Delia Binder’s Reviews > The Sex Bucket List > Status Update

Mateo? Has rose bushes put into Emerson (Lake&Palmer)’s front yard as a gesture of how, no matter what her choice, he wants her to be happy.

Ryan? Gets all weepy as if his need is more important than her happiness.

Like I already said already - Ryan’s self-centered, emotionally abusive, petty asshole.

Emerson (Lake&Palmer!)’s Dark Teatime of the Soul is very good - weighing how Mateo makes her feel vs. giving her kids the nuclear family they desire. And... while I originally thought Jacob’s face turn was abrupt, he gives his prior acting out a context that makes me like him a LOT better...

Maybe it’s because I have a cold streak inside me - but Ryan is a manipulative emotionally abusive petty asshole, and can just Go To Hell with his too little, too late “feelings”.

When my parents split up? All I felt was relief - admittedly I was away at college, but when I lived at home Dad was everything Ryan is...plus sometimes physically abusive and nowhere near as smart.

Reason 1,436,977 why to never get married & have kids - your ex who tossed you away suddenly gets all creepy stalker obsessive just when you have somebody new in your life, & your kids want their family back so you have even MORE pressure to go back and be trapped by the asshole.

Wow, Ryan gives new meaning to the term “worthless asshole ex”!

Yeppers - the author’s DEFINITELY working through some stuff here! I don’t think I’ve read such a blatant stand-in for a despised male ex/boss/male authority figure since the Morbidly Obese Sadistic Lt. Stahl in Marie Force’s FATAL series...

Can’t help it - every time someone calls her “Emerson”, I have to resist asking, “So where’s Lake and Palmer?”

Before now, I never really bought the idea that some names are for books only, b/c nobody can speak that name out loud without laughing. But this book with names like “Emerson”, “Greer”, “Gage”, “Poppy” and “Mateo” is changing my mind on that score...

So Emerson’s told the kids about Mateo - and the Youngest kid, Connor, pitches a fit b/c he’s the only kid whose parents are divorced in his school(!). (WTF was this written that THAT could be true anyway? The 1950s?)

Even weirder is the Middle Child/Oldest Boy, Jacob, who’s been a sullen little punk all the way through the book, suddenly decides to man up??

They’re why I don’t have children, I have cats...

When I first tried to describe Roarke from JD Robb’s In Death books to my best friend, she made a crack about what a great cook he is, too! (He’s not - that’s Richard Castle.)

Mateo, the Male MC, is a lot like that - hunky, caring but undeniably Alpha Male/Dom,attentive, great kisser & great in the sack (one assumes, as they’ve done a lot but not shagged yet!)...

Not just Christian - Roman Catholic!

Now, I have nothing against Catholics...

Some of my best friends are Catholics...

BUT I DON’T LIKE YOUR WAVING IT IN MY FACE!