Book Review – Hard To Love by Kendall Ryan

3.5 – 4 stars

Opening line:

“Dammit. I knew a four-hour erection wasn’t normal.”

Lol. Ok, can you see why I wanted to read it?

This was another of those books that grabbed me as soon as I read the blurb. I mean, c’mon! This was a book about a cage fighting bad boy who turned to porn to bring in money to pay the medical bills for his little sister left in his custody by his dead beat druggie parents. I was sold right there!

Oh, and then, to make things even better, in the opening scene he meets Alexa, a nurse in the emergency room when he shows up sporting a raging 4+ hour erection (can you say awkward??) . They have instant chemistry but she’s literally the complete opposite of him. She’s a sheltered virgin from a wealthy, protective family with her whole life set up for her. Can these two people from opposite worlds make it work? And can Alexa be okay with the idea that the guy she’s falling for is a porn star?

“He was a freakin’ porn star. A bad boy with a capital B. not someone I should crush on, but there it was all the same, pulsing in my chest. A want, a fierce desire I couldn’t tame. Something I definitely wasn’t supposed to explore.”

“I didn’t explain it was the romantic, softer stuff… because frankly, none of that mattered. It was porn, and that was all she was going to see. She would never know about the little girl in my custody, and the mortgage, groceries, or utilities I was responsible for.”

This book rode the line between serious and lighthearted really well. The story was told in clear cut, alternating POVs and really just dove right into the story – no fluff!

Cade was a yummy Alpha male hero! Responsible for his sister since he was a teen, he was a caring, doting, protective older brother who was literally willing to do anything to give her the best life he could, but he was also just this sweet, hot bad boy who was falling in love with a girl who he couldn’t stop thinking about.

Alexa was a heroine that I felt I understood. Her worries made sense to me, she had a big heart and really tried her best to be understanding of Cade’s situation, but at the same there are some things which are just not okay, you know?

Pretty much everything about their situation made them wrong for each other but they just couldn’t stay away. Despite all that, they just fit together really perfectly.

The book only actually took me about 2 hours to read. My PDF ARC copy was 184 pages (50,000 words-ish) – so really about half to 2/3 as long as a regular full length novel. And I guess my only real complaint would be that I wish it had been longer. And I don’t mean at the end. I actually felt that the progression from start to finish was really good and I was happy with where the epilogue ended the story (yes, its a happy ending!), but what I mean is that I wish everything had been just a little more fleshed out all around.

I liked the story, I liked the characters, I liked everything about it, but I just didn’t feel overly emotionally connected to it. Which is ok! I mean, you don’t have to read every book clutching your heart, but I did notice that a few scenes (or jumps between chapters) felt a little rushed. But its a nice shorter read for those nights when you’ve got work the next day and don’t have time to commit to a whole big novel.

There’s steam (he IS a well endowed porn star after all and she IS a virgin *waggles eyebrows*) and an easy-to-read writing style that sucks you into the story.

All in all, it was a cute, short read. I wanted ‘more’ but I enjoyed it.

Almost 4 stars.