters was answering him/her self. We won't even talk about the use of the wrong word. There for their, to for too or two, here for hear, seen for scene, etc. These were not occasional problems either. They happened frequently enough that I deducted a full star for them, and they definitely interfered with my enjoyment of the book.
Sigh, do I sound totally terrible? In my defense, I will admit to having too many teachers in my family--grandparents, parents, in-laws, cousins, aunts, uncles. . .
I feel like I'm always giving 5stars and honestly I did like the story about how they grew up vacationing together etc and meet up again in collage but there were so many errors that I thought for sure it was self published and I mean someone should of caught most of these and Kelly should definitely get some new editors for sure. Over all the story line and the connection between Paige and Ben was good but she expected him to act like they were in a relationship but wasn't willing to give him one for the most part. I don't usually get aggravated but This story was kinda all over the place, like the author couldn't decide what she wanted, that being said I don't regret spending the 2.99 to read it because I did finish it but I just couldn't give my standard 5 stars for great writing.
I really enjoyed Kelly Mooney's latest book. It is her best so far. I have read all of her books, and I have even helped her edit them. I am continuously inspired by her writing and how it has evolved. In "Twist of Fate", she breaks from the YA genre, to write a contemporary romance with main characters who are in college. Ben and Paige are entering the real world, trying to figure out who they are and what they want. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a romance that is a little more mature.
Pretty good book. Lots of errors and sometimes things weren't very clear. SPOILERS ex. "well, that's the thing it would require a move. A big move, but paige I want you to come with me." I let a smile break free, praying he was asking me to come along. uh....he just said he wanted her to come with. Stuff like this happened all through the book. also, confusion in the writing ex ben was at her feet removing her shoes and she "pulled" his face "down" to kiss her. Anyways the back and forth between the characters was just frustrating.
Starting school all over is no fun especially when the love of your life is a manwhore and you are hiding from your ex. Paige aka "P" first fell for Ben when they were teens – now they are in college and trying to figure out what they want from each other. Do they get together – who pushes whom away-can she get over all of his conquests - can he proect her from the crazy ex? Can you fall back in love with your first love – it’s all a twist of fate…
the characters of this book was pretty good.....but it infuriated me how many times they went around and around with the emotions. I had to put the book down and go to sleep. after so many arguments and rollercoaster rides it becomes annoying. I feel like the story of their actual relationship past the point of agreement was not developed and it ended entirely to abruptly with so much going on. It most of it was never explained smh
Just a warning... Be prepared to get frustrated with the heroines, Paige, immaturity, hot & cold and indecisive attitude. At times I wanted to just smack her silly to see if she would just snap out of it!!!! Poor Ben, he truly is a sweetheart and has won a spot in my top ten heroes list.
Other than that, as always, Ms. Mooney does not disappointing with her story line. Great job once again!
This was a surprisingly good book, I didn't expect to feel so much for the characters. I read it as an e-book and I'm not entirely sure if it was just that version, but there were a LOT of typos and grammar issues. I'm not usually a grammar Nazi but the fact that there was so many throughout the book took away from the story line because I was more focused on trying to understand the sentence than I was paying attention to the plot points.
It was a really good book, I liked it, but it was really slow at some point because they would keep pushing each other away again and again because they didn't want each other to get hurt despite the assurance of each other. I mean its the author's point of view. But I didn't quite like it at that point, but I still understood the thrill, but it kind of got dragging until they got together until the end.
Why three stars? So long and drawn out. I felt like I do when a long movie is over, like finally! How many times did she reject the poor guy only in turn for them to fight and not talk to each other causing her to be with guys she barely knows? Just should have ended a lot sooner. Ben kept me reading, I loved his character
Can't even begin to tell you how much I loved Ben. Despite his manwhore ways, when he found his first childhood love again, he was a goner! Paige has so much fear and pain in her past that she is hiding and trying to deal with all while fighting her feelings for Ben. When they finally let each other in, it's great. I would love to read about Tommy next!
I enjoyed this book, its so nice that Ben and Paige worked things out, her ex boyfriend was an arsehole, Ben is a sweet guy who sometimes needed to use his head abit more when it come to Paige, Ben and Paige where so loved up I'm sure why it took them so long to tell each other that they loved each other. what more can I say I enjoyed this book
This is such a sweet book. I don't get the hate about Paige. She's not immature she's scared out of her mind, for pete's sake, wouldn't you be if that happend to you? As for Ben - that's a determined fella, holy shit. You can't not love him and his devotion. You simply can't not lust after him. So if you want a awww-time give Twist of Fate a try.
The main characters came across as stereotypical and two dimensional. Nothing about their personalities seemed authentic or unique. I also didn't buy their romance story. I felt that they lacked chemistry and I didn't care for their story. These factors meant that I couldn't engage with the story at all. It just didn't work for me.
I really had to force myself to finish this book and I considered not finishing it several times. I read pages and pages of flip flopping feelings. finally, I reach the end and its wicked anti climatical and rushed.