Twist - Review

Twist (Dive Bar, # 2)

By: Kylie Scott

Published: April 11th 2017 by St. Martin's Griffin

288 pages

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--When his younger brother loses interest in online dating, hot, bearded, bartender extraordinaire, Joe Collins, only intends to log into his account and shut it down. Until he reads about her.

Alex Parks is funny, friendly, and pretty much everything he's been looking for in a woman. And in no time at all they're emailing up a storm, telling each other their deepest darkest secrets... apart from the one that really matters.

And when it comes to love, serving it straight up works better than with a twist.

Twist is a catfish story. Joe begins an online conversation with Alex through an online dating account created by his brother Eric. Joe only plans to tell Alex that Eric isn't truly interested and that he's lost interest in his online profile, but something about Alex intrigues him. So instead Joe continues to talk to Alex through email never revealing his true identity. Alex's best friend persuades her to get on a plane and go visit Eric for his birthday. But when Alex shows up and Eric has no idea who she is things get awkward. Alex has no intention of hearing out Eric's big burly lumberjack looking brother when he tells her that he's been the one behind the emails that she's felt such a strong connection to. Fate has other plans and Alex is struck down with the flu which prevents her from traveling immediately home. Joe steps in and takes care of Alex while she's sick. And Alex agrees to stay for two weeks to get to know Joe.

I had been hoping that the email correspondence between these two characters would have more of an impact on this story. There were emails included from before the two meet, but I didn't feel like they contributed too terribly much to the story itself or the connection between the two characters as the emails didn't dive as deeply into personal territory as I wanted. This felt like a missed opportunity to me.

Because I so recently read Dirty (although I don't plan to review it), the language that Kylie Scott uses was just too familiar for me. She uses the exact same phrases from time to time in a way that doesn't always sit well with me. I imagine it's easy to use repeat phrases when you're just writing the way you think, but I guess I hope for more when it comes to authors. I'd like to see each book challenge the author to find new ways of communicating the same feelings and emotions.

I guess it is a fault of the genre just as much as the author, but I'm a little tired of relationships that are built upon the physical more than the emotional. On the one hand, I appreciate how Alex wasn't initially attracted to Joe physically but the more she learned about him the more that changed. Yet their relationship still centered around the physical a bit much for my preferences. Although not as much as Vaughan and Lydia's. Beware there is quite a lot of description as well as language if this bothers you.

Ultimately, Twist was a fast read for me, but it likely won't be one that I remember much about in years to come. Alex and Joe won't stand out as an epic couple or even a favorite read for the year. There wasn't much wrong with Twist, but it was just okay for me. Twist gets 3 Stars. Have you read Twist? What did you think? Let me know!