Book Review: Picture Me This by Marina Lovechild

BLURB


"One snap with the shutter of my camera, and you will be mine forever," he whispered.

My name is Sam, short for Samantha. I’m regular, boring and plain. The only time I can ever relax during my time in college is in photography class, or at least… It was.

That all changed when I met my new photography teacher. He is too sexy for his own good, and his mind too twisted for words to describe.
Together we tumbled into darkness, slowly spiralling out of control, and honestly...? I think I like it.








REVIEW

First off, I wanted to say thank you to Ms. Marina Lovechild for providing me a copy of her book in exchange of an honest review.

When she offered me this book, I got curious about the story immediately. Because, to those some of you who don’t know, I really love teacher-student romance. (So if there are books that has teacher and student affair there, feel free to send it to me if you want.)  So when I read the blurb and found out that it’s about a teacher and a student, I grabbed it in a snap.

So thoughts… I don’t know how to start this review.

On the plot, the plot is good and twisted. It was good in the beginning, I could still follow on the flow of the story. It was interesting. There were quite a few mystery thrown in there in the part of Aiden Robertson, the hero of the book. And Sam lived up to her description, plain and boring. So when they were put together, it’s quite a story.

However, there are parts of the story that I couldn’t quite understand. Like one chapter they were good and talking and feels like they are pretty close. But then another chapter one is running away while the other is chasing. It’s hard to catch up with that kind of transition. Like one minute it was full of sweetness and sunshine and then the next it suddenly became stormy and dark. Seriously. That part made me so confused that it made stop and read the previous chapter and let it sink that the chapter I’m reading is set on another day.

Frankly speaking, this book feels like it was written by one of the authors I encounter in sites like Wattpad. It just feels like it. Please no hate, just stating my honest opinion about it because I’m an honest to God reviewer. Maybe I’m just saying this because Ms. Lovechild is in the same caliber with the authors I usually read that has the same theme with her book. And I usually encounter that kind of author in Wattpad. I’m not saying that she’s not good at all. She is! She is pretty good. It’s just that her book, Picture Me This, made me feel like that.

It’s like, the plot has a somehow clear path going but then after a few words, it turns into another path that’s not meant to take. Like drawing a straight line and then ending up with curves at the end of it.

That’s what I felt about the plot.

Rate: 4.1/5

Now let’s go to the characters. There are only two characters here that are introduced all throughout the first 45% of the book, or something like that. It was only the hero, Aiden, and the heroin, Sam.

Let’s talk about Sam first. She’s described as a plain and boring college student. No friends because she can’t seem to find a right one. A loner for short. My first impression about her is not boring and plain. She’s just not exerting effort into making a friendship last. In which I totally understand. It’s really hard to make a person stay in your life when you yourself see yourself as boring and not worthy of having friends because you have nothing to offer them and you lose interest way too quickly. At time in my life, I felt that feeling. A feeling where you just don’t care if you have friends or not. If you have, then great, but if you have nothing, it’s fine.

Then there’s Aiden, the photography professor. He’s the mysterious type in the beginning of the story. Although sometimes he still is. I don’t think the book ever explained some of his mysteries. Even his issue with that guy named Eric wasn’t solved clearly. Or maybe it was just me. Though I have to agree that he is a twisted kind of hero in the book. I’ve read books that have the hero act like an alpha male and such but I’ve never met a character like Aiden. He’s not that twisted but he’s twisted nonetheless. I didn’t fully understand his reason why he stopped taking photographs before he became a professor. He keeps saying that he’s bad for Sam. I don’t know and see the reason of it.

I don’t quite understand Aiden. He’s the reason why the plot of the story is having an abrupt transition. One minute he’s onto Sam so much it feels like he doesn’t want her to go even though a part of him is screaming that he’s not good for her but still continue doing what he’s doing anyway. Just after he got his release, well, both of them, he’ll realize that what they are doing is wrong so he’ll keep his distance again but then comes back to Sam again and then do it all over again. Yes, a lot of again’s. He is both twisted and weird in all different levels.

Though the genre says adult fiction and somehow has a romance in it, I didn’t felt the romance and I just felt a little erotica to it. It wasn’t hardcore compare to what I’ve read in the past so… if I were to compare this book to an animal, this is a puppy in the erotica genre.

Rate:3.8/5

Now the style of writing is both easy and hard to understand. It’s written in first person point of view of both Aiden and Sam. There are parts that the way it described the atmosphere and setting is on point and detailed. But there are also parts where you don’t really know what they are doing and it’s making it hard to imagine the story.

I think that’s all I can say about the narration and writing style.

Rate: 3.7/5

Now I didn’t feel the ending. Like anything else in the story, it was abrupt. It feels like the story is taking too long so there’s a force to end it already. Like it wasn’t still supposed to end but it needs to end so it ended. Though it was delivered like everything was solved, it felt like it wasn’t.

Rate: 2.9/5

I didn’t say that I hate the book and I seriously didn’t say that I don’t like it. It was good but it still need a really big improvement. It needs editing. Aside from the things I mentioned in my review, there are also typos and grammar problems which distracts me because I notice it like an instinct. But yeah. This book needs more editing. I would love to read this again if it’s already been edited and improved.

RATE: 3.6/5

About the Author...

Marina is an avid book-reader and writer who is no stranger to fantasy in all its forms. Her favorite part of writing is coming up with smart heroines and hot hunks with a dab of personality. Intermingling them just makes it better, as well as sexier.

She just finished up her second Erotic Story "Picture Me This"; a hot new title about a photography teacher that just can’t seem to stop getting into trouble with one of his gorgeous students.

The book has very light BDSM and a sweet ending between two consensual adults who really can’t get enough of each other.

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