Review: Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

Goodreads Summary: Caroline Reynolds has a fantastic new apartment in San Francisco, a KitchenAid mixer, and no O (and we’re not talking Oprah here, folks). She has a flourishing design career, an office overlooking the bay, a killer zucchini bread recipe, and no O. She has Clive (the best cat ever), great friends, a great rack, and no O.
Adding insult to O-less, since her move, she has an oversexed neighbor with the loudest late-night wallbanging she’s ever heard. Each moan, spank, and–was that a meow?–punctuates the fact that not only is she losing sleep, she still has, yep, you guessed it, no O.
Enter Simon Parker. (No, really, Simon, please enter.) When the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. Their late-night hallway encounter has, well, mixed results. Ahem. With walls this thin, the tension’s gonna be thick…
In her third novel, Alice Clayton returns to dish her trademark mix of silly and steamy. Banter, barbs, and strutting pussycats, plus the sexiest apple pie ever made, are dunked in a hot tub and set against the gorgeous San Francisco skyline in this hot and hilarious tale of exasperation at first sight.

Goodreads / Amazon

Genre: Adult, Romance
Pages: 384
Publisher: Omnific publishing
Source: Library

First Line: "Thump." 

Favorite Quote: "He was wooing me. And I was letting him woo. I wanted the woo. I deserved the woo. I needed the wow that would surely follow the woo, but for now, the woo? It was whoa."

Review: 

I remember seeing this up on Fanfiction.net quite some time ago. I used to really like reading Twilight fanfiction, and this was definitely one of the most popular ones, along with The Office and Emaciation Proclamation (both of which are also now published). I never read past the first chapter then, so thankfully I didn't have a major case of deja vu while reading Wallbanger. Honestly, though, if I hadn't known about this stories' previous origin, I never would have known it because the characters and obviously the world are nothing alike. I guess I could tell which character used to be a Twilight one, but aside from that I think the publishers changed everything around pretty well. Mostly I just decided to pick it up because lately I've been reading a slew of books with dark themes, so I wanted something on the lighter side. I'm really glad I ended up picking this one because there were many moments I found myself smiling or laughing. I really hate the cover, though. I didn't notice until someone pointed it out, but his arms look like they end in her legs. And if I look at it that way, my brain starts to hurt.

This novel follows an interior designer named Caroline, and she lives next to a guy who constantly bangs on her walls due to his numerous sexual escapades. Along with keeping her up at night, it's also especially frustrating for Caroline because these past few months, she has lost her O. She's tried to get it back and failed several times. I found Wallbanger fairly easy to read - the humorous way it was written allowed me to breeze through the pages very quickly. I will admit that the ending dragged a little; I feel like they could have cut or shortened the last third of the book easily. I liked it in the beginning when Simon and Caroline were enemies because their arguments were funny - but their banter when they were friend was amusing as well. Although I usually laughed at Caroline or something she did, sometimes I laughed at her cat, Clive. I've never actually seen a cat behave the way he does, but then I'm not around cats a lot so I can't say how much of it was actually realistic, but his antics were ridiculous and sometimes hilarious.

I kind of wish the enemy stage between the main couple would have stretched out a bit longer, but I also appreciate the fact that they remained friends for a long time rather than just jumping into bed. It would have made the end result a lot less satisfying, and I wouldn't have believed it since Caroline was a little nervous, given the loss of her O. As with most romance novels, the side characters were not a big focus of the story. However, I really liked Caroline's best friends, Sophia and Mimi, and their love interests as well. Though I have to admit to rolling my eyes pretty hard when they both met their dream men at the same party on the same night. It was way too convenient and kind of cheesy.

Despite my small complaints with this one, overall I can say that my expectations for it were easily met and I don't regret picking it up one bit. The best part of the whole thing for me was probably the scenes where there were just text messages, and the one chapter that's completely devoted to allowing the reader to see exactly what each character is thinking about. Clayton did a good job in creating her male lead, Simon. He comes off as a jerk for a little while, what with his wallbanging habits and sleeping with three women (which Caroline calls his "harem"). We find out later on that he's actually very sweet and probably the best guy for her to end up with. I was glad when Caroline came to her senses after going on a date with her ex, James. She didn't need someone constantly belittling her talents, but rather someone who appreciated her more as a person. Simon does all that, plus he gets to travel  a lot with his job as a photographer, and apparently he is also extremely hot, so that never hurts. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes to laugh, and doesn't mind when the last chapter of the book is in the point of view of a cat.

4 stars

Books in this series:
1. Wallbanger 
2. Rusty Nailed
3. Screwdrived
4. Mai Tai'd Up 

Other Opinions: 

Effortlessly Reading
Justin's Book Blog
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