Me & Mr. Jones | Lindsay Marie Miller

68/100

Finley O'Connell is a shy, reserved college student, who has no intention of ever trusting another man. At nineteen, Finley spends her Friday nights alone, studying clinical psychology to ease her mind of the abusive childhood she has yet to overcome. Her new professor, the young, charismatic Cabel Jones, begins to take an interest in Finley, whose first instinct is to run. But when an ordinary experiment turns to bloodshed, Finley must rely on Cabel, as the two hide away in a rustic, secluded cabin in the wilderness. Plagued by deception and dear, Finley soon finds herself in the arms of the one man on campus who can never truly be hers. 

+2 Cover Design

If I'm being quite honest, I don't love the cover. The book is marketed as a thriller romance, and while it does reflect the thriller side of the novel, the man on the cover looks scary rather than the lead hero of the novel.

+3 Writing Style

The writing wasn't terrible but it wasn't spectacular. I couldn't feel myself being sucked in by the words. 

+2 Plot Development

Throughout the entirety of the book I could not see where the plot was going. This book was split up into two separate parts, the first part thriller and the second part romance and I think both components of the book should have been intertwined better. Even then, I didn't feel myself sucked into the plot of the thriller, which I consider as the main aspect of the book. There wasn't enough foundation set for the setting and characters for me as the reader to care about the plot and what happened to the characters.

Even while Cabel and Finley were on the run, the reader wasn't given enough information to follow along with the plot. We were kept in the dark almost as much as Finley was which was incredibly frustrating.

Overall the plot moved too fast, to the point where it was unrealistic, which made the book difficult to get through. 

+1 Character Relations

Relationships between characters are very difficult to write, couples especially. It's very easy to cross from realistic into the realm of obnoxious and unbelievable. As much as I tried to ship Cabel and Finley together and get behind their relationship, I just couldn't. The way they met was cute but from there it was just downhill. Within a hundred pages into the book they had already proclaimed  their love for each other after they'd known each other for a few days, and that's when I couldn't stand them.

+1 Character Development

Even the book seemed to stretch out over a fairly wide time frame, a couple of years at least, I didn't see any change in character for both Finley and Cabel. It's possible I didn't see the character development since I wasn't as invested in the characters, but from beginning to end I saw little to no change in their personalities or how they acted.

+1 Likability of Protagonist

In conjunction to the point above, I couldn't find myself relating to Finley. Since she was a college freshman, much like myself, I felt like I should have been able to relate to her. But before we even get a glimpse into her college life or her, we're thrown into the thriller aspect of the book. Even as the story continued, we seemed to only know her in terms of Cabel. She was dependent, almost too dependent on Cabel, to the point where I couldn't stand her as a character.

A lot of the synopsis focuses on her backstory coming from an abusive childhood but I didn't see that reflected in the story as much. As someone who comes from such a dark background I found it surprising that she trusted Cabel so easily, especially after he repeatedly put her in danger and lied to her.

+2 Necessity of Minor Characters

There was a surprisingly small cast of characters within this novel and for the majority of the book it felt like Kinley and Cabel were the only characters. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but I do think there could have been more characters to shift the attention. Perhaps more characters on Finley's side, like a best friend or a potential friend, etc.

+4 Setting Description

Another important aspect of a book is attention to detail, but just the right amount of detail. While I didn't have any major problems with this aspect of the story, the setting wasn't phenomenal. It was hard to visualize the setting but that could have been due to the other factors I've mentioned.

+3 Interesting Storyline

The storyline itself seemed fairly interesting, however I think the execution was below my expectations.

+4  Predictability

Since I couldn't really figure out where the plot was going, it was hard to predict what was going to happen next, so there was a predictability aspect of the book that I liked. 

+45 Finished

It was a fairly difficult to get through this book for me and as a result I had to skim the last 50ish pages of the book. Maybe it was the reading slump I fell into after finishing Winter or maybe I couldn't invest myself into the characters and plot as easily as I normally can. Either way I wanted to be completely honest with my review.

Final Total: 68/100 ; D+

Overall, I admit I did not like this book as much as I wanted to. My main issues were with the plot and the characters which were hard to follow and unrelatable. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this book, so if it sounds like something you'd like give it a read, though I personally wasn't a fan. 

On a slightly different note, I got the opportunity to interview the wonderful Lindsay Marie Miller where we talk about her books Emerald Green and Me & Mr. Jones, which you can find here.