Official Review: Marry Your Billionare by C. J. Anaya

saturday+deviant · Post by **saturday+deviant** » 05 Feb 2016, 10:51

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Marry Your Billionare" by C. J. Anaya.]

3 out of 4 stars

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Marry Your Billionaire, written by CJ Anaya, is well written and held a good pace with its plot. I had minor issues with the way in which characters spoke, which I will go into detail further into the review, but those issues did not detract from how much I enjoyed reading this book. The consistent pace kept me engaged throughout the novel and made it easy to finish within three sittings.

Marry Your Billionaire is about a young woman, Madelyn Knightly, called Midge by her friends, who is finishing her Masters degree in English. Unfortunately, she looses her scholarship fund before her final semester and has no means to pay for it. Luckily, she is the daughter of a famous producer who just so happens to need a woman to fill in for a Bachelor-esque type of dating reality tv show. In exchange, he will give her access to her trust fund so she can pay for her degree. She comes onto the show thinking that she will only be inconvenienced for a day, but that plan is ruined when the bachelor in question, Brody Prescott, decides that he wants to pursue a REAL relationship with Midge. However, the other contestants don’t appreciate being pushed aside and someone is sending threatening messages to Midge trying to get her to leave the show and her chance at love.

“On the last step her shoe slipped from her foot and remained on the staircase, impeding her progress” (chapter 4)

There were a few things that I found entertaining about Marry Your Billionaire, including the fairy tale elements included in the plot, specifically elements to the story of Cinderella. There were a few scenes that come to mind, including: the glass slipper scene,as excerpted above, the Prince’s search for his princess paralleled through the reality TV show that both Brody and Midge take part in, and Midges' cocktail dress getting ripped to shreds by a jealous contestant.

I also enjoyed the perspective of the inner workings of reality tv and dating shows. And rather than having a heroine that wanted to be on the show, having Midge so opposed to the show and the concept of dating shows grabbed and held my interest throughout the book. However, I did not like some of her opinions on the women that did want to participate in dating shows like the one portrayed in the book., which I discuss further into this review.

Lastly, Anaya was able to create a fast paced plot, that didn’t slow at any point further into the novel. I will say that even though the plot starts right up with the first line of the novel, I wasn’t immersed into the story for the first few chapters. They felt more like they were there to dump a lot of information to get the reader caught up in the story, not too exciting. After that though, like I mentioned earlier in the paragraph, there was no stopping.

“A low blow, young lady. I’m beginning to think you’ve grossly misjudged me.” (chapter 3)

One if the persistent issues that I had when reading Marry Your Billionaire was the phrases said by the characters. Both Midge and Brody would occasionally say phrases like the one that I quoted, which did not feel genuine. Midge is 24 years old and Brody a little older, so I couldn’t picture someone in their twenties saying “young lady” and Midge feeling like that is appropriate. Especially when Brody was attracted to her; this phrase, which Brody uses on a few occasions when speaking to Midge, distanced the two characters. It felt as though Brody was from another era altogether. I understood that it was to create the Cinderella fairy-tale tone, but it was not necessary and did not work.

In fact, after reading the novel, I read the note from the author and the way in which those three pages were written felt exponentially better in prose than the entire book. It felt modern and unforced. The mild swearing and crude language sounded like something that a person like Midge should have talked like. Especially since she was raised in Hollywood and on movie sets.

This brings me to my next issue which was Midge’s negative views on women who were comfortable with showing their bodies and having autonomy over themselves. Since Midge generally reacted with comments like, “Just because my cleavage isn’t reaching my ears and my hind end isn’t exposed for all the world to see doesn’t mean I dress like a nun! It means I understand the difference between what’s classy and what’s trashy” (chapter 1), made me distance myself from her character and at times, I felt that she seemed prudish. Again, this type of characterization went against what I would have expected from someone that had been entrenched in the inner workings of Hollywood from birth.

Based on the fast pace, fairy elements, and unique point of view plot-wise, I would give Marry Your Billionaire by CJ Anaya a rating of 3 out of 4 stars. Even though I differed in opinion on a number of issues that Midge brought up throughout the book, I found the plot to be entertaining and at a few moments unexpected. It was overall, a good book that I would recommend to anyone who likes fairy tale retellings, watching reality dating shows, or just likes a good contemporary romance.

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Marry Your Billionare
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kimmyschemy06 · Post by **kimmyschemy06** » 17 Feb 2016, 06:37

I love fairy tale type of stories and I think I'm going to like this one. The plot sounds interesting and Midge seems like a likable character. Nice job on the review!