There are none so blind as those that will not see…
Naheema Morgan is I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T. With both beauty and brains, she is doing well for herself. The loving of a good man would just be icing on the cake. That sweet, rich icing appears in the form of the sinfully good looking Mike Williams, a barbershop owner. With chemistry and romance in full swing, the two begin a relationship. Naheema couldn’t be happier. But if it’s too good to be true, it probably is as Naheema quickly finds out that there is a deeper, darker side to Mike. Drugs, violence, other women and trouble with the law, will Naheema be strong enough to survive?
While it was a cautionary tale with a noble premise, YOU SHOWED ME overshot its mark. There was simply too much going on and it got in the way of the root story. And too much eventually turned into unbelievable. There were countless, and might I add, unnecessary sex scenes. It got to the point that I starting skimming past the sex (and that’s so NOT me!). I didn’t buy into the character Mike. Now I don’t know this author and what she has or hasn’t been into, but from the standpoint of Mike as a man and as a dealer, it read like a person writing about something they didn’t know. I don’t know what kind of drug dealing organization he was running. Give me something I can believe, and I didn’t believe him or his status. (*spoiler* What dealer keeps notes? Where they do that at? He might as well have given receipts with each drug transaction. *spoiler*)
I would have preferred if the author had taken the less is more route. Naheema could have been aware of the fact that he was a dealer and dealt with all the consequence of that lifestyle, including the abuse OR she could have not been aware minus all the extra drama and abuse. Either situation is more than enough for a story with an underlying message of triumph and the need for self love. But together, it was all too much, going from one extreme to the next. And somewhere, buried under all of that, is the point readers, especially young female readers, should gleam from the book.
And that brings me to my final rating of 2.75. It’s not a 3-star read (okay) because there were too many issues that if corrected could have made for a better read. But it’s not a 2-star read (didn’t like it) either because it did have its moments and the potential is there.