Bared to You (A Crossfire Novel) by Sylvia Day

I have read 50 Shades of Grey.  I am one of those who fell victim to the popularity, and the scandalous nature, of the books when they first came out.  I even, gasp, read them in public.  This often drew stares from random strangers, but like I have mentioned previously, I refuse to be shamed for my reading choices. 

Bared to You (A Crossfire Novel) by Sylvia Day is very similar to 50 Shades of Grey.  Following the release of 50 Shades of Grey, there was suddenly an influx of similar novels flooding the market attempting to ride the erotic novel’s popularity.  The Crossfire series was absolutely that sort of novel.

Eva Tramwell lived a seriously messed up childhood, but has come a long way since then. She’s a fully functioning adult now, she’s even starting a new job.  On her first day of work she runs into Gideon Cross, playboy billionaire, and also the owner of the building she now works in.  She’s inexplicably drawn to him, even as her intuition tells her to run far, far away.  Together they navigate a dark, troubling relationship.

In terms of pros, Bared To You is full of blush-worthy sex scenes and dramatic fights/make ups between Eva and Gideon.  It is the sort of book that kept my blood pumping into my face the entire time I was reading it.  Thankfully, Sylvia Day is not known for skimping, so you’ll find plenty of erotic scenes throughout the novel.  The writing was well done and my attention was captured the entire read.

What goes up must come down, however, and this novel was full of flaws.  For one, the main characters, and even secondary characters, were full of over-the-top problems.  It is unfathomable to me that such troubled human beings could function in society.  They, including Eva, had very few redeemable qualities, and were, to keep it simple, incredibly annoying.  I just could not find myself attracted to Gideon because his character was completely unbelievable. 

The other major issue that I had with this book is that it was originally part of a trilogy.  It was not until I was reading the third book that I started to realize that the author did not appear to be wrapping things up, instead she seemed to be extending sections that did not need extending, simply to make the book longer.  At the end of the novel Day admitted that she did not feel that the books could end yet, and revealed that she was adding two more books to the series.

I was really upset when I read this, because it seemed like an obvious ploy to make more money by making readers buy extra, unnecessary books, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she had some really good ideas for the next books.  However, upon receiving and reading the fourth novel it was clear that Day did not have grand ideas for her series.  The fourth novel was over 300 pages and took place over the course of one week for Gideon and Eva.  It was full of the same fights, the same drama, and the same problems, with zero addition to the plot itself.  As a reader I felt disrespected that Day would think she could pass off this garbage as the fourth novel.  Due to that, I refused to buy the fifth novel in her series, and have not read it to this day.

Overall, the first book was a fun, dramatic read that got my heart pumping madly, but the fact that the characters were such terrible people, the obvious money grab, and the lack of normal communication between the characters really ruined the rest of the series for me.  Read at your own risk.

3/5 for the book, 2/5 for the series