Review: Just a Bit Wicked (Straight Guys #7) by Alessandra Hazard

He’s sure he’ll never fall for a man…

When it rains, it pours. After losing his prestigious job, Vlad discovers that his girlfriend has cheated on him. Angry and hurt, he’s determined to find her lover and teach him a lesson. When he finds out that her lover is bisexual, it only makes him angrier. Raised by an extremely homophobic family, Vlad is convinced he’s straight and holds nothing but contempt for people who aren’t.

But sometimes contempt and anger can turn into obsession, and then into something else entirely—something Vlad has always considered sick and wrong.

He’s sure he’ll never fall for a homophobic bully…

Sebastian is a successful English model who has always detested bullies. When a man shows up on his doorstep accusing him of sleeping with his girlfriend, Sebastian isn’t interested in being a punching bag. However, provoking a homophobic man is probably not the best idea…or the safest. But then again, Sebastian has never been good at playing it safe.

Things get a lot more complicated when Vlad has to bodyguard Sebastian. Can they stay professional?

They can’t. They bicker and fight, and they hate everything about each other.

Now if only they could figure out how to keep their hands off each other.

Title: Just a Bit Wicked (Straight Guys #7)
Author/s: Alessandra Hazard
Publisher: Alessandra Hazard
Publication Date: December 2016
ASIN: B01MSZYYEH
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Maria's Rating: ★★

I usually love Alessandra Hazard's books, but I'm not a fan of this one. The writing was decent, though there were some typos that could have easily been spotted during the editing process. Overall, my biggest problem with it was that it lacked the emotional tug that her books usually carry.

When I found out she was writing about Vlad, I was surprised. Vlad wasn't fleshed out in the previous book, so he was a character I easily dismissed as a plot device (which turned out to be to be the case, actually). On the other hand, I was curious what spin she could put into his backstory so he'd be more... likable. I didn't hate him like some other readers did; I was just not invested.

First of all, I was NOT a fan of how Vlad and Sebastian first met. I hate it when exes are somehow involved in your next relationship. There's something that feels really wrong about that, and the fact that Sebastian slept with Vlad's ex made it extra icky. But maybe that's just me. Maybe it's sexy for other people? I dunno. I feel like this part was something that the story could have done without. Vlad and Sebastian could have met elsewhere for the first time, and for an entirely different reason - and the whole thing could have proceeded as it did in the book without making the story suffer.

I didn't dislike Vlad, but I can't say I liked him either. I appreciated his backstory and I saw the attempt to make readers understand why he looked at the world the way he did, but... I just didn't buy it. He was not a good character, and I don't mean his homophobic outbursts. When he first confronted Sebastian for sleeping with his ex, I can only describe it as pathetic. I agree with Sebastian - Vlad acted like a bully throwing punches at a smaller kid he couldn't get to shut up. Not exactly a good beginning for his character.

Funny enough, the one whom I can definitely say I don't like is Sebastian. There was a part in the book where he kept lecturing Vlad about sexuality and stuff like that, and while I understand the exposition was necessary to drive home a point, it still felt tedious. I know Alessandra Hazard wanted to make this positive and uplifting but there were moments where it definitely felt lecture-y. It didn't help that Sebastian wasn't exactly endearing. Him taunting Vlad about being gay came across as juvenile and cheap. He was very immature for a twenty-five-year-old. His backstory as the bullied awkward kid was the book's rationale for his present actions, but at some point he was just being a horny prick who wanted to get laid. The formula was this: he would keep taunting Vlad saying, "are you scared that if you do this you'll be gay?" so Vlad would make out with him. It's the 'boy picking on the girl he likes so she'll notice him' trope. Unfortunately, it wasn't cute here; it was just annoying. It needed to stop. (It didn't.)

And y'know, for the life of me, I couldn't understand why Vlad kept taking the bait. I was very surprised when it didn't take a lot for him to "take it up the ass", because... well, I thought there would be a bit more struggle than that. Honestly, I was just "??" throughout the whole thing like... "what just happened?" It was very hard for me to suspend my disbelief and accept that someone who consistently and very strongly claimed to be straight his whole life could be pushed into, well, the bottom position - just by telling him that if he didn't go through with it, it would mean he was scared.

THAT. DOESN'T. EVEN. MAKE. ANY. SENSE. What are you, three years old?

On another note, I loved how the wedding was Tristan and Zach's because I totally adore them both. I'm not sure about Tristan having his own fashion line because I thought he'd be more on the finance side of business, but I guess it had to be done to tie everything together. Either way I'm glad they got their happy every after, unlike Gabe and Jared, who were still pretending they were not in a relationship. (I'd pity Jared, but he brought that upon himself. Also, Gabe is a selfish prick and I hate him.)

I liked Roman's and Luke's cameo, but since most of their interactions were viewed from Vlad's perspective... it felt really awkward, I don't know. Would have enjoyed it better without looking at it from Vlad's point of view, thanks.

The whole cult against gay people was so contrived, and honestly, there was so much buildup for nothing. I thought we'd get some pretty interesting confrontation between Vlad and the cult and some action-packed scenes where we would get to see how good Vlad was at what he did. But there was nothing. I was very disappointed; I thought it would have been a good way to redeem Vlad, making him a knight in shining armor of sorts. But we didn't get that. Instead we got some lame dudes trying to kidnap Sebastian or whatever, and it didn't even take 10 pages. In fact, it was over so quickly I couldn't even start to give a shit.

Hm, what else? What I liked about the ending was that it wasn't too unrealistic - Vlad wasn't easily changed by his love for Sebastian. As consistently pointed out throughout the story, it would not be easy to overcome the mentality that you were raised to have. Vlad made a very valid point when he said that perhaps people believed what they did because they just didn't know any better. When they were growing up, there was nothing else that could have made them think beyond that idea, because no one told them it was wrong. I thought this was pretty accurate, and it extends to a lot of things that we believe in, in the real world. I liked it.

Towards the end, just when I was about to buy Vlad and Sebastian's love for each other, Vlad proclaimed his love for Sebastian during the wedding while there were cameras everywhere. It was cute and very sweet; Vlad was taking baby steps and I was happy that in that moment he didn't give a shit about what anyone thought. I was like "awww" and then in the next breath Vlad mentioned his ex and how glad he was that Sebastian slept with her and that they should send her a thank you card and I was just - I'm fucking out of here, what the hell, Vlad, go fuck yourself.

Two stars for this book.

P.S. No, Vlad, that's just not how it's done what the fuck dude seriously go jump off a cliff