Meh. Blergh. Argh.

I had been anxiously awaiting for Believe ever since I finished Sweet. I even preordered this book. Something I never do. That’s how excited and anxious and crazy I was for it. Truthfully, I reserve that kind of obsessive devotion to the acquisition of peanut butter m&m’s. After this experience, I doubt I will be preordering anything again. Except for Frozen because let’s be real, that movie was a slice of perfection.

Words are failing me right now. Not because Believe was that bad but because it was really that disappointing.

The start of the book disgusted/icked me out because of the CLEARLY nonconsensual sex that went about. The guy knew what was going on. She had no clue. He harassed her with text messages. She just ignored it and hoped it would go away. How about blocking his number? It’s not that hard in this day and age.

I found Robin to be incredibly bland. I could argue that guilt does fuck up with a person (not to mention sleeping with your best friend’s sleazy boyfriend) but man, she was just so boring to me. I did like the fact that she was Latina and that she was not a stereotypical one at that. I didn’t hate her but I didn’t love her either. She just sits in the ‘whatever’ scale for me.

Ni fu ni fa.

Phoenix was intriguing. Won’t deny that bad boys with tattoos make me swoon but Phoenix sometimes angled between bad boy and seriously psychotic. Then again, one shouldn’t expect any different from a guy fresh out of prison with a drug addict for a mother. His rage is explained because he has intermittent explosive disorder. Don’t think the disorder explains his creeper status as he watched Robin sleep within the first few chapters. Nor does it explain his overbearing attitude at times, like Robin is incapable of making her own decisions. However, he wasn’t all bad. He had moments of genuine sweetness that I appreciated.

The humor is sorely lacking in this volume of the series, along with an actual plot. Typos and grammatical errors caught my eye several times before reaching 50%.

Then I hit 50% and was slapped in the face with the L word. I did a double take. So soon? Are you kidding me? You guys barely know anything about each other. Seems kind of precipitated to me. I thought that would be the most lack of sense exhibited by both parts until, at about 60%, he tattoos her face in his body.

…

Right. That’s… healthy AND normal. Totes.

So yeah, ick nast on the insta-love. Not a fan. Never have been.

Then out of nowhere comes this drug dealer plot point that got solved so quickly in the end that I wondered why was it there in the first place. Unteachable did that a thousand times better and a thousand times more believable.

The sex scenes (yes, plural) were nothing remarkable for me. Mostly because I found it all too rushed.

Will I read book 4? That remains to be seen. Hopefully by then, I will have overcome the massive letdown that was Believe.