Liz Loves Books
I love to read and to talk about books. I review many of the books I read. I do not accept any author/publisher submissions for reviews. I do not read or review ARCs. I do not enter any giveaways or contests. I obtain the books I review by purchasing them at the same price they are offered to the general public at the time of purchase. My reviews are intended for the use of my fellow readers. They are not advertising or promotion. They are not beta reads or constructive criticism or editing or advice to the author. My only obligation to the author is to pay the price charged for the book at the time of purchase. My reviews are sometimes critical and I will not stop posting critical reviews just to spare delicate authors' feelings. I am happy to make new friends, but friend requests from authors or promoters who have few or no books (and/or friends) in common with me and write or promote categories I do not read (especially new adult) will be ignored. I used to read more self-published books. After recent meltdowns by self-published authors, I now only read self-published authors I've previously read or who have been recommended to me by fellow readers I trust. I also used to read young adult/new adult books but rarely do so now.
The Bachelor is one of my guilty pleasures, so I was prepared to really enjoy this book. It was more of a miss than a hit for me unfortunately. To be fair to Ms. Stanton, I was not aware she writes primarily YA romance before reading this book and I likely would have passed it by had I known that. It is clearly intended for tweens or maybe very young teens. The sentence structure and vocabulary are aimed at a middle school audience and the characterization and scenarios seem intended to appeal to an audience that age as well. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just wish I had known before reading so that I would have been more fair to it while reading it. The book was featured as a kindle daily romance deal with no indication that it is a YA book.The biggest problem I had with it, however was its lack of creativity and originality. The entire book is simply a sanitized season of The Bachelor with a little fantasy probably two-thirds of the show's viewers have had at one time or another thrown in (that they land on the show by semi-accident and overcome reluctance to fall for Mr. Awesome). The universe Ms. Stanton has "created" follows The Bachelor to an embarrassing degree, from the arrivals at the mansion's circular drive to the arrival of date cards to the fantasy suite dates. The rose ceremonies, cocktail parties -- it's all there, just as Mike Fleiss created it. The casting is right off the show as well. I wish Ms. Stanton had come up with her own concept. It could have been a lot of fun and won me over as a reader.The hero and heroine are both likeable enough but the main drama-causing issue of their story (that she was a fake and only on the show to help a friend at the beginning) is never addressed between the two of them. That's a shame because it could have been an outstanding moment. It also would have provided some desperately needed originality. And it would have felt more fair to the hero.I want to be fair and even generous here so I'm giving this book 2.5 stars so I can round up. I'm not use to reading YA romance so I don't know what the standards for this category are. I would think they encourage creating original concepts, though. It may be Mr. Fleiss's problem to deal with his concept being so blatently copied, but the lack of originality it reveals means I won't give this author another chance