Three out of nine of the mini recommendations that preface Bared to You compare it to Fifty Shades. The first assures us that if we like Fifty Shades, we’ll like this book. I’m assuming that means if we hate Fifty Shades, we’ll also hate this one! The second review, however, assures us that the quality of writing in Bared to You is better than Fifty Shades. The third one simply tells us they “liked” Fifty Shades but love Bared to You. Uh oh. I don’t like that this is an improvement. Guess we’ll just have to find out.
Chapter 1
Just like Fifty Shades, Bared to You opens with an interaction between our heroine and her roommate. Her sassy roommate who immediately suggests they go to a bar that night to celebrate their new move. Twist! Eva’s roommate is a man, not a sassy woman like Kate over in Fifty Shades. Have we already met Eva’s Jacob another love interest? Or is he gay? So many questions and I’ve only read the half a page.
Turns out they’ve just moved into their new place together, which is the perfect opportunity for Eva to awkwardly work in how sexy her roommate is:
We’d been unpacking for days, yet he still looked amazing. Leanly built, dark-haired, and green-eyed, Cary was a man who rarely looked anything less than absolutely gorgeous on any day of his life. I might have resented that if he hadn’t been the dearest person on earth to me.
Wowee! A man who can look good while unpacking? Sign me up. Don’t worry, though, he isn’t perfect. He can’t cook. That sure is what I was wondering when we first met Cary, whether or not he could cook well. Glad we didn’t have to wait too long to find that out!
Eva heads to work, and we find out she’s just moved from San Diego to New York and she proceeds to tell us about their differences. This book hasn’t yet proven to be terribly written, just terribly dull so far. Wow, San Diego and New York aren’t the same?! Next thing you’ll be telling me is New York and Chicago are different! But they’re both cities!
Take Our PollI am so, truly grateful, though, that Eva has not told us about her own appearance yet the way Ana did in the first paragraph (I think) of Fifty Shades. To any aspiring writers out there, please never do that. It is fucking horrible to read.
We then get an extremely convoluted explanation as to who Eva is working for and why. She’s working as an assistant to a guy named Mark Garrity at Waters Field & Leaman–will he be as creepy as Ana’s boss Jack?–which is a prestigious advertising agency. Based on the information we’re given, I think we’re supposed to glean that she’s hardworking and doesn’t take the easy way out.
My stepfather, megafinancier Richard Stanton, had been annoyed when I took the job, pointing out that if I’d been less prideful I could’ve worked for a friend of his instead and reaped the benefits of that connection.
“You’re as stubborn as your father,” he’d said. “It’ll take him forever to pay off your student loans on a cop’s salary.”
That had been a major fight, with my dad unwilling to back down. “Hell if another man’s gonna pay for my daughter’s education,” Victor Reyes had said when Stanton made the offer.
Okay, sure, fair enough. But then Eva tells us this, which makes no sense:
I understood both men’s sides, because I’d fought to pay off the loans myself . . . and lost. It was a point of pride for my father. My mother had refused to marry him, but he’d never wavered from his determination to be my dad in every way possible.
So her father was happy she couldn’t pay off her loans herself? What does her mother not marrying him have to do with paying her loans? Or even being her father for that matter? It is so very honorable when men who don’t marry your mother act like your father when they actually are, in fact, your father.
As Eva nears her work building, we get our first true phallic symbol of the book, “The Crossfire was seriously impressive, a sleek spire of gleaming sapphire that pierced the clouds. ” Oh, yeah. This is gonna be sexy.
Instead of sandstone, though, we get “golden-veined marble floors and walls”. These two novels aren’t even comparable!
Eva helps a woman pick up some money she dropped, and of course, as she’s on her knees, she looks up and sees a sexy, sexy man.
The custom three-piece suit hit more than a few of my hot buttons, but it was the tall, powerfully lean body inside it that made it sensational. Still, as impressive as all that magnificent maleness was, it wasn’t until I reached the man’s face that I went down for the count.
Wow. Just . . . wow.
Okay, so maybe these books are completely comparable. Okay, though, there is something to be said about a man in a suit.
Eva is totally blown away by Mr. Sexy, “Hit with all that exquisite masculinity at eye level, I could only stare. Stunned.” Oh, lordy lord. The masculinity is ever so overpowering!
Then the power of his fierce gaze makes her fall back on her ass. I kid you not.
Yes, you are remembering correctly, Ana too fell during her first meeting with Christian, and he too, had to help her up. Insert feminist rant.
I thought for a moment that he might be able to make me orgasm just by talking long enough.
They have voice-activated orgasms in this book too?!? Matt, maybe these actually exist and we’re the assholes making fun of something completely legitimate!
He was the kind of guy that made a woman want to rip his shirt open and watch the buttons scatter along with her inhibitions. I looked at him in his civilized, urbane, outrageously expensive suit and thought of raw, primal, sheet-clawing fucking.
It’s such specific lust!
The woman Eva helped starts to thank the man in the suit instead of Eva for helping her. Just cause he’s that sexy.
In the next scene, we’re treated to Eva’s workout. She takes a kickboxing class and meets Parker (is he supposed to be the book’s Jacob, I’m confused. Are their multiple Jacobs? No Jacobs? I NEED TO KNOW THE JACOB STATUS OF THIS BOOK!)
He invites her to take another one of his classes. Is this supposed to be important to the plot? The scene just ends after that.
Cary is listening to Adele and cooking when Eva gets home, so I guess this the book’s way of telling us he’s gay? It’s unclear.
He then says,
“Baby girl,” Cary said, pulling bowls out of the cupboard, “you’re a sexy, stunning woman. I question any man who doesn’t have the balls to ask you outright for a date.”
Okay, so he definitely has to be gay, right? Unless he’s going to follow this up with, “That’s why I am finally asking you out now.”
Yeah, it’s confirmed when he asks her to dish about the hot man in the suit. Case closed!
They talk about how sexy Suit Man is, and then we find out Cary’s a model. I figure that’s probably worth mentioning even though I really couldn’t give a shit about this new information.
Like Ana, Eva’s mother has been married multiple times. Eva tells us that this husband is super rich, and they just sent Eva and Cary some sweet gifts! Fear not, our heroine doesn’t care about money like her mom does (so she totally deserves to start dating a mega-millionaire, because it’s only okay to date them if you don’t like money.)
The boxes contain outfits for Cary and Eva to wear to a benefit that ‘s coming up. I BET SEXY SUIT MAN IS GOING TO BE THERE FOR SOME REASON!!!
At work the next day, we meet Mark, Eva’s boss, and he doesn’t seem creepy. They talk about liking coffee. Sounds like a good match to me! The chapter ends with Eva getting into an elevator to leave the office, and you’re never going to believe this, you guys, but “The sex god was the lone occupant.”
Oh. Em. Gee.