Review & Giveaway: SHAMELESS by Nina Lemay

*Nina Lemay is hosting a tour-wide $20 Amazon Gift Card Rafflecopter Giveaway [INT].

Title: Shameless
Author: Nina Lemay
Publishing Date: August 18, 2014
Buy Links: Amazon

~New Adult Contemporary Romance — recommended for mature readers~

Girls like me don’t get happy endings.

I know what I am. At worst a cliché, at best a cautionary tale. I put an international border between me and my past, only to wind up working in a low-end titty bar. Even my excuse is as lame as it gets: I’m paying for college, getting my art degree from Montreal’s most prestigious school. Although some days it becomes confusing: am I just a student who moonlights as a stripper, or a stripper who masquerades as a student?

But the inevitable happens and my two lives collide. And now there’s one other person who knows both the quiet, antisocial Hannah and the sensual, shameless Alicia. One person who keeps my secret.

He’s beautiful, he’s sophisticated. He comes from the other side of life, the one where I’m not wanted or accepted. But he calls me la petite Américaine, and his hot, hot hands on my skin promise me things I long ago gave up on.

The problem? He teaches my Classic Photography class.

This is a standalone novel, no series, no cliffhanger.

My Review:

I was really intrigued by the blurb of the book and Hannah’s voice and the first person POV make you want to read more about her life.

What worked for me?

This was such a refreshing take for a book that tackles stripping as a source of living, as a job. I think there’s a lot of connotations and perceptions about this ‘world’ or this environment and that it’s mostly from seen from a negative viewpoint: how it seems immoral to want to strip for a living or how people who are doing this for a living are perceived in a negative light and so they are treated in the worse possible ways. But this book, told from Hannah’s POV brings to light the other side of things, the perspective of one who’s not the spectator but who’s the ‘star’ of the show, a first-person account of what it means to live when your source of employment is taking off your clothes and dancing: how her job is her job but that doesn’t mean it defines all of her, how important it is to accept yourself for who you are and what you can do and not be defined by what other people see you as or what they think of you.

I really appreciate Hannah’s strength and the firmness of her character. She’s not perfect and, as a normal human being, she also makes mistakes or makes the wrong decisions like the rest of us. But I love that she learns to stand up for herself, that her decisions to what to do in her life is her own, and that these decisions, although they might have been influenced by other people, are ones she does for herself, first and foremost, and not for other people, even for the man she loves. And I think that’s a really powerful message. It doesn’t mean that if she loves herself, she loves her man any less.

It was great to follow Hannah’s journey. You can’t help but be with her every step of the way. There were painful moments, that’s for sure. And you just want to push her forward, support her, until she can stand at the end of the road, triumphant over all the hardships she’s had to endure.

I’m all for romance and Hannah and Emmanuel did have a lot of chemistry together. And I also appreciated the development of that part of the story. But for me, this book was really about Hannah coming into her own, which I loved most about this story.

And I absolutely loved Nina Lemay’s writing style. She’s definitely become of the authors-to-watch for me.

What did not work for me?

I just had a minor issue with Emmanuel. I mean, he’s obviously a good guy and of course I love that he also truly loves Hannah. But there were those moments in the book where I’m also questioning his true intentions towards Hannah. But he did have his saving moments and I also loved that he was a flawed character as well. If he was super perfect, I would not have bought the whole love story. But he wasn’t and that just makes him more of a match for Hannah than anything else.

My over-all take on it?

This was such a refreshing story and it brings to light important observations on human nature and on social acceptance as well as brings to the forefront certain realizations that I think were very enlightening, such as never judge a person just because of the type he or she has, prejudices and negative preconceptions can cut you and other people deeply, and shame… shame is for those who do not know how to respect other people.

My rating:

Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. Yes, these are my honest and personal thoughts on this book.

About the Author:

Nina Lemay is a YA writer by day and author of sinfully twisted New Adult…well, also by day. She loves all things dark and edgy and never tires of tormenting her characters. While Nina is a fan of all things scary, Gothic, and fantastic, she doesn’t shy away from a gritty contemporary romance when the muse strikes. She lives in Montreal, a city that never fails to inspire, with her partner and her dog.