Member Reviews

Leah Davis and Dillon Franklin run a business together which is why Dillon has been afraid of revealing her true feelings to Leah. What if it all went wrong and they couldn’t continue to run their bar together? However, she’s mortified to realise she is expected to give dating advice to Leah when she decides to win her ex back by improving her skills in love.
It’s a good premise but the story lacks tension, I found the characters to be a bit one dimensional, there was no depth and frankly I found Leah a bit irritating so couldn’t see why Dillon really cared in the first place.

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Hookin' Up was a sweet read about best friends who figure out their soul mate is closer than they could have ever imagined. It had some hot love scenes, and pent up angst. Throughout the story you wanted to yell at both girls to quit being stupid. It was an enjoyable weekend read.

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I really wanted to like this book because I thought the premises was interesting, if not a little strange of an idea. And strange is good in this genre, with so many books falling into likely patterns. Unfortunately I was bored reading about the exploits of Leah as she kept sleeping with one woman after another. Yes, the experiences were all different but eventually when the whole book is one Tinder-like hookup after another you just want some more substance. When we were out of the bedroom the conversations between Leah and Dillion, the real hopeful meat of the story, were the same conversations over and over and over...you get my point.

I also couldn't even like the main characters because I wasn't attracted to any real qualities about them. Leah was whiny and hung up on her ex for most of the book, and Dillion just sat at a bar and got drunk because she was hung-up on Leah for like 10 years and wouldn't say a thing. I guess they deserved each other?

Sorry, just wished there was better chemistry and interactions between Leah and Dillion and some character growth to make me like them at the end. I got neither.

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I was disappointed with this. I knew what the story line is, so wasn't expecting a gripping book, but this just seemed lazy. The descriptions of every character are vague, and the sex scenes are both too graphic and not graphic enough, as if the author got bored halfway through.

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Hooking up.....no thank you

I don't like to give a bad review but I have to be honest, this is book wasn't very good.

If the author was trying to have a go at erotica then I personally feel she failed.

I read a few chapters hoping it would develop but I was bored, I read it to the very end and every chapter was similar to the last.

The story is of Leah who after a long term relationship fails she thinks she needs lessons in how to be a good lover and Dillon the doting best friend looking on whilst secretly in love....... I don't want to get on the moral high ground here but I felt MJ Williamz really should advocate safe sex, her line of putting 'must be clean' in the advert doesn't cover it. Leah just jumped into the sack without a thought, come on MJW, lesbians are not immune from STI's (rant over)

The book was slow, repetitive and lacked a good strong story line

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They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but I picked Hookin’ Up by MJ Williamz off of NetGalley because I thought the cover was sexy. And I’m glad I did. This book is fucking FASCINATING, and I’m honestly not sure what to make of it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best possible reason to write a review. Let’s see where we land at the end of it.
The main character is Leah, who has recently been dumped by her girlfriend and only sexual partner after five years together. The reason: Leah isn’t good in bed and her girlfriend is sick of it. Leah signs up for a Tinder-like app, determined to learn how to be a better lover and win back her girlfriend. As a premise, I had a lot of questions about that timeline. Sticking with someone for five years and then booting them because they suck in bed didn’t make any sense at all to me, and I think this book would hang together better if those five years were five months instead. But whatever, I’m not the author and maybe that won’t bother other readers. Leah and her best friend Dillon own the only gay/lesbian bar in town. Dillon has been keeping her feelings about Leah a secret for years, and Leah doesn’t realize that her best friend has a crush on her. Dillon sees that Leah is not ready to hear about her feelings and decides to take a wait and see approach.

Here’s where it gets interesting. A solid 80% of the book is Leah and Dillon both sleeping with other people. In Dillon’s case, it’s with one of their bartenders, Stephanie. But the main focus in Hookin’ Up is Leah’s sexual awakening, and it actually reads more like a quest. Leah’s dating profile lists a specific goal: she’s looking for a series of women who will teach her to be a better lover. Each date ends with Leah and her date in bed, and the results are different each time. One woman tells her too much tongue, another says it’s not enough; One woman wants her to be gentle, another to be harder. As the months pass, Leah needs less and less advice, because her wide variety of sexual partners has made her a better lover. It’s rather remarkable watching her start out as confused and uncertain and end up confident and self-assured. It’s not until the end of the book that she and Dillon finally come together as a couple.

At first, I didn’t know what to make of this. It’s sexy as hell, but it defies just about everything I expect in a romance. I’ve never read a book where one character (especially if that character is a woman!) has, idk, maybe 10 other on-page sexual partners while their true love is waiting in the wings. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. It’s 2017, and most people have multiple sexual partners before entering into a monogamous relationship. Romance almost always closes the door on those previous relationships. There’s something delightful about a romance that truly explores sex as a skill rather than it just being magically perfect with that one soulmate. Leah is sexually attracted and turned on by all of her dates. Hookin’ Up is about the entire arc of Leah’s growth as a sexual being. Leah was a good friend and a good businesswoman, but she needed to feel confident in herself as a romantic, sexual partner. She decided how to do it, and Dillon saw that’s what she needed and tried to support her. Isn’t that what love is all about?

I’m an allocishet reader, and I’m more than a little afraid that I’m not doing this book justice by reading the book so strictly through that lens. Regardless, Hookin’ Up does so many things well. I loved seeing Leah’s sexual development, but I would have liked to see more emotional development, especially between her and Dillon. Their friendship is solid, but there’s not too much about how their romance changes them. This book was satisfying and thought-provoking, and I hope people read it. To me, it felt like a completely fresh take on sex and romance.

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I actually cannot believe I finished this book, but since it was free and I promised a review here it is. This was the worst book I have read in this genre in a long time. I mean seriously Dillion just let herself be mainupulated and who the hell would want Leah after all of her sleeping around? Stephanie was right Dillion deserved better than sloppy seconds and if I was Stephanie I would have been seriously pissed. The story was very thin and was basically the same thing over and over. also what woman would just think yeah this is a great idea to sleep around and get better at sex, well it isn’t. It was funny in the beginning and then the sex with strangers just dragged on and Leah had the nerve to be jealous of Dillion sleeping around. The best thing about this book is that it is something that is totally plausible I can see someone wanting to do this. Overall not that great of a story, the book could have easily been 100 pages shorter and there just want enough meat in this sandwich.

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