Wallbanger by Alice ClaytonPublished by: Omnific Publishing on November 25, 2012
Genre: Contemporary, Erotica, Humor, Romance
Pages: 300
Source: Purchased
Buy on Amazon • Book Details
Rating: ★★★★
Caroline Reynolds has a fantastic new apartment in San Francisco, a KitchenAid mixer, and no O (and we're not talking Oprah here, folks). She has a flourishing design career, an office overlooking the bay, a killer zucchini bread recipe, and no O. She has Clive (the best cat ever), great friends, a great rack, and no O.
Adding insult to O-less, since her move, she has an oversexed neighbor with the loudest late-night wallbanging she's ever heard. Each moan, spank, and—was that a meow?—punctuates the fact that not only is she losing sleep, she still has, yep, you guessed it, no O.
Enter Simon Parker. (No, really, Simon, please enter.) When the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. Their late-night hallway encounter has, well, mixed results. Ahem. With walls this thin, the tension's gonna be thickâ¦
Wallbanger hilarious, but it also borders on ridiculous. There are some parts of this book that are really, really weird; so weird, that I’m not really sure how much I liked them. But overall, Wallbanger was an enjoyable, funny, sexy read! Once the relationship transitioned from hate, to friendship, and then to romance, it was super sweet, they had so much chemistry, and that’s really what made the book!
Could I spend a little more time trying to come up with a more clever name for Simon’s penis? Probably. It deserved it. Mammoth Male Member? No. Pulsating Pillar of Passion? No. Back Door Bandit? Hell no. Wang? Sounded like the noise those doorstopper things made when you flicked ’em…
Wallbanger, page 229
I have to admit, there’s actually less sex in this book than I thought there would be. We don’t actually see a sex scene until like the 85% mark or thereabouts. I guess, in a way it makes sense, because this book is all about Caroline going on a dating hiatus and losing her orgasm, but for some reason I thought there would be more banging! But believe me.. once they started, they didn’t stop. And it was HOT!
But for the most part, this book reads more like a contemporary romantic comedy than anything else. And I kind of liked that. It was about work, dating, not dating, friendships, awkwardness, and an adorably hilarious cat. The cat was seriously my favourite character. He was really heavily personified (almost to the point where he did things that I swear no cat would do), but that’s what made him awesome. Even though Wallbanger does get frustratingly taunting in some places, I mostly breezed right through this book and enjoyed it.
The best part of Wallbanger is how much chemistry Caroline and Simon had. WOW! The chemistry was so thick that I could barely breathe. These two are literally perfect for each other. Their hilarious banter (riddled with sexual innuendos) was one of the best parts to read. That’s also what made this book so frustrating; they so obviously had great chemistry but they deny their attraction for SO. FREAKING. LONG.
Would he notice if I licked his shoulder? Just the tiniest taste?
Wallbanger, page 199
I LOVED Simon. At first I thought he was going to be an asshole—and at first maybe he is a little bit—but it turns out he’s a really, really great guy. He’s sweet, he’s attentive, he’s smoking hot, and he has his little deep insightful moments. Even though he starts out a playboy, he turns into a great “potential boyfriend” figure.
The parts I didn’t like, all revolved around Caroline talking to her orgasm. Yes. TALKING TO HER ORGASM. At first it was a little funny and I chuckled at a few lines. But after a while—especially in the second half of the book—it just got a little repetitive and even weirder. A little too weird for me, I think. It reminded me too much of Ana’s inner goddess prancing around town in Fifty Shades of Grey. But this was even weirder. It was funny during the first part of the book, but then it’s like Caroline took things into overdrive like the moment when she finally had her orgasm and she envisioned herself jumping off a cliff to meet a smiling, waving woman… her orgasm personified. What the fuck?
During month four of The Missing O, I’d started to talk to my O as though she were an actual entity. She felt real enough when she was rocking my world back in the day, but sadly, now that O had abandoned me, I wasn’t sure I’d recognize her if I saw her.
Wallbanger, page 4
I think O even popped her head up for a moment, like a groundhog. She took a quick glance around and pronounced it much closer to spring than she’s been in months.
Wallbanger, age 168
I peeked over the edge, I saw her. O. She waved at me, diving under and over the water like a sexual porpoise. Crafty little bitch.
Wallbanger, page 282
Ultimately I think this is a book that will be all over the map for people. Some will love it, others will hate it, and a few people will be in between. I really enjoyed it, but I could also see the ridiculousness of it (the whole O thing). So if you’re thinking of picking it up, I would definitely recommend reading a few quotes (or an excerpt, if you can!) before digging in! I think the quotes will really help you get a good sense of whether or not you’ll enjoy the humour and writing style.
The Verdict
hi ashley!! thanks for stopping by my StS post. if i like easy and on dublin street, i am definitely gonna get this one. sounds like a super fun and steamy read.
Definitely check this out if you liked Easy and On Dublin Street! Especially the latter. 😉 This one has a bit more humour in it. I hope you enjoy it!
Appreciate the warning at the top, time to shuffle the youngsters out of the room LOL. Some of the points you mentioned sound really weird, yet humorous. Seems like a fun read, but as I can’t review it on the blog I’ll probably get to this one a bit into the future.
Hehe. Yeah this one is really… interesting. The combination of humour and sex was different from other books I’ve read.
I completely agree with the whole talking to her O thing. It got a little out of hand toward the end of the book and it took away from the story for me too. Great review, as always!
~Meg
Thanks Megan! Glad you agree about the O, lol!
Talking to O? That’s kinda funny 🙂
I would assume Simon was a bad boy but it seems like he is decently good. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ashley!
Penis naming and talking to your orgasm? Yeah, that’s different. But I have been wondering about this one. It’s weird for it to be labeled erotica but not have sex until 85% in. But I still want to read this one.
Wow. Sounds like some, um. Interesting themes here… Glad that you liked the humor but sorry about the ridiculous border.
So, I read this when it was a fanfiction. And it was funny and smartly written, and it doesn’t sound as if has become much different as a novel so I’m sure it is still those things.
I am just personally against publishing fanfiction for profit. It feels wrong to the original author of the copyrighted material. And also wrong to the author of the fanfiction. I wonder what they would’ve done with the story and the characters if they didn’t have the work they were basing their writing on in mind.
I’m also not a fan of people who write something, acquire fans, and then tell those fans they can no longer have the work for free but must pay for it.
I don’t know. The whole thing just bothers me.
And for those of you wondering yes, Simon used to be called Edward and Caroline used to be called Bella.
Yeah that is a great point and I definitely know what you mean. I felt pretty strongly about this with Fifty Shades of Grey.
However, in some cases I think it’s hard for me to dislike books that are turned into fan fictions. Take Wallbanger. Had I not known it was a Twilight fan fiction, I honestly never would have guessed. The book itself just doesn’t feel like it is and I don’t draw any comparisons at all to Twilight. The only reason I know it was fan fiction at all is because someone told me, but I never would have come to that conclusion on my own.
So I do think it’s ‘okay’ if the final product is vastly different from where it’s inspired from. I mean, ultimately it is that different from authors being inspired by other works? Take The Hunger Games and Battle Royale. Most people would say THG was inspired by Battle Royale. Are those similarities more okay than fan fiction? Or equal? I don’t know.. it’s definitely something to consider though.
But ultimately I really agree with your points. I felt pretty strongly about it with Fifty Shades of Grey. I think a big reason is because someone actually ran it through a comparison and the final product was barely edited from her fan fiction original. It kind of disgusts me to think that the author is now making millions of dollars because she wrote a story based on someone else’s.
Yeah, it can be a difficult situation. I know some details of one publication coming up that I kind of sympathize with.
As someone who reads fanfiction, it’s more the feeling of being duped that bothers me. But, eh, it seems to be a thing that is going to keep happening.
I will always wonder what these authors could’ve written if they had tried to write something original. Like, would EL James have written something as successful if she’d tried her hand at writing something new? I guess we’ll never know.
Yeah I’d be really curious to see James’ success (or lackthereof) without Twilight. If only we could play “what ifs” in real life. 😛
Is this really considered erotica!? Wow, I had no idea! I for sure thought it was just an adult contemporary romance. I thought this book was awesome and hilarious and I agree about you talking to her O. At the end it got weird (er) and annoying, especially the whole ‘cliff’ part. But I love the chemistry and humor of this book so much that it sort of made up for it.
Yeah, at least according to Amazon and Goodreads categorizing it is considered erotica! I mean, I guess once they started actually having sex it was pretty hot and heavy, and maybe if there’s that much EXPLICITLY written sex (even if it is all crammed in at the end) then it has to be considered erotica? I have no idea, I’m just guessing LOL!
But yeah, despite the few problems, I totally agree. There was just SO MUCH CHEMISTRY!! It blew my mind. It’s like I could feel how CHARGED the room was, even though I wasn’t actually there with the characters. WOW!
Why is it ok for married women to read smut like this? I have a wife who totally expects nothing but for me to love her, be faithful in all ways, and always respect her and make her feel special. I have done and continue to do all of these things, but she can’t seem to stay away from wanting to fantasize about some “perfect” hot man, wishing she was the girl in a story like this. Don’t I deserve the same kind of loyalty and respect? Is it just acceptable for her to cheat in her heart?