♥ℳelody's Reviews > Hopeless

4.5 stars

“I’m done pretending to be head over heels in love with you because I’m legitimately head over heels in love with you. And acting like I’m not tears me up.”

I'll be honest I'm a little conflicted on the rating for this. It's between a 4 and 5 stars. Which is still great either way. This was a 5 star for a good chunk of it but the steam factor and the last 20ish% kind of made that last star fall off a bit for me. I've been in a not great head space the past week so reading was a struggle in general. But even so, this grabbed my attention and the distraction I needed from reality. Beau and Bailey were adorable and so sweet. Two lost souls trying to find themselves and their way in life and finding comfort in each other. Bailey was a great combination of innocent, vulnerable yet smart mouth and guarded. I loved the age gap here. Beau is 35 and Bailey is 21. Beau is a special ops soldier who is back home after a rescue mission left him with burned scarred feet and a serious case of PTSD. He's the jovial "goofy" Eaton brother but underneath the bravado is someone who is very weary and lost. Bailey Jansen is the misfit outcast that everyone in Chestnut Springs treats like a pariah given her last name. Her family is a bunch of drug addicts, petty thieves and bullies that the entire town find a nuisance. Bailey has been getting the burnt end of her family name when she's just trying to make her way on her own. I felt for her. Did the conflict in the end feel overblown and a bit silly? Yes. I was expecting it. It was overblown considering the timeline of it. But thankfully it didn't drag on too long and they talked it out. I love how slow burn this felt. Elsie said this was her "least" slow burn book from this series and frankly I disagree. I'm a little confused what she meant by that because this felt pretty slow burn in my book. The amount of pining/yearning/edging that drags on is both delicious and frustrating at the same time. lol

You don’t tell a person you love them with the expectation they’ll say it back. You tell them because you want to. You tell them because it’s true.

I personally love shy virgin heroines who find their own voice and independence. Bailey fit that bill. I just wish the steam was a bit more exciting in this rather than focused solely on "I wanna get rid of my virginity now, a sex toy already got rid of my hymen". It felt heavy handed. I know I'm in the minority when I say this but I absolutely hate when virgin heroines are portrayed like this in romance, specifically CR. Like it's some big shocking annoying thing a young girl in her 20s should be ashamed of? It's a weird gross narrative that I'm seeing more of and I truly don't get it and so tired of seeing it. A woman in her 20s (or any age for that matter) being a virgin is not gross or shocking please stop treating it that way authors, it's insensitive and utterly ridiculous. But that's a rant for another time. Also the porn thing, do all of Elsie Silver's heroines love to watch porn? I'm not knocking porn fanatics and normally don't even care but it feels very disingenuous here because these are women from different lifestyles and backgrounds but all of them just casually watch porn when they are horny or bored, in every. single. book. With uptight "ice queen" Winter it felt weird and very forced and here it felt forced too given how much it was brought up. Like yes, the heroine is a virgin but she's a COOL virgin ya'll! She watches porn and has a box of sex toys to prove it. RME. Please stop. It was doing too much IMO. Also, when you have an experienced hero and a virgin heroine who is eager to try things and discover sex, why not show some of that sexual exploration? *cries into my pillow* That's the part I felt let down the most TBH. This book kinda felt like a big ol' tease in many ways in that regard. And I want to throw my shoe at people who labeled that bathtub scene as "steamy" all over social media because it built up expectations in my head I wasn't aware of until I got to it. (view spoiler)[ Your man helping you shave your pubic hair is sweet but standing in a bathtub full of floating pubic hair (I really didn't need that visual Elsie Silver thanks) while he performs oral sex on you is not my idea of sexy time. But that's just me. 🤷🏻‍♀️ (hide spoiler)] As for the ending (view spoiler)[I do wish the resolution didn't have them moving away from Chestnut Springs. I got the why of it given the bad memories/history for Bailey but I just love the Eaton family so much that in my head I wanted them all to stay in the same town in the end. (hide spoiler)]

“You’re relentless, you know that?” And I just give her a salute and a wink. Because yeah, I am. No one has ever showed up for Bailey, but she’s about to get the full experience.
“No, sugar. When it comes to you, I’m downright hopeless.”

Nitpicking aside, this was still enjoyable with some emotional sweet moments that hit you in the gut. I mean she got me crying over a mended toy horse. Come on! 💕 It should really say something about Silver's writing that out of 5 books in a series, I wavered between a 4 or 5 stars for 3 of the books, 2 of which were 5 star reads for me. Coming from me that's a high compliment considering I'm the pickiest of picky readers. lol So I definitely recommend Elsie Silver, her characters have a lot of grit and heart. And the humor is insanely good. The group texts always crack me up. 😂

Beau: Everyone better show up tonight.
Harvey: YES, SIR.
Beau: You can’t say that. Like, ever, Dad.
Harvey: Why not?
Harvey: . . . Sir?
Beau: You just can’t. It’s off the table now.
Jasper: REPORTING FOR DUTY, SIR.
Rhett: SEE YOU FOR DINNER, SIR.
Cade: WHY AM I RELATED TO SO MANY IDIOTS, SIR?
Beau: I hate you all. See you tonight.

I'm gonna miss these guys. 😭❤️