Review: Crossfire #1: Bared to You

Title: Crossfire #1: Bared to You

Author: Sylvia Day

Date of Publication: June 12, 2012

Formats Available: Paperback, E-book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Synopsis: Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness… 

He was beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily…

Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other’s most private wounds…and desires.The bonds of his love transformed me, even as i prayed that the torment of our pasts didn't tear us apart...

My Review:

After hearing such great things about this novel I decided it was finally time for me to give it a try. Even though I went into this novel expecting to love it the farther along I got (as in Gideon and Eva's first meeting) I soon discovered that I wasn't going to like this novel as much as I originally thought.

Unfortunately I went into this novel expecting it to have some kind of plot, which in the end led to nothing but disappointment. This novel had literally no plot other than Gideon and Eva having sex, getting mad at each other, then having more sex. When Eva wasn't having sex with Gideon she was either at work, thinking about Gideon, or doing something with her friend Carey. If there was one character that absolutely drove me insane it was Carey. Shallow with no personality I didn't understand his point in the story other than throwing in uneeded drama about how he was constantly screwing up his own life. Day mentions Carey's history of self harm for about all of a sentence (the one thing that might have given his character even a pinch of personality) and then it is totally forgotten beneath all of his stupid decisions.

One of the biggest things that irritated me was that Gideon and Eva's relationship literally focused on nothing but sex. Actually the entire novel focused mainly on sex, making it impossible for me to forge any kind of relationship with the characters because I knew absolutely nothing about them. Day had plenty of chances to make this novel into something more, with Eva's past of child abuse and Gideon's equally horrific past, but she spent an entire paragraph on these issues before diving into another sex scene and rarely mentioning them again. Plus some of Day's descriptions made me want to do nothing but pull my hair out, the entire novel I was constantly asking myself "why?" as I had to read yet another description of Gideon's... well everything.

For all the things wrong with this book it was entertaining, granted in an idiotic I-wonder-what-dumb-thing-the-characters-will-do-next way, but all the same I found myself finishing this book totally annoyed but at the same time dying to find out what stupid situations the characters would find themselves in next. In a way this book reminded me of a train wreck, it was painful to watch but at the same time I just couldn't look away.

I struggled over rating this one for a long time, I literally went on Goodreads and changed my rating five or six times before I finally settled on two stars. On one hand I wanted to give it three because really, I had a great time making fun of this novel while I was reading it but in the end I decided to give it a lower rating because that's what the novel truly deserved. I know this is a fairly popular novel so I want to know everyone else's opinions, did you love it or did you find yourself in the same situation I did? Leave your comments below!

2/5