All in all – practically perfect! So how did the actual story hold up in the face of these expectations? Pretty well. I love the cover and the title and the names of the MCs Ridley – stupid hot, right? And Alex – gorgeous! I love the premise – underdog Alex needs “protection” by the uber-hot yet geeky Ridley only to turn around and be even more bad-ass than Iron Man! I like the age – end of college, young but old enough not to feel YA. Another book for the 'everyone else loves it shelf.' **Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review**

It didn't help make a book that I was already not enjoying any more enjoyable.

He voice got a little 'gruff' during the sex scenes but that was about it for his range of emotion. He used the same exact voice for both MCs and had a very monotone way of delivering dialogue. This narrator wasn't the worst I've heard but he was NOT good. I'm not a grammar Nazi, but hearing 'he' when 'him' should have been used and adverbs/adjective errors irritated me. When you are listening to an audiobook, sometimes grammar mistakes become more apparent. I'm also going to spend a brief moment discussing grammar and editing. It was like a 80s buddy caper, with biting. I also never felt the love between the MCs. I'm not a romantic suspense lover and when my hot contemporary morphed into something else, with a plot that felt thrown together, I was not a happy camper. But, please, can we stop with all the dry fingering? Having three fingers shoved up you completely dry has felt good for no one, ever. Lots of really rough sex, lots of bruising and sort of BDSM-y but less formal. It is hard to talk about him without giving away any plot spoilers, but I wanted to shout, 'This isn't a freaking 80's movie!' It felt as contrived as one. Sure, I know he has lots of tattoos and likes rough sex, but other than a few tell-y details, I knew nothing about him. Did that strike anyone else as odd? And later, when things start to fall apart (no spoilers here!), Ridley is just happy as can be to do whatever Alex says? He is also extremely underdeveloped as a character. Was I the only one who thought that Ridley was sort of insane? And not fun insane, ACTUALLY crazy? First of all, he stalks Alex relentlessly, spending time and money that he says that Alex better appreciate to look good for him, visiting the library where he works for MONTHS with no backpack or books and pretends to read while staring at him. I had so many issues with this one that I'm not quite sure where to start? The lack of character development? The telling vs showing? The sub-par audio narration? Where do I begin?! I'll just jump right in.

1 star for default plus 1 star for dirty talking. Me? Yeah, I'm for SURE in the second category. This book seems to be love it or hate it for most readers.

BAMF by S.J.D. Peterson