Real (Real #1) by Katy Evans Summary: A fallen boxer.A woman with a broken dream.
A competition…
He even makes me forget my name. One night was all it took, and I forgot everything and anything except the sexy fighter in the ring who sets my mind ablaze and my body on fire with wanting…
Remington Tate is the strongest, most confusing man I’ve ever met in my life.
He’s the star of the dangerous underground fighting circuit, and I’m drawn to him as I’ve never been drawn to anything in my life. I forget who I am, what I want, with just one look from him. When he’s near, I need to remind myself that I am strong–but he is stronger. And now it’s my job to keep his body working like a perfect machine, his taut muscles primed and ready to break the bones of his next opponents . . .
But the one he’s most threatening to, now, is me.
I want him. I want him without fear. Without reservations.
If only I knew for sure what it is that he wants from me?
Release Date: April 8, 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance/Adult Romance
Where to Buy: Amazon
Add to Goodreads
Source: I won a signed copy!
Review:
I’m pretty much torn in how I feel about this book.
For the most part, I enjoyed it. I was sucked in right away and I really liked the heroine. She was strong willed, confident, and intelligent. Falling for and being attracted to Remy was sort of against her typical behavior and I liked that she wasn’t naïve or annoying. I even liked Remy because he was complicated and he seemed to like her and want to get to know her as a person. The romance was steamy, full of angst, conflicting, and satisfying. I liked that they expressed themselves by listening to each other’s iPods and picking songs. I liked how they understood each other on an emotional level because of their mutual competitive sports interests. I loved how she rooted for him in his fights and felt like she was finally over her own incident with sports and living vicariously through his winning moments. It was all very good!
But there were so many times where I was totally sucked into the story and Brooke would say, do, or think something that made me cringe. She was totally confident, but every once in awhile she’d wonder if was too fat for Remy and she knew she wasn’t fat, so the fact that she even thought about it sort of made me cringe. I just didn’t like how she second guessed herself. And then she was also incredibly slow about grasping the fact that he was into her. I mean, the book started off with him jumping out of the boxing ring to ask her name and then hiring her to work for him as a sports trainer. And then he refused to sleep with her and still slept in her bed sometimes and kissed her. So it wasn’t exactly as if he was giving mixed signals. He was pretty much into her, wholly and obviously.
And then there’s Remy. I really did like him, despite the whole alpha male, growling, possessive sort of tendencies. I usually just accept that this is the type of love interest and move on. So I was fine with all of that. I was even fine with the fact that he was bipolar and had manic moments. He had his complicated backstory and even though it seemed a little over the top, I felt like it was done well for the most part. But somehow, I felt like the author made him too simplistic and childlike. It was supposed to be sweet that he wanted her to comfort him sometimes, but I felt like he was like a lost little kid and even some of the things he said were very childish. It kind of ruined the whole thing for me. I liked that he had his weaker moments and he had his own feelings, but when he expressed himself with such a young emotional maturity level, I just cringed.
And just when they both sort of redeemed themselves in my eyes and I’m totally enjoying their romance, Brooke was a completely idiot. ****SPOILER**** I couldn’t stand it when she went to get her sister without telling Remy because it was stupid and showed she couldn’t be honest with him and didn’t trust him to not get in trouble, which irked me. And then Remy got hurt in the fight because he didn’t fight back and she was heartbroken because it hurt her to see him get hurt. And she just left him! What the f? That whole moment just didn’t make any sense to me. She said she wouldn’t leave when things got tough and then she did for no reason. I really really hate it when people are all I love you, but I’m leaving because things hurt. It’s the stupidest conflict in any romance. ****End of Spoiler****
So, it’s hard to figure out how I feel about Real. I liked it, but I also had so many issues with it. I think I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a quick, easy sports romance who loves alpha males and dudes who work out and get angry. Otherwise, I don’t know that it really works any other way.
