Review: Forty Shades of Pearl

Reviewed by Shelly
 

Divorced, 40 year-old Pearl Robinson works as a documentary producer for a small company in New York. Her assignment is to get an interview with Alexandre Chevalier and his sister Sophie Dumas for the possibility of doing a documentary, as they own a very popular and successful social media site, HookedUp. Because of his lack of public appearances and a single, very blurry photograph, Pearl thinks that twenty four-year Alexandre is a bit of a nerd. Oh, how wrong she is.

This story is pretty short in that the time span is about a month – so there’s just not a lot you can make happen in that time frame. I fully enjoyed about the first quarter of the story. I’m not sure what happened to the rational thinking side of Pearl but her brain started malfunctioning to the level of a very young, immature girl. After missing the speech at the conference where she was supposed to meet Alexandre, Pearl heads across the street to a coffee shop to wallow in her misery by drinking overpriced coffee (her words, not mine). When she’s there she runs into Alexandre and Sophie but doesn’t tell them who she is because she’s going to pull some ‘Rachel from Friends’ thing - tell a lie and invent some ridiculous cover up. Why? Why? Why? YOU ARE A GROWN WOMAN PEARL, that wasn’t even cute when Rachel did it. I’m sure you’re not surprised when I tell you that Ross didn’t come save the day for her. She lost all credibility with me after that.

I never liked Alexandre. I don’t know if it’s cause he too French, but his self-righteous attitude just didn’t sit well with me. I have to share this line with you. Alexandre and Pearl are having a discussion about his company and what kind of charities they support. He tells her – “…All our charities are vetted to make sure they’re not linked with any upsetting practices. As long as any particular cancer research is not using animals to test on, that’s great.” Really Alexandre, so when your precious dog gets cancer what kind of research will you be happy with – testing on humans? Then there’s this whole thing about carbon footprint and all I could think about is – dude you’re in IT, you have a BIG carbon footprint so get off your high horse.

There were some side stories that I found to be much more interesting than these two, but they weren’t developed. Pearl’s only friend Denise was a breath of fresh air; she seemed to really care and tried to give words of wisdom to ease Pearl’s woes. I was also interested in Natalie, Pearl’s boss, who was dating Pearl’s long-lost Dad.  Sophie is straight crazy and Alexandre knows it, but can’t abandon family, right? – even when they do others harm (heavy on the sarcasm). Last but not least, there is Anthony, Pearl’s brother who she calls every week. Oh my, if he could have been more insensitive and uncaring, I think he might have volunteered to throw her in front of a bus and call her ‘girl friend’ while doing it.

The sex was heavy between these two but it didn’t seem to stem from anything but lust. For every challenge or issue in the relationship – sex was the answer, they didn’t speak about resolving the issue – let’s just have sex.

Overall, I can’t say that I enjoyed this one. The story wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me.

Happy reading folks!

Rating: C

*Book provided by author for review

Click to purchase: Amazon

Forty Shades of Pearl

by Arianne Richmonde

Release Date: August 22, 2012

Publisher: Mighty Publications