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Saturday, January 9, 2016

Review: It Ain't Me, Babe by Tillie Cole

It Ain't Me, Babe (Hades Hangmen, #1)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Writing: ★★★
Story: ★★★
Characters: ★★★

Overall rating: 3.0

Well, this book is a tough one for me to review.

It started out pretty good, except for one annoying thing. Styx is happy to find Mae again... or who he *thinks* is her... but the overuse of the word "bitch" started to grate on me.

If they were calling the "club sluts" that, it would be one thing, but for 15 years, Styx has been thinking about this girl, looking for her, the beautiful girl with the "wolf eyes", but still insists on calling her "bitch". They call *all* the women bitch or bitches. How do they separate the club whores from the main female lead.

For instance:

"I sat on the chair next to the bed, watching the bitch's chest rise and fall...."

Really? The author couldn't replace "the bitch's" with "her"?

I don't like overuse of a word, any word, in a book, it starts to be a distraction. So many times a sentence would have been so much smoother and believable if the word "bitch" were replaced with "she" or "her".

I guess I'm spoiled to other MC stories. The main male characters are usually a bit rough around the edges, but they love women and normally treat them with respect, and they are true alpha males.

But Styx, I didn't connect with Styx at all, (or many of the brothers for that matter). The overuse of "bitches" no matter if they were talking bad about, or fondly about, the women had me rolling my eyes more than once.

131 times. That's how many times some form of "bitch" was used. That was an average of 3.5 times per page. Just too much.

I enjoyed Mae's point of view, she was believable. Then it would switch to Styx. The author writes his words and thoughts like he a horny undersexed 15 year old boy. That by his description sounds like he's trying to convince himself he's a stud.

For example:

"I'm g-gonna get you ready with my f-fingers. Then I'm g-gonna eat this pussy u-until you cream in my m-mouth. Then, wh-when you c-can't take no m-more, I'm g-gonna fill y-you up with m-my cock until y-you scream, so fuckin' loud."

Styx is an ass. There really is no reason for him to speak to Mae like he does, mainly when they're alone... not at anytime really. Sure, he was raised in the MC, but he still has to have *some* human qualities. He has to see that not all women are club whores and "bitches". If I were Mae, I'd take my chances on the outside rather than being constantly yelled at by Styx.

This, to me, reads like a YA book and the author is trying to "bad boy" it up. I didn't really enjoy these character's together.

Styx did redeem himself later in the book, the character grew a bit. At 75% I was ready to mark this book off as a DNF, but I figured I'd gotten that far, I may as well finish, then at 80% in, the author wrote a great twist into the story, I loved it. Loved the surprise of it.

One other thing, the word is "wasn't" not "weren't"!

Examples:

...it weren't often, I weren't on good terms, She knew she weren't welcome, Lois weren't ever gonna be it, but she weren't like other bitches, I weren't pulling in a crowd... and on and on. Only from the Hangmen, mostly Styx.

I think the author either thought that was how MC's were suppose to speak or how southern's speak, I'm not sure.

So the saving grace for me was beginning at 80%.