Book Review: Carnival

I'll be honest, it was the colours on the cover of this book that drew me in first here. What put me off was the two people in a classic sexy pose. I may love erotica but man, do they have to put cringey pictures on the front? Wheres the muscle man on a horse and the half dressed damsel in distress swooning towards him? Anyway, things that make me rant for hours on end aside, this is a girl meets bad boy story. Just the kind of thing I needed after reading a good few thrillers and murder mysteries.

We follow Charlie who has just graduated from high school and should be off to college, but her parents have split up and shes worried about her mother who barely moves from the couch, preferring to have The NoteBook on repeat. Charlie decides shes better off staying in her small town then venturing off into the big wide world. As her friends pack their last few things for their college dorms, Charlie visits the carnival thats come to town. There she meets Blue, the most gorgeous guy shes ever set eyes on, who also happens to be a carnie. She plans to see him again, but wants to keep his job out of conversation from family and friends. He can't be all bad boy, or can he? He leaves the carnival life and stick around for the girl hes fallen for and Charlie soon finds out his secrets. But she might be a little blinded by love.

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I'm a big fan of the bad boy story line and I love the shots of erotic scenes that you stumble across every now and then. Not to mention the young love is forever and unbreakable, le sigh. But the story gets very far fetched and I actually got a little sad as it could have been almost believable if the author didn't just throw in all the stereotypes at once. Its also hard to not be a little annoyed over Charlies 'I'm a big girl now, I'm an adult and 18. I can do what I want!' carry on and thought process. I know we are/were all like that at one stage, but I don't particularly want to read about it for an entire book.

One last thing that I couldn't ignore as it left me scratching my head, was the minor story line at the beginning talking about Charlies mother and father breaking up. Its all doom and gloom, but suddenly half way through the book the mother picks herself off the couch and continues on with life as normal, without any explanation. It seems like the author forgot how she was acting when she was introduced to the reader. Major WTF?! moment for me, and not in the good way.

Overall I didn't find this totally awful, as I said I love the odd bit of erotica, the mystery of a bad boy who can sweep anyone he chooses off their feet and the big love in a small town. The author - apart from Charlies mother - does a good job of introducing likable and easy to remember minor characters and the story flows well. Its easy to pick up at any point and remember the characters, something I personally can find hard to do with some books when there are just too many names or characters that aren't memorable. If I was to rate it, I'd give it 6 out of 10.