Book: Fool Me Twice by Carrie Aarons
Read From: 22nd August - 28th August 2021
Rating: 2/5 stars
Summary: My best friend died just before her 18th birthday and left me her bucket list to complete. The last item is to break the heart of her ex-boyfriend, the one who dumped her when she got cancer. But what happens when my revenge plot starts going south, and I fall in love with him?
The above summary absolutely HOOKED me. I saw it on TikTok, completely unaware it was a plotline for a book, and after finding out the title I knew I had to add it to my Amazon wish-list straight away. You could imagine my excitement when it was FREE on Prime Reading! Needless to say, I was so intrigued I had no choice but to start reading it immediately. I couldn't have been more disappointed! If you liked this book, please take this as your warning to stop reading this review...
I mean, chapter one opened with the line "fuck, it's a fantastic morning to be a fantastic stud". Should I have DNF'ed then and there? Probably. But I thought I'd give this book the benefit of the doubt, particularly as I'd never heard of the author before and I know that people on Bookstagram are always looking for some hidden gems in the form of books, so I decided to carry on reading. I wish I hadn't.😅
If I'm being honest, this read like a trashy Wattpad fan fiction. No shade intended, I used to thoroughly enjoy my One Direction fanfics back in the day, but considering I have recently been reading consistently great romance books by the likes of Talia Hibbert, it was inevitable from the first 50 or so pages that this book was going to massively fall flat. If I had to summarise, I would say that this book gave me the ick.🤢 There were so many moments that had me physically cringing it was painful to read. For example, the love interest's penis was referred to as an 'anaconda'?! and an orgasm was compared to listening to Ariana Grande's 'god is a woman'... need I say any more?
As much as it seems like I'm purely ripping into this book, please trust me when I say I genuinely wanted to like it - the premise is SO interesting but the execution just wasn't there for me! It was really difficult for me to connect to the characters when the majority of their internal monologue was about how horny they were. Plus, there was such an unnecessary side plot and as interesting as it was, it really didn't add to the story.
I think I've definitely learned my lesson with regards to author's marketing their books on TikTok and maybe next time I see one that looks even remotely interesting, I'll at least read a few reviews before diving straight in. Am I glad I stuck it out until the end? Not really. But do I regret reading this? Also not really. I guess it was entertaining, even if it wasn't in the way the author intended. At least it was free!