Maggie's Reviews > Cutting Loose

Cutting Loose by Tara Janzen
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Four stars for action (Janzen is the queen of exciting action) , but negative four stars for the romance element. Like the past five books in this series, I'm so disappointed! Zach and Lily had such good chemistry in the last book, and my question is where the hell did it go? Seriously, they didn't have one personal conversation other than "Where did you learn to shoot?" Then, suddenly, inexplicably, Zach's making Lily stop crying by hooking up in a seedy hotel's bathroom. Then he says he's in love?! What?

That's a huge pet peeve of mine with Janzen: that she tells the reader that her characters are in love. "He was in love." Just like that. I hate that. There are ways to do that, and do them well, but having no personal conversations and barely any connection between the leads other than that they are riding in the same getaway car.... No. That does not work for me. As every creative writing student has heard over the years, "Show, don't tell."

Again, just like in the last book, too many alternate POVs. I don't care about the villains and their girlfriends! Go back to Zach and Lily and make them talk to each other about something other than that stupid macramé bracelet!

I'm really upset by the way this series is changing. I loved how we had overlapping story lines and interconnected plots. That was great, but these are shelved in the romance section, and I expect at least one regular conversation where the leads get to know each other before they get it on. Otherwise, the story just reads as lust (ESPECIALLY in Gillian and Travis's case) instead of love. If I wanted to read about guns, cars, and lust, I'll find a James Bond novel.

But since I've invested so much of my time in this series and I do love the characters (most of them anyway), I'll finish out the series. Hopefully the last ones will go back to their roots. The first three books were AMAZING and I don't get why TJ felt she had to mess with the recipe.

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