Throttled (Dirty Air, #1) by Lauren Asher Review

This is a spoiler-free review!

Lauren Asher I forgive you for The Fine Print... I was hooked into this book by the second chapter and considering I have never read a F1 romance book before, I certainly did not know what I was getting myself into with this series. When Maya's brother, Santiago, announces that he has signed a contract with a major F1 team, she does not expect to form an unexpected bond with her brother's rival, Noah Slade. As Santiago and Noah continue to clash - mostly in a one-sided rivalry on Noah's part - Maya is slowly acclimating to the F1 lifestyle and traveling for races.

Temptation runs high as Noah's notorious playboy past haunts him at every turn, while Maya's innocence to the reality of F1 only draws him toward her more - at with much more at stake than winning races, they have to decide if getting together is worth the risk of angering Santiago or putting Noah's future on the line. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the will-they-won't-they foreplay they had going on, as it felt very natural and had a great comedic presence that alleviated some of the more heavier aspects of the story. The progression of their initial interest in one another, to the attempts to stay away, to having this forbidden friendship turned relationship felt well-paced at first, but I do have to say I think their romantic relationship felt much more rushed.

Not for nothing, while Santiago seems to be a very great older brother, I did start to feel as though he did not understand that Maya was more than just his sister following him around the world for races - she was making a name for herself and building an online presence with her videos. He continues to "talk down" to her throughout the book, and it honestly put a sour taste in my mouth when he would make small remarks about her needing to do more with her life than just "follow him around" and that she "needs to find a real career" when she was gaining hundreds of thousands of subscribers on her channel.

The backstory for Noah was interesting and truly added depth to his character - a lot of focus was placed on his past experiences and how they impacted his competitiveness and responsiveness to his father. Watching him set boundaries or open up to others throughout the book was refreshing, considering the majority of the time we see the male leads stay emotionally suppressed. With Maya, readers gain a first-hand account of what Noah has to go through, and as we learn information at the same time or right before Maya uncovers it, it puts us into the emotional setting that the characters are in.

Maya seemed a bit naive, and with her new to the world of F1, I could see how she had trouble navigating this new environment while being on her own - that being, with her brother by her side - could cause her to be unsure of herself. Her as a character grew on me, and as she found more self confidence, she started to blossom into a more mature version of herself. I do think the forbidden romance aspect with adults can be a little overboard at times, considering both Noah and Maya are perfectly capable of entering a relationship with anyone's insight, but I am a sucker for it anyway.

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Terms and Conditions (Dreamland Billionaires, #2) by Lauren Asher Review

This is a spoiler-free review! You can read my review of The Fine Print on my blog, here.

I was apprehensive going into this second installment - The Fine Print was not my favorite read, but when I realized that Terms and Conditions was an actual marriage of convenience book, it spiked my interest. And with a marriage contract that accidentally gets printed on print paper because Mr. Billionaire heir does not know how to reload the printer? I could not have been happier.

Declan Kane is up to inherit billions and the CEO position of Dreamland, on one condition - marry and have a child. When his bride-to-be ditches him at the last minute, his younger assistant takes her place, and his sanity along with it. He sees the wife and child as collateral damage in the path to becoming CEO, and for some reason is set on low-key being an absentee father? I understand he is doing this in order to secure his inheritance, but man, it is a literal child, not a toy you put away after getting tired of playing with it after a few years.

Iris unironically needs to be an actress - she is so hilarious and is always fooling everyone around her, especially Declan. She makes up rumors at work so people get things done faster, and Declan is so shocked that she is able to do it without anyone catching on. The way she is able to get people to do what she wants without them realizing it made me really enjoy her character, and the friendship she has with Cal was so refreshing to see. It was an added plus that Declan was obviously jealous of the relationship she has with Cal, because he wanted her to be that open with him from the start.

The way that Iris and Declan clearly are interested in each other before anything even truly starts with their contract had me dying - the perspective changes gave a great view of what they each thought of each other. Declan's inner thoughts are high-key hilarious - at one point, he sees Iris apologizing to her plants because she had to move them, and immediately thinks she is insane. I knew he would be obsessed with her immediately after that. Their banter is pretty funny when they are actually agreeing with each other, and Iris jokingly saying "Are you sure you're a virgin?" to Declan had me audibly snorting, she is so unserious when her guard is down.

Declan is 36-years-old and needs to learn to act like an adult - there were a number of times that he consistently puts his needs and wants above everyone else's, and then acts shocked that Iris is upset with him. And Iris... she is 23-years-old... she should be at the club!! Not working twelve hour days and sacrificing her relationships to please Declan. 

I was a little off-put by the way Declan did not seem to help Iris with nearly anything in this book - she was always the one making plans, setting up dinners, fixing proposals, and so many other things. I did not love the way he was putting work above her, especially during important moments - it made him really feel like a villain, when he was the one who needed her, not the other way around. His groveling texts to Iris made him feel like a major boomer who does not know how to act like an adult and hold himself accountable for the way he acted and the things that he said to her in anger.

There is not a ton of spice in this book, and it really does not even start to pop up until over two-thirds of the way into the story. It is definitely tame, but I do wish it showed up a little more in this story - more often than not, it would be in dreams that Declan or Iris had of each other. 

I enjoyed this much more compared to The Fine Print - Declan was much more interesting than Rowan, and sure, he may have made some not so great choices throughout this book, but I still have him ranked above Rowan. Rowan and Zara's scattered appearances in this book only had me interested in Iris and Zara's potential friendship - considering Iris does not really have anyone outside of her mother, Nana, and Cal, I really wanted her to gain some female friends. Declan's father plays such a large role as an antagonist in Declan's life, and we see it overtake the plot when I wish it could have focused more on Iris and Declan's relationship.

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The Fine Print (Dreamland Billionaires, #1) by Lauren Asher Review

This is a spoiler-free review!

Well.... I do not even know what to say. For one, I honestly do not even know how I missed the fact that they work in an amusement park that is basically Disneyland, and I immediately got the ick. Listen, I knew there was a castle on the cover, but I thought it was more in the sense of a billionaire's castle mansion, not a Cinderella castle situation. It was giving major Disney adult vibes and I felt as though I was being held captive, I needed to be free of this torment. There are so many pop culture and popular restaurant references, it was incredibly distracting and read like a 13-year-old on Wattpad instead of a published work.

Zahra is pretty funny every now and again, and she was eating Rowan up at every chance she got, which I have to respect. Rowan on the other hand, is the definition of a handsome loner with no social skills that do not directly benefit him. He needed to be knocked down a few pegs, and Zahra was happy to take on that task. I kind of really could not stand him throughout the entire book, which is not a good look when this is supposed to be the heartthrob male lead that had half the internet drooling over him.

I really thought this was going to take a turn into a contract marriage trope, and since it is a fan favorite in my book, I was excited for the plot to move forward and bring in some substance, but unfortunately I was left underwhelmed and disappointed when this never came up. There was even a perfect opportunity for it, given the terms of being the director of Dreamland for Rowan, and yet it was fumbled. Rowan constantly compares himself to Mr. Darcy, which is absolute insanity given that Rowan has the charisma of a dried out leaf on the ground.

These employees do literally nothing all day long. Every chapter where they are at the office or working on a presentation, it is essentially bare minimum effort and constant mentions of late nights with no work to show for it. Someone truly needs to unionize this amusement park because their working conditions are insane and surely not up to code, not to mention the horrendous pay and abismal healthcare the employees receive. Rowan seems completely fine with this information and it just takes one employee - Zahra - to shed light on the situation and make Rowan realize that maybe he should treat his employees like human beings. He was giving off major capitalist pig vibes, because why in the world was he bragging about having the idea to lay off ten thousand employees when the park was losing money??

I was not invested in Zahra and Rowan's relationship at all - I thought that maybe once we hit the halfway mark in the story, that something would evolve and their relationship would actually form into something with substance, but it fell flat and left me wishing I did not commit this much time to their story. The smut was not smutting at all... everyone was raving over this book for years, and it was giving Wattpad-level descriptions. They trauma dumped on each other and then immediately jumped each other's bones, and it was the weirdest transition I have ever read, and honestly started the domino effect that made me not like either of them by the end of the book.

All I can say is thank god that this series is compiled of interconnected stand alones and does not continue following Rowan and Zahra, because if I had to read another two books about this pairing, I would start to believe that love does not exist. Rowan did not apologize nearly enough for the things that he did and the lies that he told, and I truly cannot believe this is the man everyone has been thirsting after for the past two years. I felt as though I was being punk'd the entire book, and I am just grateful I borrowed this from the library and did not spend my actual money on nearly five hundred pages of a lack-luster romance.

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