Exquisite (Exquisite, #1) - Ella Frank Le Sigh

Well it looks as if I find myself in the minority once again. After all the rave reviews I have read about this book, I decided to give it a try.

I wanted to love it. It had a lot of great things going for it. But to be perfectly honest, I had a really tough time getting through it. Usually, I can read a book in a few hours (particularly if I really like it), so my first bad sign was when it took me 3 days to finish this. It just dragged on and On and ON...even the shmexy sex scenes couldn't redeem for me.

My biggest struggle was I simply could not get a feel for the heroine. Actually, that's not true. I HATED Lena. It's rare that I can say this about a character, b/c it takes a lot of things against the character for me to feel that way. Lena was a bitch, plain and simple. It wasn't an "Auw, she has suffered and is closed off because of it and I can't wait for her to make a turn for the better", nor was it a "closed off and brooding yet still endearing" heroine. NOPE! She came off as a plain ol' B!

I was irritated with her 30% into the book, wanted to smack her 60% into it...until finally my only thought while reading was
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I could not relate to Lena as a heroine AT ALL. On top of it, I found her personality change to be hard to believe. She went from one extreme in the beginning to another, in the end. I don't want to give too much away by saying exactly what, b/c that would contain spoilers.

The book had some great things going for it. I liked the plot. I LOVED MASON! But in the end, it just wasn't enough for me to rate this a 5 star read or a 4 star one.

So what can I say, a 4 star book with a 2 star heroine, averages out to a 3 star read for me.