The Proposition by Katie Ashley

Have you ever wanted something so bad you think you’d die if you don’t have it? That the mere thought of it keeps you up at night. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you can’t drink. You are so consumed by that desire nothing else matters, and you’re not sure life is worth living if you can’t have it.

-from The Proposition by Katie Ashley

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Katie Ashley's The Proposition is the story of the great lengths female prototype Emma will do to get pregnant. After losing her fiance and her mother, Emma is so desperate for family that she's willing to do anything for a baby. This includes sleeping with a sexy chauvinistic guy from work, Aiden, who propositions Emma with his sperm so long as he can get her pregnant the old fashioned way. While Emma tries to protect her heart and think of their arrangement as physical only, she can't help but grow attached to the potential future father of her child.

I probably could have written this review before I even read the book because it was exactly what I expected and ended exactly the way I think anyone could imagine. This book was such a cliche I laughed much more than I swooned. The way Emma tries to protect herself and Aiden tries to pretend like he doesn't care about Emma wasn't even creative. I didn't even like either character, there was nothing that stood out about either of them to me. The author uses Emma's tragic history to make the reader feel bad for her, but this was such a sloppy way to try to force my feelings that I was mostly just annoyed by how stupid Emma was for wanting to bring a baby into the world for her own selfish loneliness and resented her way more than I felt sorry for her. There was nothing redeeming about this book, even the erotic parts were nothing notable.  The worst part about this book is how it perpetuates male and female stereotypes so horribly I was embarrassed by the content.

So why did I read it? I actually listened to the audio book during the last week leading up to my wedding and really needed something easy to take my mind off of all my stress. This was the only thing that met the bill available through my library and, for what it's worth, it definitely distracted me from all my stress! I don't regret reading it because of that, but I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone. Also, the narrative of the sexy scenes are so ridiculous in the narrator's monotone... I definitely don't recommend listening to romantic audio unless you want to laugh! While I knew what to expect with mindless romance, there are many mindless romances that can still get me to embarrassingly swoon. This was not one of them. I suppose if you really love contemporary romance you might be more forgiving, but this one was not for me.

Bottom Line: Boring, predictable, not even creative in the sexy department. The only memorable part about the characters is how annoying they are. The actual writing is fine and I wasn't enraged by it, so I don't feel right giving it only 2 Stars; but I disliked it enough not to give it 3... 2.5/5 Stars.