Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Pretty Obsessed

SERIES:  Pretty Broken Book 1

AUTHOR: J.R. Gray

PUBLISHER: Self-published

RELEASE DATE:  October 18, 2021

LENGTH: 373 pages

BLURB: 

Emory Ker

Who makes out with a random guy at a club while someone else is giving him head? Not me—that’s who. I’d never even hooked up with a stranger. Welp, now I had. If you could call what I’d done hooking up. But it was so much more intimate than a hook-up. I’d tasted his lips as someone else made him come. He’d gasped into my mouth.

Now I was sitting in front of him and he was asking me to kiss him again. 

River Wade 

We became famous overnight. 

One day I was a twenty-four-year-old drummer slinging pizzas to make ends meet and the next, I was a member of the most popular alternative band ever.  

Despite being world-famous, there was no connection in it. I’d lost touch with reality. With intimacy. I couldn’t find a place to be normal. I’d lived my entire life straight-edged while watching obsession destroy my best friend. 

Obsession terrified me. 

That is until I met him. 

The first taste left me intoxicated.  

The rockstar obsessed with the writer—rather funny if you think about it. 

After a night with him, he vanishes into thin air, and all the money in the world can’t help me find him.

I have to track him down and convince him there might be millions of people who would do anything to get a chance to sleep with me, but I only had eyes for him. 

Convince this beautiful boy I’m pretty obsessed.

Pretty Obsessed is an out-for-you romance, with a dirty-talking, obsessive rockstar who falls for a cinnamon roll writer. This is book one in The Pretty Broken series. All books follow a different couple.

REVIEW: 

J.R. Gray certainly picked an apt title for Pretty Obsessed, the first book is his new Pretty Broken series, because River and Emory are precisely that: obsessed with each other.  From the moment they lock eyes across the room at a sex club, these two men are consumed with each other. 

Their initial meeting is a truly bizarre encounter.  Emory is a famous writer of YA books who comes to a sex club to write.  River is a famous rock star, the drummer for Pretty Broken, one of the hottest bands around.  He’s at the sex club receiving a public blow job that River seems utterly unaffected by. River and Emory’s first interaction surreally occurs while said blow job is still in progress.  They then have an intense first kiss (blow job still in progress) that accomplishes, almost immediately, what the hour-long ministrations of the woman between River’s legs has not.

With this setup, it’s no surprise that the chemistry between River and Emory is off the charts. Sex happens often, anytime and anywhere, accompanied by an ever-present, insatiable desire for each other.  River and Emory’s dynamic is fascinating, brought to life through a well-written story with crisp and meaningful dialogue. I just wish there had been more of it.  The book contains a lot of blistering sex that eclipses conversation in considerable measure. 

Despite the physical attraction between them, River and Emory’s emotional bond doesn’t fully develop.  I had trouble connecting with these two men as a couple, even though I saw how they fit together.  There’s an obvious imbalance between the romance and the band drama. I wanted depth in River and Emory’s relationship but got it, instead, in River’s relationship with his best friend and bandmate Iris.  I didn’t expect that and found it frustrating, especially because River and Emory’s relationship lacks non-sexual intimacy. River and Emory infrequently talk or try to learn about each other outside of sex.  That lack of communication fuels their relationship conflict. It also keeps the reader at arms-length.  

Apropos of nothing, the chapter headings demark which character will be narrating. But rather than identifying the chapters by first name, their full names – “River Wade”/“Emory Ker” – are used. Every. Single. Time. Unusual? Certainly.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that convention used before.  Effective?  Not in a positive way, assuming that Mr. Gray intended the full-naming to have an effect at all. The convention did have an effect, though, unintended or not. It lent an aloofness to River and Emory that widened the gap between the reader and the characters.

Returning to titles, Mr. Gray also chose a fitting one for the series, Pretty Broken, and its eponymous band.  These men are pretty broken indeed.  The story devotes many pages delving into the band dynamics, Iris’ struggles and demons, and River’s role as mediator and peacemaker.  All of this is helpful to understand River’s sacrifices and how that bleeds into his relationship with Emory. However, fewer pages could have accomplished the same thing and had a more significant impact, in my opinion. 

That being said, Pretty Obsessed holds your attention quite easily despite slow pacing.  Mr. Gray creates complex, endearing characters in River, Emory, and Iris, the three pillars of this story, and develops a unique, interesting story arc for them. Prevalent, scorching hot sex is a definite draw if you’re looking for that type of “romance”, and there’s ground left to explore in subsequent book(s), especially concerning Iris, who I’d love to see get his own HEA.  

So while I can’t say I’m obsessed with Pretty Obsessed, I can report that you will find within its pages an enjoyable escape.  To me, that’s what reading is all about, and Pretty Obsessed delivers.

RATING:

BUY LINK: 

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