Genre: Contemporary Romance – African American
The Analysis:
If you’re keeping up then you know the review of, A Real Love 2, led me into a bit of a reading crisis. I was left craving some contemporary romance with black characters. Just a better “book boyfriend“. And I didn’t have to travel far, Better Than Okay, by Jacinta Howard was already loaded up. Let’s Book Review it.
Heres the Blurb:
Sometimes it’s not whether or not you survive, but how you survive. I guess that might be the thing that makes you the person you are… How you survive.
When Miami music writer Destiny Michaels learned her childhood friend, the always cool and collected Brian Jace, was moving from their hometown of Phoenix to Miami, she wanted to do cartwheels across Ocean Drive.
Brian has always been able to counter Destiny’s annoying tendency to overthink things, and he’s the only person she knows with a love for music that’s as intense as hers. However, when he arrives, she quickly realizes there’s been a major shift in their formally platonic relationship. And no matter how scared she is about taking things to the next level, their feelings only intensify.
But just as she begins to believe that real love can exist outside of sappy romantic comedies, Destiny is forced to question everything she thinks she knows about life, including her new feelings for Brian.
She soon discovers that while we can’t control some things that happen to us, the power of unconditional love, once accepted, can make life better than okay.
I am not a fan of this cover. It originally came across my screen on one of those book recommendation services I follow. So it was the blurb that sold me. Real talk, if I was making a
Now The Story:
Book Info:
Pages: 284
Author: Jacinta Howard
Available: On Amazon
It was everything I wanted out of a contemporary romance.
Brian was the perfect book boyfriend, unlike Memphis. He was kind, caring, and still very masculine. Plus, he wasn’t a drug dealer, he had a job. No need to gloss over the positive values there. Although, in fairness to the other book that wasn’t why I disliked it. Brian just showed up as 100% sexy gentleman who would do anything for the woman he loved.
To briefly state the cons, from a writers perspective, it was a little too much exposition in parts. I did find myself skipping over it. From a reader’s pov, the plot itself is a familiar one. Although, I haven’t read this story in the AA realm. I couldn’t help, but feel like I’ve read it a million times in the general Contemporary Romance genre. So that alone, also made it hard for me to finish it. I
Story At A Glance:
Recommendation: Yes
The Ratings:
Book Cover Appeal:
🍓
Story & Narration:
🍓🍓🍓🍓
Romance:
🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓
Sex Scenes*:
?
*In complete honesty, I didn’t finish it. For the reasons that I stated in the cons section of the review. So there may have been sex scenes. However, I still recommend it because I don’t feel as if my issues would necessarily be your issues. And you should be able to get hours of enjoyment out of it.
