Things Good Girls Don't Do by Codi Gary

Grade: C
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary
Published: 8/27/13

Reviewed by Anne

194 pages

Katie Conners has always been a good girl, following the prim and proper nice girl rules her mother taught her.  She's itching to make some changes though, and finds herself scrawling a list of bad girl things she wants to do on a bar napkin one night.  That napkin gets picked up by the new guy in town, Chase Tresspaso.  He's a tattoo artist who rides a motorcycle, so just having his interest makes her feel like a bad girl.  When Chase offers to help her out with her list...  will she dare?  Thankfully, she does!  And this book is the story of what happens when the town good girl starts to go a little wild and stop letting everyone else take advantage of her.

There were parts of this story that were pretty funny, cute, and sweet, but I kept getting pulled out by little things that bothered me.  One of the things that bothered me had to do with my expectations.  The cover, with no clothes visible, says "erotic romance" to me, but this wasn't a sex driven story.  I was also surprised that Katie gave up on a career because she was uncomfortable being around swearing.  I get that some people don't like swearing, but Katie started college wanting to be a police officer.  When her mentor during a semester long internship told her she'd need to be able to read aloud a witness statement that included swear words, she couldn't do it.  Eventually she decided to change her career goals from police officer to hair stylist.  (No, really!)  That seemed like a really drastic change of plans that she based on her desire not to be around curse words.  

There were two small parts of the story that actually upset me.  The first is a cat thing.  Maybe it's really normal for cat owners?  I don't know, as I don't own a cat.  Katie's cat pees on the clothing of people the cat doesn't like.  And the cat only likes Katie.  Katie seems to think this is pretty cute or funny.  I thought it was really, really gross.  And then there was the off hand mention of suicidal aspirations used to convey how exasperated Katie was.  On page 12 she suggests she might drown herself in her bathtub because she's had a rough day. On page 39 she's embarrassed that Chase had pizza delivered to her house, because everyone will know he's there, and she thinks about filling the sink and drowning herself in it.  I'm know I'm very sensitive to suicidal talk because of my family history, but it bothered me very much in this story.

There were some really good things about this book.  The one that kept me hanging on was Katie's transformation from good girl to bad girl.  It was actually more a transformation from doormat to assertive.  There was even a discussion about the difference between these two states of being (though not using the words doormat or assertive.)  Even better, thorough out the story, Chase encourages her transformation, not for his own purposes, but for herself.  That was pretty awesome.

The list idea was cute and well done in this story.  I also enjoyed the friendships among the younger generation of women.  The conflict between Chase and Katie was really well done and realistic.  It was understandable that Chase did what he did, but Katie also deserved a big grovel to make up for his actions.  (She got it!)

So, all in all this one was just ok with me.  So now tell me - am I way off to let the peeing cat bother me?