Review: The Book On Love by S K Avery

Catherine is a bright, independent woman who doubts she'll ever find a man to live up to the romantic heroes in the books she loves. One day she meets Jonathan, a handsome artist who introduces her to a whole new world of romance that she couldn't believe she'd ever experience.
But Catherine and Jonathan both struggle with past heartbreaks--will they be able to overcome their respective fears in order to be happy together?

Ikiras Review 1 out of 5 stars

Having read the blurb, I was excited to receive this debut book for review.
I don't feel the book lives up to the blurb in many ways. The promised romance is there but is one sided. What did Cat do for Jay? She accepted his gifts and compliments, let him look after her, held him to high expectations without living up to the same expectations. In the book, it felt like the past was more of a side issue, not present so much in the relationship discovery.

When Jonathan/Jay entered the story, I immediately disliked him. I'd like to be able to tell you why but I can't put my finger on it exactly. I think I saw the many references and similarities to Fifty Shades coming...and they did. I don't think the author ever intended him to be but Jay is no Christian Gray and the many references in the book suggest he should be. The blurb also doesn't suggest it would be so sex driven.

I did like Artie – his character was great and the way he helps Cat along her journey despite his own struggles was fab! – his grumpiness grew on me. The other friends who help with his care were written in well. They didn't dominate the story too much and the descriptions and reasons given for each of them and their relationships with each other worked well. The balance was just right on them.

Beverley and Vi – what characters they were! The introduction of Jenna and her antics were imaginative and impressive, Bevs involvement turned the table on her relationship with Jay and again, this was good and juicy and should have led to more developments, more insight into Jays past but it was kind of just more of the same...but what was it about relationships which properly screwed him up? What made him so private in the first place? Why does he bottle up his emotions and what did he talk to his therapist about? Why did Cat never call hers and what would she have talked about if she did? What had they spoken about in the past? It feels like there could be so much more to the story, but it was filled with unnecessary sex scenes instead.

On the subject of sex; whilst I would expect to have some in a romance book, there was too much for me and it became repetitive. Some of the language used during the sex scenes also didn't seem consistent and caused a split-second of jarring before I could read on. Too many of those split-seconds meant the story couldn't flow.

The descriptions of the surroundings, people and actions were at times good but at others excessive. I think there had been a lot of re-writing, re-structuring of sentences as there appeared to be extra words in some sentences, as if changed around but the author had then forgotten to remove the original word. There were also many spelling and grammatical mistakes. Sadly, I picked up on many of these issues and again, it jarred the reading. I know another reviewer may not have noticed them and others still will simply overlook mistakes of this nature but there were so many, it suggested to me a lack of caring and that the book may not have been proof read or edited properly before release.

I'd also like to say (for the record) I think the author can do well as a writer if she slows down a little and refines her work.