Confessions of a "Fallen" Good Girl

by Cherish Lively

Lily Summers is tired of being a good girl. Raised in a strict fundamentalist family, she's got years of repression and domination to overcome. Feeling suffocated by the expectations of her family, Lily rebels against her upbringing to embrace her needs and desires. With determination and curiosity as her guides, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment.

Genres: Romance

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2024

Reviews

[Meagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lily Summers is a 24 year old virgin who was raised in a religious household with a famous pastor as a father. Lily grew up going to church and being taught throughout her entire childhood that women should not have premarital sex or do anything that is considered a sin. However, she decides she is ready to lose her virginity and makes a plan to go to a club and find a guy who would be willing to help her out.

Zack Slade instantly recognizes Lily the moment she walks in the club. Zack had developed a crush on Lily when he had a class with her in college. Due to the college being a Christian based school, he knew how she grew up and how being at a club is against the “rules.” So he decides to watch her to figure out why she is alone at a club in the city. When he sees how much she is struggling just to order a drink at the overcrowded bar, he swoops in to get her attention.

The storyline is decent. I think that it needed more structure in order to make it flow. The characters developed a faster relationship than I expected. The stream in the book is high, the couple really only had sex each time they saw each other. Went on two dates. The ending was severely rushed. I think even for a quick read there is some things that are severely lacking.

Characters development: 3/5
Steam: 3.5/5
Storyline: 2/5
Overall: 2/5

For editor/publisher:
The font changes in size hallway through the book
A few punctuation errors
Repetitive words
During an emotional chapter, the paragraph randomly ended with Zack trying to give Lily an orgasm out of nowhere at the end of ch. 30
Many misspelled words
Format needs work for ebook

[Micky Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a having an identity crisis. It's an erotic look at a Fundamentalist Christian in a cult like church that has ostracized the women to being the temptations of evil and only good girls can control the urges of the men around them. The pastor's daughter, Lily, a 24-year-old virgin has decided to dump her virginity and goes on a quest to do so. In the process, running into an old college mate, Zack, who has matured into a handsome and wealthy engineer. He helps Lily on her quest as he has an unquenchable crush on her left over from college. It is a short story so there isn't really time to develop much and the author leans into that lack of space and leaves the characters pretty surface level. It's an insta-love, opposites attract, friends to lovers and a hero complex all rolled into one. Tons of bedroom aerobics with a bit of plot about the misogyny of the church controlling the women who follow the cult. This book wants to be pure erotica, but it also wants to preach about religious control of women at the same time. It's as if the book is dual personalitied and can't decide which personality is in charge. Overall, with some editing, it could be a decent novella in the erotica category. Overall, it was entertaining and only took an hour to read so it doesn't take a lot of time. I'm giving 3 stars which on my scale means it was good for entertainment and was a quick read.

[Chazza Everafter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this story and had high hopes for exploring the themes of the constraints of traditional church beliefs as they come up in conflict with the main character's desire to explore her sexuality, but ultimately I found myself unwilling to continue reading past the 37% mark.

In this story, Lily is a pastor's kid whose entire life has been marked by deep indoctrination and involvement in church life. This includes her peer group, her work, her colleagues, her family, and even the college she attended. But she is focused on discovering sexual pleasure and walks into a Boston bar with one intent: to lose her virginity. When she comes across a previous college classmate who'd harbored a crush on her, she's found her target and they engage in a sexual romp that lasts the weekend (and takes up approx 25% of the pages in the story).

However, I found the writing style to be too heavy on the narrative and was not able to connect with the characters as I had hoped.

There are so many ingredients of this story I found appealing, particularly the character's hyper-religious roots and the potential for heavy internal (and external) conflict to erupt on the page, but within the portion I read, I felt that the conflict was lacking and the scenes frequently were quite short, often quickly changing the point-of-view narrator. These shifts (in one instance, a scene was two paragraphs long before it swapped back to the other character), made the reading experience feel distracting and choppy, and detracted from my ability to immerse into the story.

While there was a heavy dose of steamy scenes in this first portion of the book, I wish I understood more of Lily's motivation and her emotional journey as she crossed these boundaries and unlocked this aspect of herself. For readers looking for quick, episodic-style reads with a primary focus on the erotic interactions between characters, this book could be right up your alley.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

[Marlé · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh no, this book had such potential that was just wasted. I love a short and steamy read, with the added plot of a deeply religious good girl gone bad - a recipe for success. But my gosh, it missed the mark for me. Awkward conversations aside, this book is in desperate need of editing for sure. There were too many instances of grammar mistakes, in particular the incorrect use of to and too; and also misuse of apostrophes - specifically every time the FMC's parents are mentioned or reference, it's always parent's - even when it is incorrect.

And for the love of every single spicy reader - please expand the repertoire of phrases used. The word "channel" was used every single time. Every. Single. Time. I looked it up - it was used 32 times in total. Please - use different words. Not just for variety, but also once you read it that many times in such a short book, it becomes a little frustrating and comes off as lazy to think of more rich was in which to describe it. Also, the two main characters keep telling each other "feels good" - just that. We can surely do better.

There are also sections of the book where a chapter is maybe one paragraph long and ends abruptly, and random paragraphs dropped into a chapter where it definitely does not belong.

I acknowledge that it is a difficult thing to write a book, but surely if you've done the work to write it, then the time spent to editing it properly must also be done.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this book to read in exchange for a review.

[Eurynome · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: Confessions of a "Fallen" Good Girl
Author: Cherish Lively
Star Rating: 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️

The book delves into self-discovery and liberation from expectations and religious oppression. The dual POV narrative, though unique, felt disjointed due to constantly changing perspectives. While the plot showed potential, it was a short and steamy read with a somewhat off-execution.

Lily, the FMC who is a teacher at Catholic School, struggles to break free from her strict upbringing, but her character change post-sex felt abrupt since her father is a known religious figure. Breaking parents' expectations is challenging, and a strong person can do it. However, she was portrayed as a weak woman. The MMC, Zack, acts as a Prince Charming figure, assisting Lily in her journey. Years ago, he had a crush on her and remembered her when he saw her at the bar.

The plot was generally predictable, culminating in a predictable happily-ever-after. However, the writing style led to some confusion and required re-reading. The fast-paced nature of the short novel saw an initial slow start, gradually picking up speed.

"Confessions of a 'Fallen' Good Girl" offers themes of self-discovery and liberation but falls short in execution, with predictable plot points and a disjointed narrative. While it may appeal to some seeking a quick and steamy read, it leaves something to be desired regarding character development and plot cohesion.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could not get into this one.
It’s just sex. And not good sex.
I skipped till the end just so I could say I finished it.
Barely, but I did finish it.
I had higher hopes for this one. Maybe I would have liked it more if I was younger - I don’t know!

[Seher · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot isn't a bad one; it could be fun shameless smut with a little plot but the author isn't a particularly good writer. What can work on fanfic or wattpad is not what you would have in a book; you actually need to really make it good.

That and I really hate the use of the word channel.

[jasminjustreads · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book made me upset. I feel like it lacked so much of a storyline. This could have been a very good book about a FMC making a decision to stand up for herself and falling in love in the best way possible.

Just when I started getting into the love story between the FMC and the MMC....the book ended.

I just feel like I read a very rushed and unfinished book.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed-quality smut with a message. Please stop referring to the heroine’s “channel” every fourth word.

[Karen Tjebben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi, I am the author and would like to let the readers know that I've updated the book. I appreciate the people who let me know that the book formatting was not up to par, which made the story seem choppy. I had to upload the Amazon Vella version (written as serial story) to Amazon 3 months ago so I could give the link to a book tour promotion site as a place holder. As time went by, I merely forgot to upload the ebook version once it was ready before it went live. I have corrected that. I hope that readers can enjoy this book. An audio version is available on My Secret Obsession Podcast. Happy reading!