I am..very glad I don't typically review romance. Because I am very, very conflicted about this book. I can't even rate it.

Some thoughts: (review marked as spoiler because I'm not going to hide them all.

* The main character, Evan Cook, is looking for a wife after his died with his child still unborn within her. He doesn't care about the person, just needs someone to replace what his wife did for him. So he asks his secretary to arrange it for him.
- Okay, weird. But he is super rich. I almost want to handwave it away. And then you wonder what the hell this means for what his wife did? AND I AM CONFLICTED

* Evan is determined to never love again, because he can't handle the pain afterward anymore.
- Again, not too weird. But it does show that Evan isn't completely in a place where a relationship can take place.

* So of course he starts seeing his secretary, Mia, as a woman finally. For the first time in 3 years. Because apparently he is so unemotional in life and makes such calculated decisions that he ignores everything about life. This is reiterated many times throughout the book when he says "I don't really listen to much music" and when he didn't give a shit what house he bought as long as it was a good investment, etc.
- Okay, it was clear that he was going to go with the secretary. I mean, obviously.
-But, no seriously here. Does Evan have some level of autism? He cannot handle having any emotions himself, and he struggles with them in other people. He basically obsesses over computers, but doesn't give the time of day to anything else. There are a lot of little things in here that suggest it to me.

* And naturally, as soon as he sees Mia as a woman, he cannot live without here
- SCREECHHALT HERE. HOLD UP WHY? Nothing about this makes any sense. Nothing about his personality makes sense about this.
- He turns into a raging jealous monster over her, when they aren't even dating. As soon as they have sex, he thinks of her as his.
- Like literally nothing about any of this makes any sense to me, and I cannot exactly put into words why.

* And also naturally, as soon as this happens, his wife is completely forgotten by him
- Like, literally. He actually says this to himself. That he no longer thinks about his wife anymore. SHE DIED IN THE LAST YEAR
- And quite frankly this is where I have the most CONFLICT in the book. Evan basically becomes irreverent about his wife from this moment on. He doesn't pay her any respect at all. There is moving on from death, and shitting all over the person that is dead. And he straddles this line very much
- Naturally it is also revealed later in the book that he didn't love her at all, he felt responsible for her
- Also we learn that his wife was planning on divorcing him and taking most of his money. Because.. well frankly this doesn't fit either the wife or the story. I don't know why this is included. Why did the author make her out to be a bitch? I don't get it. Did she really, really need Mia to be "likable" and "better for him" that much? She had already shown that a thousand times over throughout the book. This part was just unnecessary and it grated on me a lot.

* Evan asks Mia to marry him right after they have sex once.
- Okay, whatever. But this goes back to that irreverence for his dead wife thing.

* The biggest conflict in this book was communication. And not the standard miscommunication.
- Evan: "incapable of loving again". He just cannot handle the emotions anymore. But he shows over and over and over again that he really does love her, he just cannot put it into terms. He grew up in foster care after his mother died, bouncing from home to home. Then entered a marriage to save his wife from her foster father. Mia knows all of this.
- Mia: completely ruled by her emotions in a relationship. She needs love. She doesn't want to marry someone if they can't love her. But what she really cares about is the words. All that matters to her are petty fucking words any idiot will say. She refuses to see everything that Evan does for her as love.
- These two just piss me off with this. Again and again throughout the book. The entire time. Until:

* Mia finds out that she is pregnant. Because they didn't use a condom the first time they had sex after he caught her dancing burlesque and couldn't help himself. And apparently everything overrode both of them and no protection. Because fuck you, that's why, I guess.
- Mia then becomes a fucking zombie of a character. Seriously. She just basically stops existing as the person she was.
- Evan is HAPPY about this. He doesn't see anything wrong with what is going on. Because she has now agreed to marry him. For the baby.
- But Evan is still terrified at becoming a father again, because he cannot lose another child.

Evan. Go fuck yourself.

* And then a whole bunch of bullshit happens and I just can't even deal with any of it at this point.


Honestly. I just don't know where this book went wrong for me.


Oh, probably instantly because I listened to it on audiobook. The narrator mumbles. I listen to audiobooks on 2.0x speed. Always. Or more. I have heard a lot of chipmunks, and a lot of people that sound alright at 2.0x speed.

I've never met a mumbler before. I don't even know how this happens.

And when I tried to slow it down at all, to see if that would help, it really didn't. It was so damn slow it actually physically hurt to read. I was hunched over trying to escape the slow as molasses sound coming from my headphones. The audiobook was awful.


I'm probably forgetting things because this book had...so much to it.


EDIT: I just looked at the name of the series. "More Than Words". I hate everything. ( )

Black takes an analytical approach to love in a wicked sort of way. Evan is the man that seems to have it all until tragedy leaves him twisting in the wind. Ever the calculator, he has a plan. Listen to his head, forget about his heart. His plans go up in smoke when his heart and his hormones come out to play. He finds the perfect candidate in his assistant, Nia. She's a tough cookie with a soft heart and Evan finds himself quickly hooked. Yet love rarely turns out the way we want it to, without an abundance of heart and hard work. Can the guy who has lives for logic, find salvation by taking a leap of faith? More Than Crave You is a seduction of emotions. Nia and Evan are a tidal wave that will pull readers under a spell.



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