Friday, September 29, 2017

Book Review: You Don't Know Me by Mandy Lee

You Don't Know Me Trilogy (Book 1)

I adore this book. I really like the writing, it has a good flow.


The Story:
Maya, a young artist that hasn’t painted in the last few years, has to take on a job as a secretary in a construction company to pay her bills.
As soon as her boss lays his eyes on her, he's determined to get her into his bed and even though Maya tries her best to shake him off, there is no chance for him to let her go as soon as he takes a hold on her. With each day Maya spends with Daniel, her feelings grow for him and as her heart begins to play a part in it, she notices that she doesn't even know this guy. How can she even have feelings for someone she doesn’t know? Maya has to decide if she can trust Daniel and if she wants to be pulled into his dark and mysterious life.

Thoughts:
I love this book, especially because after some first similarities to FSOG and Crossfire it turned into something of its own. I wouldn’t say that it’s bad to start a story that’s similar to other books because you kind of know beforehand what sort of story this probably is and the best stories are those that turn into something of their own, just like this one.
So this is a book I recommend to readers who enjoyed FSOG and Crossfire.
I see similarities of books like a road. It’s like traveling on the same road but on another lane and then there is an exit and you take it onto another street. Sometimes the street is not far off from the one before and sometimes it goes in a complete different direction.

Now, to get me back on tracks of this book, let me tell you that I marked so much in this book and wrote down so many notes that I would love to discuss them all with you but it would be too much and there would just be spoilers. So you have to get on without them, but I will list a few down below. =))

The ending:
At first everything in this story moved too fast for my liking but at the end everything made much more sense to me.
And then I was just WTF? Noo! Don’t leave a reader like me hanging like this!! I need to know how it continues!
Oh gosh. I knew something was up but I did not see this coming until almost at the end of the book.  I’m so curious about how they will go on after everything that happened and that’s revealed.

!!! spoilers ahead !!!

Things I loved and stuff I didn't like so much:
Maya's a sweet character but she let Daniel get away with everything. She always turned into pudding when he's around. She often thought about fighting him and to tell him no but as soon as he laid eyes on her or touched her, she melted and couldn’t even say anything against what he wanted to do to her or with her.
He always had stupid reasons to get her to tell him what he wanted to know and he never took no for an answer. I was not a huge fan of him forcing his will onto Maya all the time.
And Maya gave up way to often or rather always and much too soon when she asked him something and he didn’t want to answer her. I got really frustrated with her and wanted to yell in her face because why he is always allowed not to answer but she is forced to answer, I don’t know. He always either spanked or fucked her until she spilt the beans.

He slowly brings her into submission without her noticing what she is getting herself into. I really hated that about him. Compliance, control, defiance, punishment. Did she ever agree to it? He says that it’s all part of the deal. I say its bullshit.
When he spanked her for doubting him, I was furious and in the end I just thought, what irony.

But when Daniel wasn't commanding her for once I think he's really sweet and I really enjoyed reading this book especially at around 60% when she jumped out of his driving jag.
Clive has grown on me then at the Seven Dials scene and I loved his character as well as Lucy’s and Norman’s.

Oh and I loved the scene before Maya and Daniel started strolling to the office when he looked at the couple passing by and holding hands and he looked at his hand before he took her hand in his. I really wanted to know what he was thinking there when he was looking at his hand. His POV would be so interesting. I would definitely read it.

What creeped me out:
When Daniel suddenly woke her up in her bed in the middle of the night after she told him that he scares her and she doesn’t want to see him again. He was so full of himself. He just woke her to have sex with her and force her to be with him again.

And why was he always shushing her?? I got so angry at him all the time. And is it just me or is the word capiche not a nice word? I hate this word because it accepts no answer. It’s the worst word of all words.

He always told her that if she doesn’t want to do something, they didn’t have to do it. But when she said no he still did it. I know that she had a safeword and could have used it but still, a no is a no.


-- I received an ARC of this book from the author through the Fifty Shades Support Group on Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. --

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

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