Gentlemen Prefer Succubi by Jill Myles

Jackie Brighton woke up in a dumpster this morning, and her day has only gotten weirder.  Her familiar B-cups have somehow become double Ds, her sex drive is insatiable, and apparently she had her first one-night stand ever...with a fallen angel.  All she remembers is gorgeous Noah's oddly hypnotic blue eyes...and then a dark stranger whose bite transformed her into an immortal siren with a sexy itch.  With help from Noah, Jackie begins to adapt to her new lifestyle--until she accidentally sends Noah into the deadly clutches of the vampire queen and lands herself in a fierce battle for an ancient halo with the queen's wickedly hot right-hand man.  Who just happens to be the vampire who originally bit her.  How's a girl supposed to save the world when the enemy's so hard to resist?

Obtained: Bought
Genre: Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy
Series: Succubus Diaries
1.  Gentlemen Prefer Succubi
My Rating:
Not what I expected when originally buying this book.

Story:
Jackie's a girl who is insecure with her body.  She thinks herself plain, and works at a museum.  Imagine her surprise when she wakes up in a dumpster of all places, noodles attached to her hair, and a hobo sitting outside said dumpster with her purse.  Supposedly, she was dead

Now imagine her shock when, as she's stumbling out of an alley after a night of "intense partying", she runs into one of the guys she had mind-blowing sex with.  Despite her disgusting appearance, he wants to take her out for food.

Fast forward, and she's fucking his brains out again.  Then he gets kidnapped by an evil vampire queen, and it's Jackie's new mission to save her fallen angel from a horrible demise.

My Opinion:
I hated Jackie.  Now I dislike her with a burning passion.  I think it's because I had all day yesterday to not continue with this book that I re-approached it with a more open mind.

Why, you might be wondering, do I hate her?  I need to list this, because I have point after point that keep coming back to me.

• She's whiney.  So incredibly whiney that I cannot believe that the people around her didn't want to strangle her.  I would have wanted to.  In fact, she is the type of person who you know will crack under the pressure because she's so weak and whiney and blah.  Did I mention that I wanted to literally shove a sock in her mouth?  Because I do.
• She's selfish.  Never mind the fact that her new succubus friend just blew thousands of dollars on a new wardrobe for her.  She's got to be a huge bitch because she's scared and just got laid and doesn't know what the heck is going on.  Forget about the fact that she just finished talking with someone she was strictly told to avoid.  She must do it anyway because she's not horny anymore.  And when her new succubus friend agrees to help her when she's in way over her head?  She just manages to muck everything up, gets said friend captured by crazy vampires, and runs back to Noah in tears and wanting more sex. 
  
  (No, I'm really not ruining the plot by mentioning that, don't worry.  It's all on the back cover)
  
  
• She lacks common sense.  Every single thing that happens is met with her trying to resist it or she's complaining or she's asking question after stupid question.  It just got to the point where I wanted to fling my book across the room because everything that came out of her mouth was so.... idiotic.  Having sex with a guy that you don't know that well does not equate to the two of you being ANYWHERE close to boyfriend and girlfriend status.
• She's superficial.  You hear a boo-hoo woe is me sob story about how her body was so huge, and so this, and so that.  But then suddenly, when she gets vibrant red hair, her boobs blow up into beach balls, and she's like a size 4, she whines--more whining!--about how she doesn't want to have sex because of this, and that, and that, and this.  Don't get me wrong, I don't usually want to have sex unless I'm in a relationship, so I could kind of understand her struggle.  But if you hear you're gonna DIE if you don't have sex....you're really still going to resist?  She should go be a nun.  Wait, she can't.  She's dead.

Now I'm not angry, despite how harsh I sounded while typing those bullet points.  If anything, I'm disappointed.  First of all, what kind of book would want to reinforce being superficial and a bimbo?  There's this huge issue with Jackie and her body image, and suddenly, when she finally gets "the body men would die for," every man becomes a pig and is drooling after her.  Now that she's got this far fetched illusion of a body that a lot of women in America strive for, she's finally attractive.  So basically, we should all be obsessed with being porn stars, or have double D breasts, and we need to be skinny also, otherwise men won't bat an eye in our direction.  Oh yeah, and all men are horny pigs who want to stuff their faces in your chest.

I think I still sound a bit harsh, but there were so many reinforcements for this superficial mindset that I just couldn't drop it.  There was such a huge emphasis on breasts in this book, it got ridiculous.  She gets double Ds for boobs, and every. single. man she encounters is riveted to her chest.  Now, I don't know about everyone else, but I'm pretty sure that not all guys are going to have their eyes glued to a chick's chest, succubus or not.

Character bashing aside, this book wasn't horrible.  I think that the outcome was kind of a let down, but Zane and Remy were definitely the redeeming characters.  Remy is the other resident succubus (and a porn star) who has kind of just accepted her fate that she needs sex in order to survive.  She's superficial too, but she was supportive.  Time and time again we, as readers, witness Remy's loyalty to Jackie, and she just turns the other cheek when Jackie "suffers" another bitchy tirade.

Zane is one of the main men in Jackie's new life.  I genuinely liked his character.  The best way to describe him is to compare him to that kid in middle school who picked on you because he had a crush on you.  That's what he initially does with Jackie.  But then, as time progresses, he slowly opens up to her.  Yet, she can't have sex with him, because he's a vampire.  The girl is insane.  I definitely would not mind being groped by this guy in that little hallway.

All in all, it was an original story, but the main character left a lot to be desired.  And I really wonder why there's so much emphasis on Jackie's boobs.  So she's got double Ds, get over it, sheesh.  Some people may enjoy this book, some may not.  As for me?  I think I'll pass on this series.  Jackie's too annoying for my taste.

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• Paperback - 368 pages
• Price: $7.99
• ISBN-10: 1416572821
• ISBN-13: 978-1416572824
• Released: December 29, 2009
• Jill Myles' Website
• Buy it at Simonandschuster.com
• Buy it at Amazon.com