Just for Now by Abbi Glines

Just for Now by Abbi Glines
Series: Sea Breeze #4
Published by: Simon & Schuster on October 30, 2012
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Romance, University
Pages: 304
Source: Purchased
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Rating: ★★

The day Preston Drake figured out that wealthy women paid well for a set of tight abs and a pretty face his life turned around.

The run down rat-infested trailer he had shared with his alcoholic mother and three younger siblings was now only a place he visited to pay the bills and stock the pantry with food.

He no longer worried about his family starving or living without electricity. The money he made entertaining rich older women more than covered his family's needs and his own. He had it all figured out. Except...

There was this girl.

She was as innocent as he was tainted.

Amanda Hardy wished her knees didn't get weak when Preston walked into a room. She hated the fact her heart raced when he flashed his smile in her direction. He had a different girl in his bed every night. He was the kind of boy a smart girl ran from. So, why was she coming up with ways to get close to him? Even when it was obvious he wanted to keep her at a distance.

Maybe her heart knew something the world didn't. Maybe Preston Drake was more than just a pretty face.

I stared reading Just for Now because I was desperate for something sexy. Desperate. DESPERATE. I didn’t care what book I read, I just wanted a good story and hot and heavy stuff to help me pull through the “I’m missing my boyfriend like crazy” phase. Coincidentally, someone’s review of Just for Now showed up on my Goodreads feed, raving about how sexy it was. So I ran off, bought the book, and started reading.

This book has good points and bad points. The good points: Just for Now was interesting. I wasn’t bored while I was reading it and I got through it really quickly. It was kind of hot, but honestly, it wasn’t really as mouth-watering as I was hoping for. So my thirst for lust remains a little unquenched.

The bad points: I didn’t understand why Amanda was so obsessed with Preston. As a reader, we do get to see his sensitive side, which is attractive. But Preston kept that sensitivity hidden from the rest of the world, so Amanda had no idea it existed. To Amanda, Preston wasn’t a sensitive brother who cared for his family and provided for them. He was a complete and utter jerkface playboy.. oh, and he was hot. Preston was a total douchebag to Amanda. He did have his reasons (which I’ll talk about later), but that’s why I didn’t understand why Amanda was so obsessed with him. She didn’t even get a glimpse of his sensitive/sweet side until the second half of the book (long after she became obsessed with him). That really made me think that Amanda only liked Preston because he was hot, which kind of annoyed me.

Preston had it in his head that he wasn’t good enough for Amanda. She was a rich, innocent young girl and he was a poor, rude, man whore. I can understand where his “I’m not good enough for you” feelings came from, but it kind of started to bug me when he talked about it every single time he saw Amanda. And he had terrific timing </sarcasm>. At one point, he let his horniness take over and things got hot and heavy with Amanda. He was in the middle of fingering her, she was close to climax, and that was when he remembered that he wasn’t good enough for her. So he stopped, said “Sorry I shouldn’t have done that,” and got up to leave, cutting her off just before an orgasm. Talk about leaving a girl hanging.

Furthermore, the story starts off with Preston and Amanda having sex. Horrible sex. Really, really bad. Because Preston was drunk out of his mind. Why, then, does Preston spend the rest of the book dreaming about how amazing it was? And why does Amanda even remember it fondly? She was in pain and only felt pleasure for about a second. But then we get quotes like these:

“Every night, Manda. Every damn night I dream about you. About how sweet you tasted. How incredible you felt. It’s driving me crazy.”
Preston

“But it felt good. Really, really good. Better than any of the times I’d fantasized about.”
Amanda

Maybe I would have been more invested in their relationship if there actually was a fond sexual memory. But it was horrible! Even Amanda—a virgin with low standards—couldn’t have thought that sex was amazing.

I think the rest of my negativity towards this book comes from the fact that it was so generic. I must be getting tired of the cookie cutter “Bad playboy changes his ways for innocent girl” books, and that’s exactly what this story is. It wasn’t horrible, I just don’t feel like it brought anything new to the table. If you haven’t read as many books like that as I have, you might really enjoy Just for Now. But I’ve read Pushing the Limits and Beautiful Disaster, both of which are similar—but much better—books. And compared to those, Just for Now just doesn’t cut it.

To be fair, I wasn’t bored or clawing my eyes out while reading Just for Now. I got through it really quickly and it did entertain me. Many of the side characters are interesting enough that I will consider reading other books in the Sea Breeze series. But overall, I just wasn’t head over heels about this book.

The Verdict