Title: Out on Good Behaviour (Book 3 in the Radleigh University series)
Author: Dahlia Adler
Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and WordPress Blog
Publisher: Self-published via Smashwords
Format and Price: Ebook at $3.61
Rating: 4 out of 5
About The Author:
Dahlia Adler is an Associate Editor of Mathematics by day, a blogger for B&N Teens by night, and writes Contemporary YA and NA at every spare moment in between. She’s the author of Under The Lights, Behind The Scenes, Just Visiting, and the Radleigh University series, as well as over five billion tweets as @MissDahlELama. She lives in New York City with her husband and their overstuffed bookshelves.
About The Book:
Frankie Bellisario knows she can get anyone she sets her sights on, but just because she can doesn’t mean she should—not when the person she’s eyeing is Samara Kazarian, the daughter of a southern Republican mayor. No matter how badly Frankie wants to test her powers of persuasion, even she recognizes some lines aren’t meant to be crossed. But when Frankie learns she’s been on Samara’s mind too, the idea of hooking up with her grows too strong to resist. Only Sam’s not looking for a hookup; she wants—needs—the real thing, and she’s afraid she’ll never find it as long as Frankie’s in her head.
Forced to choose between her first relationship and losing the girl who’s been clawing her way under her skin, Frankie opts to try monogamy…under her own condition: 30 days of keeping things on the down low and remaining abstinent. If she fails as hard at girlfriending as she’s afraid she might, she doesn’t want to throw Samara’s life into upheaval for nothing. But when neither the month nor Frankie’s heart go according to plan, she may be the one stuck fighting for the happily ever after she never knew she wanted.
General Observations:
~Diverse Books Reading Challenge 2017 – Pansexual Main Character: Frankie is an openly pansexual character, where as Samara is a closeted lesbian who (at the beginning of the novel) isn’t comfortable with coming out just yet because of her conservative parents and conservative friends back home in North Carolina.
~Character VS Plot: This is a book with a primary character focus, with a heavy emphasis on relationships and how those relationships affect other people. As a result, this novel has very little plot, and when there is a plot moment, it’s almost anti-climatically resolved. The element the author did well was the great friendship-bonds between Frankie, Lizzie and Cait.
The scenes with the three of them feel genuine and they were amusing to read. Lizzie and Cait have no problems intervening with Frankie when they think it’s appropriate (and it usually is) but they also know when to give Frankie space so she can figure things out for herself. Frankie’s friendships with other women is why I rated this book four stars instead of three.
~Sweet and Fluffy: On the Sliding Scale of Romance VS Smut, this books sits more towards the romance end of the spectrum. That might sound as though this book is devoid of smut, this is not true, there is an adequate level of smut, it’s just this novel tends to spend most it’s time focusing on “What did she mean when she said X?” introspective moments.
I enjoyed reading those chapters were Frankie and Samara were honest with each other and told each other directly what they wanted, because Frankie and Samara spent most of the book dancing around the subject. This inability to “Spit It Out” is entirely human and understandable, however, it got irritating towards the end.
I don’t enjoy a lot of introspective character moments and, if an author is going to use introspective a lot, it should involve both romantic parties. I enjoy alternating POV’s, like a chapter from Frankie’s perspective, and then one from Samara’s perspective, instead the novel is entirely from Frankie’s POV. I would have preferred to read both points of view.
All in all, a sweet and fluffy character-driven romance with a good supporting-cast of characters and a strong emphasis on friendship and mutual support. If readers want to make Reading Recommendations of other books with pansexual MC’s written by pansexual authors, please feel free to let me know in the comments section down below.
Available For Purchase: Amazon | Smashwords | Kobo Books
Ambiguous Pieces 