To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)by Linda Kage
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads
Synopsis:
Junior in college. Star athlete. Constant attention from the opposite sex.
On this campus, I’m worshiped. While seven hundred miles away, back in my hometown, I’m still trailer park trash, child of the town tramp, and older sibling to three kids who are counting on me to keep my shit together so I can take them away from the same crappy life I grew up in.
These two opposing sides of myself never mix until one person gets a glimpse of the true me. I never expected to connect with anyone like this or want more beyond one night. This may be the real deal.
Problem is, Dr. Kavanagh’s my literature professor.
If I start anything with a teacher and we’re caught together, I might as well kiss my entire future goodbye, as well as my family’s, and especially Dr. Kavanagh’s. Except sometimes love is worth risking everything. Or at least, it damn well better be because I can only resist so much.
”There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.”
-Mark Twain
I think it goes without saying that I haven’t been able to post many reviews lately. And while I always plan on rectifying that fact, it never seems to pan out as I had planned. I loved this book-though my rating doesn’t show it-and I really and truly wanted to write something about it. It’s not often I pick up a book that I had earlier cast aside due to its content and my knowledge that more than a few pet peeves would be prevalent. But, for whatever reason, I needed a ‘feel good’ book, and I didn’t want to buy a new one. So I searched and searched and searched my iPad for all the books I had bought and not read and this one…this one just called to me. Go figure.
I sighed deeply…for two reasons. One: Well, fuck, she was petting me. It felt too good to concentrate on anything else. But two: I hated to confess my stupidity and that damn tattoo was one of the stupidest things I’d ever done.
No, I didn’t like the cheesiness. And no, the writing didn’t impress me. It’s almost as if the most well-written scenes were centered around Noel (obviously) and the smexy moments and thoughts. Call me crazy, but I tend to like a more circumvent manner of writing. You know, where I can love the girl, too? Maybe the whole story? I know everyone loved everything about this, I’m sure, but I’m not such an easy sell. And, finally, no-I didn’t like how predictable this was. And yet….
We were split between two worlds. She was the frumpy, genius professor hiding romantic hopes and dreams. I was the stud playboy football star working my ass off to save my poor, broke family. What a pair we made.
I loved Noel. I loved the cheesiness. I loved the tortured and broken writing geared towards Noel. And, inexplicably, I loved the fact that I knew what was going to happen. Call me fickle, but when I’m in a horrible mood, it pays to find a book that makes you laugh, smile, giggle like a loser, and gives you butterflies. I love the idea of everything to do with this story-I even love the role reversal of the boy being the student-I just wish it was executed a little better.
Growling through clenched teeth, I scowled at her. “I’m your boyfriend because I’m your boyfriend. We don’t need any more explanation that that. It just is. I’m the one who’s there when you’re sad, and when you come apart in my arms. This…” I slammed her body against mine so she could feel what she did to me, “makes me your boyfriend.”
Noel is your typical clichéd, man-whore, football playing college student-Girls hanging off his arms, gets laid every night (implied), and is the star quarterback. And yeah, so overdone, right? Well, once we got beneath the exterior and saw his broken side (again-clicheeeee), I was putty in his large, man-whorish hands. Sigh. I don’t know what it is about tortured heroes, but they seem to touch me in ways no other book boy can (lies, but let’s roll with it). There’s so much more to him than meets the eye-why he strives to do so well on the field. Why he wants to get drafted to play in the NFL. I’ll even go so far as to say why he drowns himself in meaningless sex, but that might be stretching it a bit. No one knows his real motivations…until a certain professor doesn’t tolerate his shit and gives him a run for his grade.
”Fuck, yes, I love her,” I hissed. And then it struck me what I’d just admitted, but what shocked me most of all was that I hadn’t lied. All feeling drained from my limbs, and my face probably went sheet white as I stumbled back to sit on the closed seat of the toilet. “Oh, shit. I love her.”
I loved Aspen.
Aspen is a young professor. She graduated early and is not that much older than Noel. And, again, I won’t dwell on it because I could care less about her (sue me), no one knows what is really going on in her life. She has had a horrible childhood just like Noel, and when Noel steps into her classroom and demands she give him a chance to raise his grade, she sees no reason to give him preferential treatment-all she sees is the school’s star quarterback wanting to piggyback a good grade so he can keep playing football. But what happens when she gets to know him a little better after a heart-felt essay about his life and family? I think we all know. Sigh.
So, you know, this obviously had a million faults and it made my teeth ache with the ludicrous nature of the dialogue but…there was something there for me. It made my heart happy and gave me feels when I didn’t think I would get any, and that should count for something. Hell, I even was wanting to give this a four, in the end, but that’s bullshit because I did have a lot of problems with this story. Whatever. Maybe it was Noel, maybe it was his desperation, loyalty, undying attraction to Aspen and his ability to sob (aw hell, we all know it’s all about Noel), but, in the end, this story was exactly what I needed. Smut, humor, and a lot of sexy tortured-ness, this book stole my heart…who’d have thunk it.
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Ya know….this wasn’t that well-written and it had many many problems…
Though, as it turns out, I just couldn’t help but to
fall in love with Noel and his tortured self
.
SO SUE ME.
I LIKE HOT, TORTURED, MANWHORE FOOTBALL PLAYERS. I’m only human lol.
Review to come.
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