4.5 Smooches!
Synopsis
Julia Conti is living the dream in New York City. She has a job she loves in publishing and shares an apartment in the Village with her lifelong best friend, Allie. Following a bad break-up, Julia swears off of men and relationships, until she meets Ben Martin, an up and coming author who is smart, sexy and very easy on the eyes. Fueled by their mutual attraction, close working relationship and fear of relationships, Julia and Ben embark on a purely physical affair, following the Casual Rule. As they bring each other further into their lives, their casual status blurs. Can she keep sex and love separate or will feelings take hold and Julia get her heart broken again?
A little sweet, a little smutty, a little snarky.
Recommended for readers 18+ due to sexual references and sex scenes
**CAN BE READ AS A STANDALONE***
Review
I’m always really wary about friends with benefits stories as they tend to follow a pretty similar set of rules and dilemmas, and if you’ve read one, you’ve read ‘em all, however with The Casual Rule, I was pleasantly surprised, in fact I grew to not only love the story but Ben and Jules as well. Initially I thought the story wasn’t going to work out for me, I felt that the dialogue in the beginning between Jules and her best friend Allie seemed a little forced and immature for women their age but after the initial ‘meet cute’ between Ben and Jules in the perfect setting, the entire book seemed to find it’s groove, ricocheting between funny, romantic and down right sizzling sexy. The chemistry between the two main protagonists is pretty much the catalyst for the drama and fun and scorching sex in the book, because let’s face it what would a f**k buddies to life long love book be without two engaging lead characters.
‘“I’m not falling in love with Ben. We fool around. We have a good time. We’re friends. There’s nothing more than that. You’ve had these types of relationships for as long as I can remember. How is that any different?”
“I never invited my fuck buddy to meet the folks.”
Ouch, that stings. Allie has never been one to mince her words.’
There were some lovely moments between Ben and Jules, with a beautiful progression of falling in love, even when some characters were in the throes of utter denial but what stood out about this book for me was Jules. She owned her feelings, there was no beating around the bush or concealment on her part, she felt it, she worked through it and declared it and in the end she was one of the strongest and most admirable lead female’s I’ve read in a long time.
Usually I have a real hard time connecting with the girl in the romantic duo as sometimes they can be written as quite timid, weak and feeble in the face of a strong man but in The Casual Rule, Jules was queen. Ben was a bit wooden in the beginning and I think I still didn’t know much about him as a person until Christmas Eve rolled around, I’m a huge fan of dual points of view and I think in this instance we would have benefitted a little to get inside Ben’s head, to witness his struggle with his growing and complicated emotions involving the vivacious Jules.
It’s a very well written book without much of the same trappings as your typical friends with benefits saga. The characters hold your interest and you find yourself becoming increasingly ingrained into their lives and that is what a good story is all about for me. I would love to see Allie get her own happily ever after as well.
~Nicole
