Charlie and Bentley are both students at Boston University. There’s more to Bentley than his “bad boy” persona. He’s a ladies man, running from a past he thinks defines him. He guards his heart and refuses to let women get too close. Charlie is a “good girl” with a past. After her heart is broken, she refuses to get involved with any man and focuses all her attention on school. Until a Red Sox vs. Yankees baseball game, where a chance meeting changes their lives forever. I had to keep reminding myself that Charlie was young and inexperienced. She was a little self-centered and ran away from Bentley instead of talking through their problems. It was hard to like her at first until you meet her brothers and mother, then you understand. Bentley was a surprise. You fall in love with him right from the beginning. He fits the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” He’s had a tough childhood but is trying to overcome his past. He is very romantic, very sweet and will do anything for the people he cares about.I thought the stalker story line could have been developed more but overall this book was a great, romantic, quick read. Looking forward to the next one! Please let me start by saying that I hate writing a bad review. Sometimes there is just no way around it though. I try to be constructive in my reviews but sometimes there just isn’t anything good to focus on. I make no claims to be a writer, not in the story telling sense, but I am most certainly a reader. Among the 500+ books on my Goodreads page is a shelf titled “Didn’t finish”, there is currently one book on that shelf, it should have two but I powered through this atrocity for you fellow readers. I just could not let you suffer like I did. For the sake of this review and my respect for your time we shall ignore the poor editing entirely and focus instead on the poor writing, character development and plot lines. The writing itself is simplistic yet bi-polar. One second Charlie, the female lead, is talking about being from one of the most prominent families in Boston and the next she is talking like a street thug from Charlestown. Supposedly Charlie has cleaned up her act from her misspent youth. The problem with that is the fact that through this entire book we never really get to know what her misspent youth was. Since it’s used as a plot point, I feel like it should have been explored. The author somehow manages to write redundantly as well as contradictory. Charlie whines about wanting a private life but jumps right on the internet to blog about what happened at the baseball game. PICK ONE! There is nothing more frustrating for a reader then a story that can’t make up its mind. This story couldn’t decide on anything. The writing in this story is just bottom line ridiculous, and I read sci-fi. When you sit down to read a contemporary romance/ erotica though, you shouldn’t have to reach quite so far to believe the plot or characters. The writing in this just doesn’t make sense from start to finish. I do have to wonder if the author had anyone give this a once over before self publishing. If not, I wonder how receptive she would be to me sending her back an edited copy. Sentences like “right there in the tunnel for everyone to see.” The tunnel in a sports arena is actually enclosed, as the definition of tunnel would suggest, therefore no one could actually see. Mistakes like “my heart sank.” Except when you struggle through the actual book this sentence clear should have been “my heart soared”. Yet another perfect example of how the author rushed to publication without checking over her story. And just because you have access to a thesaurus doesn’t mean you have populate your story with random words you have picked out of said thesaurus. Oh the characters, these poor unfortunate souls with such potential. There is a fine line an author has to walk to keep their characters from falling off a cliff into the realm of unbelievable. This author threw them off the cliff in the first fifteen minutes. Bentley was almost someone I could believe in, until four seconds later, out of left field mind you, the author has him spouting out poorly placed vulgarity. There was simply no need and no context for it. I am by no means squeamish when it comes to sex. I’ve read 50, Crossfire, Landslide and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Self-published to critically acclaimed so when I say the sex scenes were bad, it isn’t because I’m a prude, it’s because they lacked not only imagination but what those other authors bring to their characters, class. When I read a book I want to connect, with the story, the characters, with something. There was simply nothing to connect to here. The characters had so much promise but for what ever reason the author didn’t choose to delve deeper or make them more human. Instead this author took a perfectly good story line with promising characters and dropped the ball. Shay is a great example, promising character turned into a paper doll, dialog spewing stereotype. Sure, let’s take the only black female and turn her into a slang speaking idiot, who isn’t actually using slang from the correct region of the country. But with such poor character development who knows she could really be from New Orleans and we wouldn’t know. If you could take everything you have ever read in a contemporary romance novel and put it in a blender, you’d have this book; this contemporary romance that wants to pretend its erotica. Rich bad boy with a damaged past meets equally right girl virgin also slightly damaged (again we have to assume since the back story was substandard), over baring friends and family. Sprinkle all that with a dash of psycho stalker and a pregnancy and you have Take Me Out. At he end of the day there is just nothing redeeming about this book once it’s finished. I’ve heard this author doesn’t take constructive criticism well so you’ll have to excuse me for not hold her hand through this part. You put this out for public consumption and instead of brushing off the negatives people have to say; maybe you should take a look at where they think you need to improve. Eventually people are going to stop reading this author. The only thing I can suggest is that perhaps the author slows down for her next writing project. Dig deeper into her characters and plan out what she wants to say to us. She is only doing herself and her readers a disservice by try to publish quantity instead of quality. ~NotteAurora
What do You think about Take Me Out (2000)?
I can't say I loved this but was defiantly a good story, to me it felt rushed and I skimmed pages
—Layna
Just what I need a nice romance with sex humor and a little drama. I hope there is a book 2.
—Faron
