Really kinda hated Ryan...
590408
Spoilers...

I read Stripped from You before I read this one. In the first one, we get to know how Ryan and Alana met and fell in love. Then we see how he goes to jail for Sean but doesn't tell Alana what happened. He disappears after she loses her virginity to him and she doesn't see him again for 5 yrs. I was super pis*** off at Ryan for just ditching Alana like that without a word. So I was really hoping that he would redeem himself in this book.

Nope, not to me! This book starts with Alana seeing Ryan for the first time since she lost her virginity to him, at a male strip club grinding on her cousin. So after Ryan gets out of prison, he soon becomes a male stripper. Does he try to find Alana and ask for forgiveness? No. He becomes a stripper and complete manwhore. After he sees her, he immediately proclaims his undying love and says he's never letting her go again. Sweet, right? Yea, I thought so until she asks about his profession and he tells her he got into it for money, women and sex. That's just what a girl wants to hear. I was thoroughly disgusted with Ryan's nonchalant attitude when it came to his stripping. He tells her that he's had a few dozen sexual partners and admits that he had a threesome with a girl he lives with but acts like it's no big deal. And Alana kept saying if I wanna be with him then I have to accept that he takes his clothes off and grinds on all these women. NO THE CRAP YOU DON'T! I was waiting for the author to have Ryan redeem himself by saying, I know I left you broken hearted so to prove how much I love you I'm gonna quit stripping because I know how much you hate it and I'll find something else to do. Never happens! He friggin' strips until she six months pregnant with twins in the epilogue. I mean, really? Throughout the entire book, Ryan tells Alana that he's only stripping until he can have enough money saved up but he drives a Mercedes and buys designer suits. WTH? How much money do you flipping need?!?

You see Ryan a few times in compromising positions with women in the club but he says it's just a job and so she just has to deal. Why couldn't he do something for her? Like quit! She hates his job and all the women but he never gives it up for her. So disappointing to read a romance novel where the heroine gives, gives, gives and the hero does nothing. Not to mention, why do these authors make the hero a disgusting manwhore but the heroine only has him as a sexual partner? What a double standard! And I read them all the time.

Ryan never redeemed himself because he never sacrificed anything for Alana. He had his cake and ate it too. I wish I had known how this book would play out, then I could've saved my money. Refund, anyone?!?
3792840
Zoey is having boyfriend trouble. Big time. Finn is that cocky self-absorbed bastard I can't stand. I literally wanted to jump into the book and beat him with my laptop. I mean, how stupid and low-life can you get? I absolutely hated him through the entire story. Melanie Marks is great at describing the characters, one of the reasons she made my bad feeling towards Finn so strongly.

Then there is Riley, Finn's best friend and a total hottie. Not only is he hot, but he sweet and kind. My only problem with him? He's supposed to be in love with Zoey, so what the hell is he pushing her away like that when he tries to kiss Zoey at the sime time? It made me frustrated. But I kind of liked to book.

Here is the big problem: I get that this is supposed to be a short-story, really, I do. But even if it were a short-story, Melanie could still explain more. I would have wanted the ending a bit extended. Maybe and explanation what happened with Zoey and Finn after?

Would I recommend this book?: Not really.. if the prize were lowered a little, then yes.
Would I read it again?: Maybe if I were bored and wanted a five-minutes read. It still were a little over-priced.

Two and-a-half Star.
1175580
For as much as I enjoyed the first book this one left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I don't want to sound nasty but I was already annoyed with this one 25% in.

SPOILER ALERT

It was like I knew what was going to happen and well... it did. I find myself hating love triangle books these days and this one really was no different. The only real differnce was that I acutally liked BOTH of the male characters equally. What I didn't like was Ember. The fact that she knew she wasn't in love with Adrian and kept stringing him along really irked me. I remember reading that she was comfortable with him. I hate that. It only got worse when normally sweet Adrian got all jerk in order for Bo and Ember to get together. Honestly I was rooting for them to get together I really was, but do you really have to turn a decent guy into an ass to do it? I felt like it was defelecting Embers actions wanting readers to not like Adrian so they didn't feel bad about being happy for Bo and Ember. This is the thing, I didn't buy it not one bit, and it made me dislike Ember even more. In my opinion instead of turning Adrian into an ass Ember should have been the one taking the heat. After all she did string him along for most of the book.

I don't really want to go into the whole Rae thing either, that nearly caused my iPad to crash into the wall... really? I was happy with the ending at least they are happy and together and doing what they really want out of life.

I'm not really sure that I would recomend the second book, sadly.
4666592
I hated the ending so much that it literally killed the whole book for me. I did like the middle of the book, and the story was interesting up to a point. The premise was also very good and there were lots of twists and shockers. However, I hated both main characters with a passion because they were both horrible people and so superficial. I guess the author did a good job there because I despised both main characters. I also kind of hated the secondary characters too. I feel like every story needs a good guy/hero/heroine - This book doesn't have one. I guess Nick was maybe more "human" or slightly more "sane" than Amy, but these people take the cake in the "loser department". The ending left me with my eyes rolling and I almost made the "L" sign for "Losers" at my IPad. Booooo hissssssss.
567999
this was not one of my favorites of the series, however, I did enjoy it. The main characters besides the Ryan team was a really sad boy who didn't get to grow up.
144225
I'm all for alpha males, but Kyle was a bit too much. Way too overbearing. I mean, when Kerry's ex comes to the apartment Kyle threatens to kill them both if Paul comes near her again. He steamrolled right over her, even when she said she didn't want to get pregnant. I can go along with a lot, but he didn't seem to care about her feelings so much as what he wanted from her.
3181952
This was my least favorite of all of the Chesapeake shores series.  I had a difficult time finding Caitlin at all sympathetic.  Too much whining about what her plan was.....
1906528
Obviously it was not Tom Clancy R.I.P., but I've read some of the other story lines with Mark Greaney that I liked. But this one was all over the place, hard to stay focused on the story, and remembering who was who as he jumped around from one story line to the other. Then like Red Storm Rising, there was a lot of character build up for most of the book, then a rapid anti-climactic finally to end the story... Will probably be my last Jack Ryan novel, and I've loved all the others accept of course Red Storm Rising...
4829922
I agree with the other reviewers take on Taylor. She was BEYOND annoying, over the top mean-spirited to Hunter, a very unlikeable heroine. Her behavior is NOT warranted, even when you find out the reason (traumatic childhood event)for her absurd reaction to the EVER-Patient, Hunter. I kept reading for him. He was sweet and understanding to a fault for putting up with her. Thankfully, Taylor calms down so I could get through the book. But honestly, the author wrote a harshly, unlikeable heroine who I really couldn't sympathize with.
1628901
Yes, this book develops too slowly, but when it finally begins to show its true colors, it gets pretty ugly.  I stopped reading this book on page 183.  That's when President Ryan spews forth all of Clancy's anti-abortion rhetoric to the less than convincing arguments of his chief of staff.
This is Clancy's last war for this reader.  I'll leave him 845 pages from the next treaty and long before he sends the world to war once again.
3529789
Sci-fi doesn't normall do it for me.  But I so enjoyed this one.  The whole premise of Ryan coming back in time to stop one small action from happening to save the world is crazy to think about.  And Eden's role in it as well.

Eden and Ryan were pretty okay as main characters.  Their relationship was the typical insta-love that you often read about in YA books. I did not like Connor, however.  He just seemed like a jerk the whole time.  I get that he was jealous of Ryan but he really had no redeeming qualities in my eye.

I think the reason I flew through this book was because of the whole plot.  (usually it's the characters).

There's one twist at the end that I didn't see coming.  Maybe I should have but thinking back, I still didn't see any clues.  There's a second book in the series and I'll be interested in reading that one.
716105
I adore Rhage and I adore Mary - what I detested was how he was treated in this book.  Because Tohr is a conniving whiny arrogant egotistical little control freak and because Wrath is a genital-nursing traitor, Rhage was tortured by his so-called "brothers" all because he dared to fall in love.  Now, Wrath is in love with his Beth and Tohr is in love with his Wellsie, but Rhage isn't apparently special enough to rate respect for the fact that he's in love with Mary.

Now, we the readers are supposed to believe that the "brothers" adore/love/respect/would die for each other - this standard has been pounded into our heads, right,  yet at the very first opportunity two of the "brothers" enthusiastically and rabidly turn on Rhage and force the other "brothers" to torture him along with them.

But they lurve their "brother"...right...
3175685
I found this book to be totally sub-par when it came to Tom Clancy's writing. I've been following the "Ryanverse" since I was a kid and I've always found it to lend itself readily to interesting stories. The characters were annoyingly flat with the exception of Jack Jr., who, by many definitions, seems to be a little socio/psychopathic near the end of the book. It's rather annoying and I was left disappointed overall.
3912949
I liked Forrest. He's a good man and he's willing to fight for what he wants, even moving to Jayne's town and starting a farrier business there so that he could find a way back into her life. I didn't like Jayne very much. Her way of dealing with their relationship was so immature.

Three years ago, Jayne didn't want to hold Forrest back from his dream, so she told him to go ahead and join the Peace Corps and go to Ghana. Yet she keeps accusing him of choosing a foreign country over her. When he left, she changed her cellphone number and closed down her Facebook account, and every time he wrote her letters, she marked them "return to sender", not bothering to open any. The poor guy was understandably confused, because she was the one who said it was ok for him to go, and they had an understanding that they'd keep in touch and see how things were after his two years in Ghana. I didn't like that she is the one who cut him off, yet she had the gall to blame him for how things had turned out. She also made assumptions about him and what he wanted from life, without bothering to ask if they were true. Either that, or she wilfully disregarded what he had told her, weaving a different story in her head.

Either way, I didn't like her, and this was a problem because the story was written in first person from her POV. I didn't like the way she treated Forrest and I felt he deserved better. I wanted him to end up with someone who would appreciate him. He had to work far too hard for her, and she stubbornly refused to see what a gem he was, resenting him each time he tried to help her.

I would read other books by this author, because the story was well-written. It's just a pity that I didn't like the h in this story, so this ruined the romance for me.
1645704
I didn't like book 2 nearly as much as book 1.  I am glad Brad grew up and quit being a douche but I just couldn't really ever connect with him. I also thought that there would be more interaction with the characters of book 1 with book 2.
3847855
I enjoyed the story but I really couldn't stand Colton.  It wasn't until the end of the book when I finally started really liking him.  But that was a lot of reading not enjoying one of the main characters.
2331205
have read all the jack ryan books....this one should have been a short story...i read the whole thing out of loyalty, and perhaps thinking that eventually something would click...i will not make that mistake again