I picked this up on a whim because the cover caught my eye. Read it in one day (could have been one sitting if I wasn't distracted by life). It's like 50 Shades of Grey meets Consequences. The steamy scenes were very steamy but when it got to the storyline I did find it a little frustrating. She's hired as a personal assistant and for the majority of the book, she does not a single thing that resembles what an assistant actually does. I enjoyed it though! At the core of this novel is a gem. It might not be a great grade, but the genre and type of story worked for E.L. James, which is what I figure ties well into the popular reading material right now. Unfortunately, this gem is so buried beneath issues of this work of fiction that I have little interest in seeing if that gem is ever uncovered.Under normal circumstances, this strange sort of twisted version of Annie might be appealing. Poor little orphan girl who has no one to care about her meets billionaire who can pull her out of her melancholy hard knock life. But Lucy is not just an orphan, she's a woman with no self respect, no standards and not enough self confidence to be able to voice or even attempt to remove herself from situations that make her question herself, feel uncomfortable or degrade her. Billionaire Jeremiah Hamilton is a good guy beneath his "stoic" expression; a man who used to be in the military and is all about doing "the right thing". When he isn't coercing women into doing "anything he wants" through prostitution, that is. Both characters have the background to be sympathetic, but their stories unfold at the wrong pace or time because by the end of the novel, I didn't care for either of them. Even with all of their sex, it was hard to say they had any chemistry; I would assume there isn't much in prostitution generally anyway, so this is fitting.The writing in this piece bothered me. A lot. The descriptions themselves bog down the pace to the point that a conversation can literally be lost between all of Lucy's thoughts, descriptions and feelings. Many times I had to backtrack to find out where the conversations left off and it grew to be irritating very quickly. What's worse, a lot of the time, the dialogue seemed repetitive and not quite believable anyway.Word choice was another issue; every once in a while, with increasing frequency through the novel, I would run across some complex word that didn't fit at all in the theme of the story (it's a romance novel, not an essay). I understand the main character is smart (allegedly), but the only way she seems to be able to prove that is through her spastic, thesaurus-like vocabulary.I'm not a hardcore feminist, but even I noticed that every female in this book is a walking tragedy. Lucy can't say no and after two weeks of being dominated shamefully into this sex relationship, she claims to be in love and unable to function without the sad excuse for attention Jeremiah gives her. Hamilton's mother is a heartless wench, Anya is a bully/victim and Celeste, the most normal of them all (and strongest by default), still falls victim to this story's very strange plot twists.The plot itself starts out simple enough and then turns into a circus that's part action film and Jerry Springer. Because this is a series, it could have been introduced at a better pace, explored a little deeper and added some much needed tension to the piece. Instead, it seemed rushed and as a result, unbelievable and ridiculous.If you can look past these faults and hope that things perhaps get better, then I would say you can probably survive this book and the ones following it. But if you're looking for something with even a little more organization and sort of character development, you should probably look elsewhere.
What do You think about Anything He Wants (2012)?
I liked it, but why does it feel like there is more to it? I need to look into this
—chingis101
I thoroughly enjoyed it, left me wanting more
—ericamarie
