Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.
For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.
The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…
I am very surprised by how much I disliked this, considering everything else I have read by Colleen Hoover I have given 5 stars. Confess is told in two points of views, Auburn, who lost the love of her life when she was only 15 and now at the age of 20 she desperately needs a job, which leads her to Owen, a young artist who is looking for an assistant.
The writing in this novel wasn’t the problem. In fact the writing was the only thing I liked. Colleen Hoover knows how to construct beautiful sentences and because of that I was blinded for the first half of the book into believing I loved it. Once I was able to see past the beautiful writing I was able to see all the problems.
The characters in the book were awful. Auburn was so passive I couldn’t take it. She had no backbone and refused to stand up for herself. It seemed like she was just waiting for someone to swoop in and save her rather than fight to fix her own problems which irritated me so much.
For as much as I disliked Auburn, Owen was worse. Firstly, he went on and on about how all of his previous relationships failed because he couldn’t stand his ex-girlfriends. But then he says that he’s always the one that gets dumped so I think we know what the real problem is here.
It annoyed me so much how he constantly told Auburn he is the only person in the world that deserved her. He told her that so much I wanted to puke. In the scene where they finally have sex he says the word “deserve” 7 times. Like dude. It’s not romantic, it’s just creepy.
“And I need you to remember that anyone can make love. But I’m the only one who deserves to make love to you.”
We learn early on in the book that Owen knows Auburn and about her past, but she doesn’t know him. And we don’t find out how he knows her until the last few pages of the book. But what really frustrated me was that he kept this big secret from her the entire book and it’s never resolved! And I really feel like not wrapping that up was just a cop out.
The romance in the book really didn’t work for me. I felt like we were told they were in love but I never saw it. It was like I blinked and missed it happening. I don’t know what they saw in each other. They really didn’t have any chemistry.
Other than the writing I did really love the artwork that was in this book. It was beautiful and added a lot more to the story. Something I love about Colleen Hoovers books is that she always takes that extra step to add something special to her books. While I didn’t like this book I do still love her writing but this book just fell short for me.
Joss Whedon is once again teaming up with Dark Horse Comics to bring us a brand new comic, Twist. Whedon teased that it’s ““a Victorian thriller about a meek chambermaid who is fed to a dark horror– but instead of dying, she returns, with knowledge, power, and rage she can neither deny nor control”. He described the lead as a VICTORIAN FEMALE BATMAN. If that doesn’t sell you on this comic, than I don’t know what will. Twist is set to be a six issue mini series and no release date has currently been set.
Riley Marie Reads 