Christine Riccio

Attached at the Hip by Christine Riccio
Contemporary romance. New adult. Game show format Survivor meets The Bachelor.
Orie Lennox has always dreamed of a happily ever after. Orie’s long time boyfriend is more companion and friend and she doesn’t have any sexual feelings for him. Orie is a social influencer with her sister. When her sister says she doesn’t make any decisions on her own or make an effort on their platform, Orie decides to apply for a new survivor type show. She’s watched every version and episode and knows she can master the game play. When she’s called and gets on the show, she finds it’s a twist that means she’s literally attached by a rope to someone for three days at a time, as they do challenges on the island of Fiji. Her first match is a boy she had a crush on back in high school but neither could get past a hello. Winning a challenge, and a box of basic supplies they get to know each other on camera.

🎧 I alternated between an ebook and an audiobook. The narration is done by Brittany Pressley who is a pro and has done hundreds of audiobooks. She is able to do distinct and believable voices for male and female characters as well as several secondary characters in the story. Emotions are clear and make the story immersive and entertaining.
Between the audiobook and ecopy, I preferred the audiobook for this story for the survivor-esq antics.
I listened to this at my standard speed of 1.5.

Fun premise. Not sure the fourth day was the right timing for personal habits but I wouldn’t be in that situation no matter what the pay would be. The producers have said they did extensive research and that every player has at least two or three matches. So maybe that would be enough for future players.
The game play was amusing. The growth of Orie’s character is strong. The selected romance for me was too late in the story to still care although the twist was interesting and held throughout the ending. I was hoping for something different.
Amusing game play.
3.5

I received a copy of this from NetGalley and publisher Macmillan Audio.… (mehr)

When I first saw the cover of this book--and then the description--I knew that I wanted to read it.
Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to finish. There was so much cussing (basically every page) and it seemed like the author was trying a little too hard to sound like the age of her characters.
I would have finished this if not for the language since the story had me hooked.

1/5

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All thoughts are my own and a positive review was not required.… (mehr)

See the full review and more at baileysbooks.home.blog!

Recommended: no
Not recommended because this book promised big things and didn't deliver. Stay away if you like romance, likable characters, or critical plot points that aren't so gaping with holes they look like Swiss cheese.

Thoughts:
The more I thought about this book, the less I liked it. The first issue is that I didn't particularly like either of our main characters. The side characters interested me more, but as non-MC people we don't get much about them. In fact, we get startlingly little about them. How did no one ask "Why is your name Babe?" when they were discussing how weird literally everyone else's name was? -_-

There wasn't much romance, in my opinion. It hinged on their nostalgia and reminiscing to make things happen, and even that was painful to get through because they were both still very stubborn and whiny.

The ending is deeply unsatisfying to me because there are so many technical questions that are left unaddressed. I tried really hard to let that go and take everything with a large dose of salt, but ultimately the issues that would have occurred were way too big for me to ignore. The name of the book is perfectly clever though, I do appreciate that. However, despite the metaphors for starting over and learning from your mistakes, the story itself has some serious issues.

In short, for a romance book the romance was weak, and the unexpected technical aspects of it were too haphazard (and also completely out of left field) for me to enjoy that either. I am once again seriously questioning the Goodreads Choice Awards.… (mehr)