Book Review: Wallbanger (Cocktail #1) by Alice Clayton

(Blurb): The first night after Caroline moves into her fantastic new San Francisco apartment, she realizes she's gaining an intimate knowledge of her new neighbor's nocturnal adventures. Thanks to paper-thin walls and the guy's athletic prowess, she can hear not just his bed banging against the wall but the ecstatic response of what seems (as loud night after loud night goes by) like an endless parade of women. And since Caroline is currently on a self-imposed dating hiatus, and her neighbor is clearly lethally attractive to women, she finds her fantasies keep her awake even longer than the noise. So when the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts Simon Parker, her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. The tension between them is as thick as the walls are thin, and the results just as mixed. Suddenly, Caroline is finding she may have discovered a whole new definition of neighborly...

Book Information:

Publisher: Omnific Publishing, November 2012

Age group: New Adult/Adult

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Length: 384 p

Review:

This is not a gratuitous sex book. Upon reading the synopsis I wasn't quite sure that this would be a book that I was in the mood for at the moment. But I took some time to read the most helpful reviews and thought that I would really like it. I didn't just like it - I LOVED it!

The first thing that stuck out from page one was the humor. This is very much a book that relies on its secondary characters as much as its main characters, and Alice Clayton can write internal dialogue and group conversations very naturally; giving each character its own...well, character. Sometimes group conversations in a book can be a turn off because they get monotonous, confusing, and contain unnecessary or repetitive information, Not in Wallbanger. I actually looked forward to the times when Caroline and Simon were with their four friends because it brought out a hilarious and informative background on everyone. A couple of times the internal dialogue was done in a That 70's Show fashion where you felt like you were spinning from one character to the next and they each had one thought to describe a peculiar situation. It had me laughing out loud many times.

The build up between Caroline and Simon is perfect in an off the beaten path way. Too many times these types of stories play out the same; someone plays hard to get, the other is damaged goods, and in one picture perfect climax (of whichever kind...) something perfectly clicks and you have the fairy tale romance. Not in Wallbanger. There's a love-hate neighborly acquaintance, that turns to friendship. And Simon and Caroline both have their issues, but they're not deeply-rooted, traumatic issues. They're pretty superficial issues, but they're realistic and understandable. It's all a nice change of pace in the New Adult/Adult Contemporary Romance department.

Overall, Alice Clayton has a beautiful set of tools that she pulls out to approach different situations with various writing styles and it pulls together beautifully. If your looking for a RomCom, with some Dram, and yes, there is some devastatingly hot sex (but in due time), then Wallbanger is the book for you.