I’ve been slow to the Christina Lauren bandwagon. Great things have been said. Elyse has reviewed two books in the Beautiful series and seemed to relatively enjoy them. But I’m always hesitant when an author has a very large, vocal following. I don’t want to hype to influence my reading, whether it’s going in with high expectations or increased wariness, because if I happen to not enjoy a much-loved book, I have to wonder what’s wrong with me. Am I missing something here? Did I not read the same book others had?
Well I can confidently tell you that is not the case with Sweet, Filthy Boy, and now I feel bad for waiting so long!
I was dubious of the premise at first. Three friends go on a post-graduation trip to Vegas to celebrate. Mia Holland is the heroine of this particular book. She had dreams of being a dancer, but an accident stole that dream and left her with a scarred leg. The other two women (the heroines of the next books) are Harlow – a brash girl from an affluent family (I happen to love her open and honest discussions about her sex life) – and Lola, the more serious one, who is slightly nerdy. I loved them together. Sometimes, I miss female friendships in romance. Too often, other women characters are just used as a plot device to breed jealousy in the heroine or pose as an obstacle for the hero and heroine’s relationship.
And that does technically happen here, but I’m glad to see that’s not all there is when it comes to female secondary characters.
For Mia, this trip to Vegas really is her last hurrah. At the end of summer, she’s due to start her MBA at Boston University, miles away from her hometown of San Diego and her family. However, there’s very little love lost between Mia and her father. He’s never supported her career of dancing and essentially pushed her into a business track to follow in his footsteps. Her mother, while a fan of her daughter’s talent, often falls silent when it comes the criticisms of Mia’s father, preferring to avoid a fight.
The three girls have a great time in Vegas and Mia desperately tries to let go while she can. Her upcoming enrollment at Boston University feels more like prison sentence to her. There they meet a trio of men. Ansel, the French lawyer. Finn, the Canadian who works for his family’s fishery business. Oliver, the Aussie who wants to open his own comic shop. The author(s) do a great job introducing the secondary characters just enough to make you want to scramble for their stories. Even before I reached the quarter mark in Sweet, Filthy Boy, I already wanted to know what the deal was with Harlow and Finn.
Three girls. Three boys. Vegas. The obvious happens and all three wind up drunk and married. However, Mia and Ansel seem to be the only two not rushing to get an annulment. Instead, Ansel is offering for Mia to come back to France with him. Just for the summer. Apparently while drunk, Mia made him promise that they couldn’t get an annulment until September.
I really admire Mia’s determination to follow through with her plans, even if she’s uncertain about them. She doesn’t shirk her responsibilities for the sake of a cute Frenchman with dimples and a dirty mouth. Eventually, the weekend comes to an end and the six of them go their separate ways, though Mia still wears her wedding ring.
After returning home and a particularly awful argument with her father, Mia says fuck it. And good for her. She has an opportunity to hang out in France for the summer with a guy who seems genuinely interested in her. I empathize with Mia. I’m an unabashed workaholic and more than a few times, I get the itch to just skip town, to just shed my obligations and do something for myself. I’m glad I got live vicariously though her for a moment and for me, this was where the book turned from goofy, slice-of-life premise to something deeper and more complex.
While it’s easy to wear rose-tinted glasses while living it up in Vegas, I appreciate (SERIOUSLY) the fact that Christina Lauren (I’m always torn how to address her/them, since it’s two women writing as one author, so bear with me) made that distinction. Mia and Ansel, from the moment they board the board the plane back to France, start to realize that they’re strangers. They’re little honeymoon whirlwind romance in Vegas isn’t realistic. Mia gets violently ill and starts her period on the plane…in white jeans. Oh, honey. Ansel bashfully asks the flight attendants for hygiene products, bless his heart. And to me, it’s one of the sweetest damn romance scenes I’ve read.
Back in France, Ansel begins to realize that his impulsive, playful behavior colored how he saw things. He thought they’d play house, have tons of sex (which they technically do, but I never thought it was on a gratuitous level – it always made sense within the narrative), and essentially have a second vacation. But he’s a lawyer with a demanding schedule. He can’t spend time with Mia as much as he’d like and she’s off to explore the city on her own, which is another good for her moment. Mia takes advantage of the adventure rather than just sitting at home waiting for Ansel.
Watching the two of them get to know one another is such a subtle process. Ansel’s too exhausted from work. Mia starts thinking too much during sex and can’t seem to get into it. There are instances of imperfections and awkwardness, and you just know a big fight is coming. And boy, is it a doozy.
I won’t spoil it, but it honestly surprised me. It’s a bit of a twist and I didn’t see it coming. For the most part, I liked how it was handled. I was worried Mia would soften about it and it would be fixed in a matter of a few pages, but she held her ground. You truly get to see the transformation of her as a character – from shy, stuttering Mia at the beginning of the book to confident Mia, who is thinking of herself, her health, and her own wants and needs rather than someone else’s.
As for the ending, I feel like I wanted a little bit more. The reconciliation between Mia and Ansel after the big fight/misunderstanding wound up being a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think I wanted more tension with it rather than people cooling off and realizing their mistakes, but perhaps that’s just me spoiling for a fight. It didn’t necessarily feel out of place; my enthusiasm was just lacking for it when compared with the rest of the book.
Am I a Christina Lauren convert? I’m not sure. It’s possible that this book could be the only one I enjoy, but admittedly, I bought the second one in the Wild Seasons series as soon as I finished this one. Something tells me that’s a good sign, and I sure as hell am going to give more her/their books a try. For science, of course.
This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well.
Thanks!
I, too, came to the CL party late, but boy am I glad I came anyway. Loved SFB. And totally related to the white jeans debacle (hint: soon to be 47 and haven’t worn white pants since 8th grade English).
I didn’t like the second book quite as much mostly due to one MC waffling back and forth but it was still enjoyable and worth reading for the other MC alone. Dark, Wild Night (book 3) is available now. I’ll be picking that up later this week.
However, I absolutely loved Beautiful Bastard and recommend the Beautiful series as well. The novellas are a little uneven to me but still worth reading and if I am recalling the right one, Beautiful Beginning made me laugh so hard I scared the cats.
I have been on the Christina Lauren train from the beginning and really appreciate how they’ve grown as writers. The ability to write is amazing to me, that they do it as team and do it so well, is mind boggling. I loved everything about “Sweet Filthy Boy.” The second book didn’t work as well. My quibble with “Dirty Rowdy Thing” was that what seemed like a major roadblock to their continued relationship was never actually resolved. But still a fine read. Really looking forward to “Dark Wild Night”. Oliver runs a COMIC BOOK STORE!!! And AUSTRALIAN!!! My nerdy little heart has been going pitterpat for this since the first book.
@kitkat, I agree, “Beautiful Beginnings” was a snort your drink through your nose riot.
“Who called today?” Henry asked. “Will? Was it you?”
Bwaahhahahaha!!
I haven’t read any of Christina Lauren’s Beautiful series, but read Sweet Filthy Boy just the other week, thanks in part because of a key word reading challenge, but also its inclusion on the NPR Top 100 Romance list. I dove straight into Dirty Rowdy Thing and actually liked it even more, mainly because I thought Mia and Ansel’s story had more sex than emotional development for a large part of the book, while Harlow and Finn, while sizzling in the smexy department had more communication and emotional honesty, even though the complications in the latter half of the book had me rolling my eyes a bit.
Now I’m counting the days until I get my hands on Lola and Oliver’s story. A friends to lovers story where the hero owns a comic book store and the heroine is a comics writer? Where has this story been all my life? While waiting for book 4 in the series, I’ll probably go back and read all their other books too. Really glad I gave these books a chance.
I listened to an excerpt from the audiobook. And honestly, I’ve never tried them, but I just might for the sake of listening to audio Oliver and his Aussie accent.
I had no idea what to expect from SWEET FILTHY BOY. I’d read some of the Beautiful series and thought they were fun but they hadn’t left a huge impression on me past “oh goody something I can recommend when people want something after 50 Shades!”
But then I got SWEET FILTHY BOY as a freebie at a romance convention and somehow months later I still hadn’t read it but it was sitting there on my desk. I started reading it one night when it was already pretty late… woke up in the morning with the book in bed and basically had to finish reading it before I could get up or eat breakfast or ANYTHING. The writing was so smooth and the voice was so compelling I just got sucked right in and I loved loved loved how the authors messed around with some of the usual romance conventions. Just made it totally delightful.
I haven’t had a chance to read any of the others in the series but they’re on the list!
@Cecilia: It’s definitely one of those books that sneaks up on you.
@Amanda and the next thing you know you’re in Vegas in a hotel room that you trashed having epic sex and you find yourself unable to truly regret any of it. 🙂 yessss
I remember picking up this book after hearing about it on a DBSA podcast with Sarah and Jane. The Vegas wedding premise was so wacky, I had to check it out. I fell in love with Mia and Ansel’s story. There were some very real moments when they’re getting to know each other in Paris and discussing their plans for the future. Not to mention Ansel’s french-i-ness was so darn adorable. And I really enjoyed the evolution of Mia throughout the book. The conclusion to the major conflict fell into the “distance makes the heart grown fonder” territory which I liked but I would have loved to have an epilogue a couple of months after the conflict is resolved.
I’m very excited for Oliver and Lola’s friends to lovers story. September 15th can’t come soon enough.
I’m on the CL bandwagon when it comes to the Wild Seasons series. I loved SFB and DRT. I just pre-ordered the new one despite the price. I must read.
However, I am not on the Bastards bandwagon. I’ve read the first two and they were ok. I’m still going to read the 3rd one because I love the other series so much, I’m hoping something will click in.
I feel like such an outlier, but I actually had a big problem with SFB, specifically the HUGE thing that Ansel doesn’t tell Mia about. I enjoyed their interactions and thought it was very romantic, but at the end of the day, I don’t think I was convinced that the relationship had real staying power. I still feel like Ansel might well be all-in for this relationship… until it loses its excitement, and then he’s going to be looking for the next new shiny thing. I actually felt a lot better about Finn and Harlow, and I’m excited for Lola and Oliver… but I gotta say, if I were Mia’s friend, I’d still be super skeptical of Ansel by the end of their book.
@Lozza: Oh, I totally feel you on that, which probably ties into wanting more. I feel like that issue was never really, truly resolved.
As for the relationship having “staying power,” I read NA endings more of a HFN (happily for now) rather than an HEA (happily ever after), though I know that’s a big sort of contention for the genre. Some people can believe people in their early/mid twenties can find their soulmate, while others are a little more skeptical about it.
iirc Beautiful Bastard is the one that used to be twilight fanfiction and while I don’t necessarily hold it against the book (since actually liked Qwen Salsbury’s The Plan) it’s also really terrible and definitely not the place to start with them if you don’t want to read pages of hatefucking.
@jw: I don’t think I’d mind the hatefucking. The Plan only seems to be $2.99. Would you recommend it?
I enjoyed Sweet Filthy Boy, but wasn’t as crazy about it as others seem to be. I DID find the sex scenes, if not gratuitous, then a little too much. I didn’t really buy the romance because most of the character connection happened during sex. Though they were some of the best written sex scenes I’ve ever read, I didn’t really buy into the romance. But I did appreciate the humor in the book, the strong female friendships, and how Christina Lauren made me completely believe in this ridiculous set up of a Vegas wedding.
@Malin I had bought Sweet Filthy Boy and Dirty Rowdy Thing at the same time. I hadn’t been planning on moving onto Dirty Rowdy Thing, but your comments make me think I should give it a shot. Considering I liked all the other elements of Christina Lauren’s writing, if there is more character interaction outside the bedroom in Dirty Rowdy Thing then I might enjoy it more.