Sweet Dreams. Kristen Ashley
Sweet Dreams is the 1st book I’ve read from the author Kristen Ashley. Although I’ve read positive reviews from it I can’t ignore some minor negative feedbacks. I read them first before investing my time into the book. It gives me fair warning before I end up frustrated or disappointed. I guess old habit dies hard. Usually I heeded the warning. But not this time. I picked up Sweet Dreams, dumped the first book I’ve chosen, but there’s this nagging feeling I’m making a bad choice.
Like other readers, I’m curious what the fuss is all about.
Lauren is a divorcee who moved out from gated village to Carnal nowheresville to start a new life. She has everything wanted by any woman: successful career, gorgeous husband, beautiful house, posh neighborhood, stylish friends, and lived in suburbia. But she feels incomplete.
Since all relationships are put to the test, hers isn’t spared. Her perfect marriage life started collapsing. Her husband and bestfriend cheated on her which is going on for years and her docile friends accepted it just because they ALL thought they aren’t matched for each other. Worst thing is, she is the only person who doesn’t know about it.
After the divorce, she wandered aimlessly from different cities for months until she got to the town called Carnal. The author has fondness for quirky character names and naming places. When I first thought about Carnal the first thing that popped inside my head are the two towns Sodom and Gomora, which are mentioned in the bible that were burnt to ashes by their gods due to their unhealthy sexual practices. But Lauren is right. Carnal is so ordinary none can associate the town with other prominent cities not even Sodom and Gomora. It’s a nowheresville where the likes of her can start a new life.
Tate Jackson is a huge biker con pro football player con cop turned bounty hunter. He has execrable manners when pissed. He could lashed out anyone near him with his foul words when in bad mood. Lauren bore the brunt of his anger during their first meeting at the Bubba’s bar where she got a waitress job owned by Tate, Bubba and Kyla. She avoided Tate whenever he’s around but he isn’t inclined to do the same.
Tate’s character is a badass and domineering alpha male, but under that strong facade, he takes care of his son, bar none. His love for his son make him even more attractive and lovable to female readers. Nothing makes a woman love a man more than seeing how much he loves his child.
There is physical attraction between Tate and Lauren. At first, it’s like a dog-cat relationship. But Tate has implied his interest in a bikers’ lingo that confuses her much. Later the relationship slowly developed, which brought them closer together. They set aside their differences when one of his waitresses was killed by a serial killer. This turn of event added more excitement to the readers.
Lauren has bad insomnia. And Tate has brilliant solution for this. He gave Lauren mind-blowing sex so she could sleep well at night. Hmmm. Not a bad idea. Can I have that too, Tate? Ha ha. Silly me.
There are several issues that didn’t convince me well that I would like to point out. She appeared unaware of the cheating. Isn’t it being a woman, our intuition if triggered or pricked for no reason could tell us that there’s cheating going on. It’s like a woman’s armour/defense. Any woman who’s in a relationship could feel if her partner is cheating. Getting him caught is just a solid proof. The gut feel is enough to convince her there’s something wrong in their relationship.
Her so-called friends didn’t even bother to tell her the truth. I mean, at least one of them has told her the truth. But not in this book. It seemed their minds work the same way. As if all of them don’t use their brains. All right. I’ll just assume all of her friends conspired to ditch her out of her meaningless marriage life. It’s a blessing in disguise after all. Come to think of it, the author probably want that too. Nevertheless, I still stand with my point. I believed not all people think the same way given the same circumstances.
Lauren is coming home to Wood’s place mostly every night and they just slept. She’s in his bed, sleeping beside him practically every night. Is it possible? Hell, I don’t buy it. If Wood is sleeping beside me, and he’s gorgeous as Tate is, I wouldn’t promise to keep my hands off of him. I would make sure he’ll wake up in a blissful dream. Ha ha
After reading Sweet Dreams, I felt like the reading soul in me has evaporated into thin air and finally said goodbye. My confidence in grammar has dwindled. The writing style isn’t a good influence for neophyte writer. If I adopted this style, my Nazi professor in creative writing will definitely give me an ‘F’ mark without a blink.
Having sweet dreams is being able to sleep at night free of worries about relationship, financial difficulties, career and life even if something is wrong. To hell with the problem. It’s always there and no one is exempted from it. It’s how we deal with our problems that matters. We made mistakes, we picked up ourselves, we learned from it and we moved on. That’s life. It’s acceptance for what you have in the present and making the most out of it.
If you don’t mind reading a book with numerous grammatical errors and long winded sentences, you can give this book a try and you might survive it. I did. It didn’t hurt me much for picking up this book. And it gives me reasons to rant about it.
Samuel Cian 