Made for Him by Athena Braveheart

8/1/2019

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Category: New adult romance
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Cliffhanger: No

Christ on a cracker, what did I just read?

via GIPHY

Plot overview: Waitress and former model, Izzy, starts an escort business with her friends. On a completely unrelated note, Karl, her boss at the restaurant, is afraid of water and has the hots for Izzy. There’s a stalker at the end. That’s it.

If that plot overview sounds a little wack-a-doo, that’s because IT IS. The plot of this book is almost nonexistent. At 50% of the story, Izzy and Karl have barely interacted AT ALL because Karl is busy running his business and going to therapy to overcome his fear of water (which stems from a childhood trauma), and Izzy is busy trying to start up an escort business. Until about 70% of the story, I wouldn’t even call this a romance. It’s the story of 2 people leading totally separate lives with only the barest hint of sexual attraction between them.

There’s a lot about this book I don’t understand. It’s a lot to unpack, frankly. So, (deep breath) here it goes:

Izzy has issues. She doesn’t trust men because REASONS. So, what does she decide to do? Start an escort service. (No sex) This makes no sense to me. Why on earth would a woman who doesn’t trust men TRUST the men who pay her to go on dates with them? The logic there seems tragically flawed.
While we’re talking about Izzy’s flawed logic, maybe she’d have more money and not need to live with 2 roommates if she didn’t spend all her money on clothes and shopping sprees. That just reeks of immaturity to me.
I’m thinking that any smart woman who starts an escort business would do a lot more than ask potential dates a series of questions and a super informal background check. If I wanted to ensure my safety in a business like that, I’d have professional screening done. Like, I’d hire a former CIA interrogator and a PI or something. But, no, Izzy doesn’t really do any of that. Again, I’m questioning her judgement and giving her a pretty hard side eye.
Izzy wears a midriff-baring tube top, mico-mini and super high heels to work and gets all ouchy when Karl reminds her of the company dress code. Um...it’s not a Hooters, sweetheart. When you agree to work somewhere, you agree to their dress code. Wear your tube top elsewhere. (Again I’m side-eyeing her because she acts and thinks like a child)
Doesn’t exclusive dating defeat the purpose of the escort business? Isn’t that just...a relationship? And yet, Izzy eventually agrees to taking on an exclusive client. At this point, I’m thinking she’s just an idiot. I hate idiots in my romance novels.
Karl seems really worried that Izzy is bulimic. I get that he has family history with the disease, but I didn’t see the point of adding this element to the story since nothing really ever came of it. It seemed like wasted pages that could be spent on actually focusing on THE ROMANCE, which was damn near nonexistent.
The whole suspense subplot at the end felt totally tacked on for the sake of drama. It was useless, other than to prove my point that Izzy’s logic is terribly flawed. Her business was ill-planned and dangerous, frankly. I have no problem with the idea of an escort service, but you have to be smart about it, and Izzy wasn’t.

So, at the end of the day, I finished the story. It wasn’t poorly written, just weird. And Izzy is an idiot. And it’s not much of a romance. But other than that...