Thrown for a Curve by Sugar Jamison

Grade: B
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary
Series: Perfect Fit #2

Published: 2/25/14

Reviewed by Anne

335 ebook pages

Cherri is a very tall, curvy, blond young woman.  She's been taking care of her aging grandmother for a long time.  In some ways she's wise beyond her college aged years.  In others she's still really innocent - she's never even been on a date.

Colin is quite a bit older than Cherri - he knows her because of his best friends' relationship with Cherri's boss.  That best friend (Mike) warns Colin off of Cherri, but they keep finding themselves together and realize they really like each other.

This is a hard book to review because part of reading it is going through the journey with the characters, and there's a couple of blind curves that I really didn't see coming.  I don't want to spoil that!  I can say this, though:  I really enjoyed the writing and the characterizations in this story.  The characters have a great sense of humor, but it's not just thrown in there.  During tough times they talk differently to each other than they do when things are going well.  And the things they joke about are true to their character, not just funny things the author thought of.  

In particular, I enjoyed Cherri's Baba.  Sometimes she was a bit too over the top, but most of the time it was hilarious.  My favorite was the opening scene of the book where Baba gave Cherri a make over for her birthday party.  It made me grin from ear to ear and hooked me on the book.

I was pretty annoyed with how the relationship between Colin and his dad was handled.  I just didn't think it was very realistic at all.  Everything from how Cherri dealt with things to how everything ended up bothered me.  Also, Colin and Cherri's issues are almost all caused by a lack of communication between the two of them.  That also really annoys me, and it went on longer in this story than I liked.

I did enjoy the slow pace of Cheri and Colin's relationship.  I thought it was totally believable that they'd have the issues they did and resolve them in the way they did.  

Overall it was an enjoyable book and I look forward to more by this author.  Sugar Jamison's books run right up on the ANGST-LINE for me.  Just a little more angst and I'd have to pass, but as they are it's the just right amount of angst to make me cringe just a bit with the characters and then sigh with relief when they work things off.

How about you?  Do you like a lot of angst in your books, none at all, or somewhere in between?  (I'm pretty close to the none end of the spectrum!)