Shameless Expectations
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Shameless Expectations
Buy Now for $26.99
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Narrated by:
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Quinn Riley
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Lori Prince
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By:
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Adrian J. Smith
About this listen
Escaping the past is hard. Living in the present is harder.
Monti Schroeder is on a quest for peace. She has been since the moment she was born. But peace has remained elusive.
Living as a nomad, she takes work where she can get it. When her sister calls with a favor for her neurotic boss, Monti agrees to it for a few extra bucks. What Monti finds when she arrives is a woman just as broken as she is. And no matter what, she can't leave Athena to flounder on her own.
Athena Pruitt has made it through the last twenty-two years with one rule: Avoid everything uncomfortable. Her house has become her prison, and she is desperate for respite. Unable to handle physical touch, she's wary when her personal assistant hires a "special" masseuse who can help. But Monti isn't a typical massage therapist.
Each day, each massage, each moment Monti and Athena spend together they unravel just a little more. With wells of trauma and pain filling both to the brim, just what will happen when their vessels break?
Will Monti find peace? Will Athena learn to live without shame? Will they both mend their brokenness beyond repair?
Shameless Expectations is a book that crosses boundaries to find healing, a sapphic age-gap novel that explores deep trauma and the potential for healing decades later. If you're looking for a book that touches on hope and explores PTSD through the lens of romance, this is it.
©2024 Adrian J. Smith (P)2024 Podium AudioThe story starts off well, diving into the struggles of a women with a weight on her shoulders. The focus is on her and her career. She is successful, prominent, and snowballing because of paste events a case brings closer to the surface.
22 years is a long time to not move forward with life (despite counciling), which makes this story lose traction. They mention this a lot in the book, but then suddenly stops being an issue.
It brings forward points of familial neglect from one of the main characters due to the nature of the child's conception, which are breezed over later. They also skirt over a lot of these initial issues toward the middle of the book.
The other main character was made to be a young, strong, influential, but free spirited women. She was also successful in her career but they never dive into what makes her succeesful in her field. She is someone who deals with the mind professionally, but doesn't understand how her trauma has shaped her or how to navigate that trauma when it comes to the surface. She quickly turns into an unsure, unstable, inexperienced, and flighty person. The flip is sudden and hard to follow.
From what I could gather of the progression of the story, the two troubled protagonists were trauma bonding while still experiencing issues that would get in the way of their story. Their relationship didn't seem likely, and the situation didn't feel right. It was almost as if the story lost its path half way through, and tried to draw it into the second half but it couldn't really get there. They were undeveloped, and it felt like the story was written for the sake of their relationship rather than their stories coming together. The conflict felt craftedto make it more interesting and for the sake of having it but it just didn't seem to make sense. Also, they never circle back around to the case that started all this to begin with and how she handles that following their trip where everything is resolved.
Narration was great as always with those two.
Strong Start, Weak Ending
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