Frigid by J. Lynn, Jennifer L. ArmentroutSeries: Frigid #1
Published by: Spencer Hill Contemporary on July 15, 2013
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 240
Source: Purchased
Buy on Amazon • Book Details
Rating: ★★
For twenty-one-year-old Sydney, being in love with Kyler isn't anything new. They'd been best friends ever since he pushed her down on the playground and she made him eat a mud pie. Somewhere over the years, she fell for him and fell hard. The big problem with that? Kyler puts the 'man' in man-whore. He's never stayed with a girl longer than a few nights, and with it being their last year in college, Syd doesn't want to risk their friendship by declaring her love.
Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she's perfect and she's everything. But the feelings he has for her, he's always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.
But when they're stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor'easter, there's nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.
I’m giving this book 2 stars, and honestly, one of them is a pity star. But let me explain that…
Frigid and I got off on the wrong foot and we just couldn’t get back on track. I honestly don’t think it was a 1 star book the entire time, but the problem was just that I walked into it hating Kyler and I couldn’t get over it.
Here’s a lovely quote from Kyler when he’s at a bar/club, basically letting a girl ride him:
Sometimes I had no idea how I ended up in situations like this. Okay. That was a bald-faced lie. What was between my legs was how I ended up in situations like this.
Yes, when in doubt, just blame your penis. Kyler is a huge man whore, taking home a different woman every single night. And his answer for why he does that? It was more or less, “It’s not my fault, it’s my penis’s.” It’s like he’s saying he just can’t help it because he has a penis. Boo hoo. Poor freaking you.
But here comes the better part… Kyler is sitting there with this woman practically riding him, when he glances over at the bar and sees Sydney… talking to a guy. His response to this?
Syd really shouldn’t be at the bar by herself. Being with Paul didn’t count. She needed someone to look out for her, to keep an eye on things.
And Kyler then proceeded to run over there and yank her away from Paul, because heaven forbid that she speak to a man! And I hated his “Sydney is so helpless and needs looking after” attitude. This kind of thing normally doesn’t catch my attention. I’ve read books where it didn’t bother me at all, but other reviewers mentioned it. But in this book, it really stood out. As the book went on, I got so sick of Kyler treating Sydney like a child… then I got even more sick of it when I started thinking that maybe she deserved to be treated that way.
Another awesome example: Sydney is getting out of his car when he runs over her, lifts her down from the car himself, and says:
“You’ll hurt yourself.”
Because she’s totally incapable of getting out of a car..
And despite all that, we’re just supposed to accept that Sydney loves him. We’re never really told why she loves him, even though for years he’s made her cry and blown her off so he could screw other women. We’re never shown why he’s secretly awesome in spite of all of that. We’re just supposed to accept it.
But as I said, eventually I wondered if she did actually deserve to be treated like a child who can’t handle herself. After a while, I began to notice that Sydney cries (or wants to cry) A LOT!
I wanted to cry—to sit down in the snow and cry.
I wanted to cry. Like a fat, angry baby who wanted to be fed level of crying.
“Don’t cry, baby.” [..] That only made her cry harder.
I’d cried then. I was about to cry again.
I prayed to God I didn’t start crying like a freak in the restaurant.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to rage, and to shove my head under the pillow.
I wanted to cry again, like a baby, because that was the confirmation of all that he’d said.
Put all that together with the way she handled herself sometimes.. and she just came across as extremely… weak. She was a weak character. She just sat around and moped and cried and secretly crushed on a man whore.
And the last point I’ll bring up: Frigid is one of those books that makes me hate dual point of view. Sometimes I love dual point of view, but in times like this, I hate it. The problem was that we read from Sydney’s point of view and learn that she’s been “in love with” Kyler for years. Then we read from Kyler’s point of view and realize that he also kind of “loves” Sydney. But neither of them say anything. It’s so annoying to know that both characters “love” each other but see both of them do NOTHING about it or misread the other person’s signals. I just end up sitting there yelling at both characters to grow some balls and say/do something about it!
Plus, there were so many clichés. Let’s sum them up:
- A guy who sleeps around.
- A good girl who doesn’t like to party.
- Girl secretly loves guy but thinks he’d never like her because she’s not a hot piece of ass.
- Guy secretly loves girl but thinks she’d never like him because he’s not good enough for her.
- They both deny their feelings.
- But slowly they grow closer together.
- The rest of the clichés are spoilers…. View Spoiler »
Overall, I’m massively disappointed. It’s sad that I can love one J. Lynn book so much (Wait for You) and hate another one. By the end of the book, I was skimming like a mad woman. I just wanted to be done!!
But the reason I’m giving this book 2 stars instead of 1 is because I honestly think my biggest problem with the book was that I got off on the wrong foot with it. I’m not sure I ever really gave it a chance after I decided that Kyler was a dick. Even when he did some nice, possibly redeeming things at the end, I still wasn’t okay with it… because earlier he was a dick. So, yes Frigid, you get a pity star. How about that?
The Verdict
But, but, his penis! It’s his penis, Ash. It’s the penis’s fault. Anyone could see that. It’s always the penis. That thing has a mind of it’s own and no man can fight it’s power! 😀 hahaha
Anyways, that sucks this wasn’t good. I don’t think I would have picked it up anyways based on the blurb. And yeah, man-whores are not my thing unless they are done right. Some authors know how to make them truly redeemable.
Wow, well, we differ in opinion for sure. But that’s par for the course with books in general, yes? I’m sorry you didn’t like this one. I rather enjoyed it, and I’m so not a contemp reader at all. I hope you find you like your next read much better! Thanks for the review!
Oh no! I was super excited for this one! I cannot stand the whole “it’s my penis’ fault!” excuse! Really?! I don’t go around blaming my vagina for getting me into trouble!
Also the crying…that would bother me too. I don’t find anything wrong with crying, but that seems a bit excessive.
Dang…I’m still going to read this, because who knows, I may not be bothered by these things (although I do think I will be), but it’s not a priority. Thanks for the informative review!
You KNOW my feelings on this book. I finished writing the review but I’m so backed up that it’s not scheduled on my blog until the 12th (I think) My biggest issue was the characterization of the poor little helpless Sydney and how Kyler indulged that. You know I liked it initially but by the end I too was skimming like mad and I HATED the ending.
Oh Ashley – yes this book really got you at a wrong time hu? But maybe, just maybe it wasn’t as amazing as the first book after all.. I haven’t read it yet, but right now I am a little tired of the same stories over and over in NA. Basically they are so often the same that it’s tiering.
Cliche pretty much sums up this entire book(including that cover!).
“Because she’s totally incapable of getting out of a car..”
My thoughts exactly! I lost track of the number of times that I rolled my eyes at this book.
Hopefully I’ll be able to enjoy Wait for You more than Frigid.
I am one of the biggest supporters of NA, but I can’t stand the clichés anymore! Wait For You had tons too but Cam was such a great character that it still got a 4 star from me. Can I just saw how nice it is to see people give one her books a low rating. Sometimes I feel like if she takes a shit people will rate it 5 stars and rave about how amazing it was or how great it smells… It’s like, are you rating this because of the story? Or because you are a JLA superfan???
So tired of the manwhores.
Can’t stand crybabies.
The cover is cheesestastic.
Great review Ashley!
*Now I’m gonna go hide before an angry mob comes after me*
I’m so glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who experienced major problems with this novel! When I went to post my own one star review on Goodreads, I was shocked by the near-univeral praise it had received. For a second there I couldn’t help but wonder if we had even read the same book!
I hated that the central conflict was derived solely from a lack of communication, I found the secondary storyline about the mysterious person bent on hurting them superficial and utterly unnecessary, and couldn’t stand either of our main leads. The dynamic between Sydney and Kyler made me extremely uncomfortable and often bordered on abusive.
While I have no intention on giving up on the ‘New Adult’ genre entirely, Frigid definitely typified issues I’ve had with the genre in the past and will be the last I read of Armentrout’s contributions to the New Adult market. I might not have minded the rather cliché characters and storyline had it simply been presented in a more palatable manner.
Great review, Ashley! It was a lot of fun to read and you were certainly more forgiving of this novel than I was (No pity star from me!) 😉
Bahaha I’ve been looking forward to reading this review after your twitter updates, I still haven’t cracked it open! I’m so so tired of the clichés especially the man whore with the magic peen, it’s just like…COME ON Women, stop falling for these guys in books!!! I didn’t realise Sydney was such a speshul snowflake either, seriously she can’t get out of a car by herself? Sigh, I best wait until I’m in an awesome mood before starting this or there will be trouble! 😉 great review!
I’m so glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one who had major issues with this book!!! At first I thought I was the only one on Goodreads, my 1 star lost amongst all the singing praises, and I often wondered whether or not I’d picked up something else by mistake. I’m not going to rehash all that I hated – I’ve moved on, after having a looong rant at it, but I completely agree with everything you said here Ash. This book was just a stupid mess full of drip.