My book club consists of 4 lovely little ladies including myself. It was a huge step outside of my comfort zone starting it, but I honestly think it’s been my best idea ever. To think I used to live a life without a book club is such a sad thought. It’s so cool to see everyone step outside of their comfort zones and read something they wouldn’t normally pick up on their own. Plus, having people to chat with who all read a book around the same time is this book nerd’s absolute dream.
This month we read The Thing About Love by Julie James.
FBI agents Jessica Harlow and John Shepherd have a past. The former lawyer and cocky Army Ranger clashed during their training at Quantico and gladly went their separate ways after graduating from the Academy. Six years later, the last thing either of them expects is to be assigned to work as partners in a high-profile undercover sting.
For both of them, being paired with an old rival couldn’t come at a worse time. Recently divorced from a Hollywood producer and looking for a fresh start, Jessica is eager to prove herself at her new field office. And John is just one case away from his dream assignment to the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team. In order to nail a corrupt Florida politician, they’ll have to find a way to work together—a task that becomes even trickier when they’re forced to hole up at a romantic beachfront resort as part of the investigation. Suddenly, the heat behind their nonstop sparring threatens to make the job a lot more complicated…
I was a little apprehensive when I learned that we were going to be reading this book for book club this month. My initial thoughts were that high-heels are so overrated, and that the synopsis sounded kind of cheesy. I still stand firm in both of those ideas after reading the book. High heels ARE overrated, and the synopsis IS cheesy. In fact, there are a lot of cheesy aspects to this book, but guess what? I LIKED IT. Ugh. Leave it to me to be completely predictable and let a cute little love story entertain me, even when I didn’t really care for the characters much and even when I was fully aware of how cheesy it was.
Here’s the thing. It’s odd to read a romance novel, like it, yet feel absolutely nothing towards either one of the main characters. Honestly, my favorite character was probably John’s brother who owns a bar in Chicago. He’s the closest to me in personality and lifestyle since, oddly enough, I don’t spend a lot of my time as or with an undercover FBI agent. Which I kind of wish was an option for me, because this book totally sold me on how cool of a job that is.
Both Jessica and John have type-A personalities. Organized, independent, extremely intelligent, they both have that ingrained trait of wanting to win and be the best at everything. All things I don’t know much about if I’m being honest, but I completely respect and sometimes envy people of this nature. That being said, I feel like I didn’t like the characters so much in this story because I didn’t get enough of them. I got a lot about their jobs, what’s required for their jobs, what other kinds of jobs they could do with the knowledge they gained from their jobs, but I got zilch about who they are aside from their jobs.
I still liked this book, though, and I was even sad when it was over. I wasn’t sad because I didn’t want it to end, I was sad because I didn’t get to know the characters well enough. But you bet your bottom dollar that you could quiz me on the life of an FBI agent right now and I could give you every single aspect from a fictional point of view without batting an eye.
Will I ever read this book again? No, I don’t think so. Will I read more by this author? Well, that I’m not sure of. If someone comes to me ranting and raving about another one of her books, I’d definitely pick it up. It might take that exact scenario, though. Will I recommend this book to friends? Certain ones. I’d probably recommend this to my friend Shannon if she weren’t the one to have picked this book herself.
I’m shifting gears and am now reading a book about a girl with an eating disorder, and it is breaking my heart piece by piece. That review will be coming soon. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Thanks for being my friend.
