Books about spoiled rich kids who end up broke and unable to cope in the real world as adults should have warning labels so I can avoid them. It's not only because I can't relate to them but also because I have not one iota of sympathy for adults who are can't function in the real world. I'm pretty sure the majority of the population have difficulty caring for a character who mishandles money and then fails to learn practical skills to work themselves out of a slump. Amanda Brown is one of these spoiled rich kids. Initially I thought she was a bitchin' executive who knew what's what and why, only to have her crumble into a spendthrift baby. Argh. It's not that I dislike her because she was rich. I dislike her because when she loses her job and has to rethink her life, she doesn't. She cries and whines and wallows in self-pity. Oh no I can't pay for my thousand dollar a month penthouse. Uh? Move out. Oh no I have no money because I spent my paycheck already. Uh? Sell some stuff. Oh no I'm the only person who still has a job at my company but I get a lower salary. DON'T FRICKEN QUIT!Amanda Brown is a high-flying cosmetics executive for Revina Corporation, the oldest and most venerable cosmetics company in America. She comes from a good "old money" family, she went to Swarthmore, and she lives in a beautiful penthouse apartment in NYC’s Meatpacking District. But she's only successful on the surface----like many New Yorkers, she's also financially overextended. Her parents are dead, her trust fund is gone, and when the Great Recession hammers her company, like millions of people across America she suddenly finds her job hanging by a thread.Enter George Watson, a hedge-fund manager and self-made man from the Midwest who swoops in from Indiana to rebuild Revina Corporation from the ground up. Even if he fired everyone else at the company, he decides to keep Amanda on for her expertise. The two of them are from different worlds, and they can't stand each other. But that doesn’t stop them from having wild no-holds-barred sex on their first meeting----for reasons neither of them fully understand.But this is no ordinary corporate takeover, and the unlikely romance between George and Amanda is no ordinary love story. It involves corporate greed, undercover investigative reporters, a sleazy reality TV producer who puts George and Amanda's sexual relationship on national television, dark family secrets----and a dog named Botox.
The amount of times I wanted to slap this woman upside the head was unbelievable. There is a reason I like strong female characters and it's because I want to admire them, I want to be them, I want their actions to motivate me into a better woman. Amanda Brown is everything I don't want.
Her dynamic with George is born in a moment of complete mental instability - that's okay-ish - she wants his body so get it girl. She appears to fighting against him which should be a mark in her favor except it's because she is too proud to suck it up her decreased salary and help. Once she screws her PR consultant attempt, she tries to fix it by agreeing to a reality tv show. Yeah, any human worth their brain cells knows that reality tv shows are full of petty arguments, cameras in your face and usually not positive publicity. It didn't surprise me when the reality tv shebang blew up in her face. It wasn't a good idea to begin with. But oh, what really got my fires gunning for blood was the ending. When Amanda does the ONE SMART thing in the whole book, making me believe she might redeem herself, she reminds me why I hate spoiled rich kids.
*******Spoiler************
She agrees to marry George who, as a multi-millionaire, promise to look after her and fund her life.
*******Spoiler************
Forgive me if I wasn't leaping for joy at the fact that Amanda Brown had just found someone else to take the burden of her financial worries. Instead of say, finding a job, making her own money and still having a relationship with George. Bah! It's a shame I hated Amanda so much because the story was beautifully written I just didn't like the topic.
2/5
xxx Literary George
Thank you to NetGalley, Jill Elaine Hughes and Hackberry Books for the copy.
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