The List (List, #1)

by Tawna Fenske

[EBookObsessed]

Simon and Cassie have such fabulous chemistry. This story was both super sweet and sexy hot. It’s a decadent treat.
Simon and Cassie are so perfect in this story in their averageness. Their chemistry heats this story, but it is also a bit of their “average joe” life that makes it easy for the audience to associate with the characters and therefore, put ourselves into the story.

Cassie Michaels is the boring sister. She’s a character that all of us book geeks can empathize with. She is us and from the beginning she easily wins our heart. She knows that she is boring. She has a PhD in soil for God’s sake. She also knows that she doesn’t enjoy the same things as her sisters. She doesn’t care about marrying the perfect man, and wearing the right fashions, and being a perfect hostess. So she tells her sisters stories of her erotic escapades to get them off her back. Too bad they are all lies.

In the story Cassie has gotten into her current predicament while she was drinking just a little too much wine which she then spilled on her computer keyboard freezing it on her Fuckit List of stories she has told her sisters. If she hadn’t been telling lies in the first place, then she wouldn’t have had to write them down so she wouldn’t forget them when she sees her sisters and their friends at her sister’s upcoming bachlorette party. But really, are they lies or fantasies?

Cassie then meets Simon at the computer store when she brings in her laptop to see if there is any way to salvage it. Simon is your perfect geek fantasy. A former awkward brain who grew into his handsomeness, still wears his geek glasses, and now has rock hard abs to go with them. While Cassie can hope that he won’t notice the giant sex list frozen across the screen, there is no way Simon misses that. In fact, after the adorably awkward explanation from Cassie, Simon knows that he really, really would like to help her fix her computer problem and help her cross off all the items on her list.

We see that Cassie is the perfect match for Simon when in the opening scene a beautiful woman who isn’t very overt in her attention to Simon, gets the brush off. He isn’t interested in the gold diggers, no matter how on display they are, and the shy, barely put together Cassie is what catches his eye immediately.

Simon and Cassie take on the challenge of no-commitment sex in order to make true Cassie’s Fuckit List. In fact, they have so much fun at it, neither of them wants to finish the list. As the list grows shorter, will either of them have the courage to ask for more?

This story is much more than a simple erotic story. Yes, the underlying premise is to get from one erotic situation to the next, but more than that Simon and Cassie have such great chemistry. They laugh through some of the items or they can simply hang together while they make plans to cross off their next item. Under the guise of crossing off the list, they are a forging a wonderful bond. Unfortunately it is Simon’s fear that is the biggest obstacle for their future and the only downside to this story.

Simply put, Simon is an average guy who has become very successful. He is the owner of a chain of computer stores which keeps growing in the state. Simon has become rich and is getting richer. The former high school geek has also found that once the women he dates finds out just how much money he has, they decide that Simon is their key to a lavish lifestyle. Simon is more interested in taking care of his sister who has down syndrome. He has started a special work program in his stores for people with down syndrome and he advocates for health services for people like his sister. He prefers quiet weekend adventures with his sister, than partying the weekend away.

I think Simon’s fatal flaw was his inability to learn from his past failures and apply what he has learned to his new relationship. We have seen this flaw many times before. As they spend more time together, Simon comes to realize he doesn’t want to get to the end of The List. He likes Cassie but instead of recognizing the differences in her from the women he has chosen in the past, he focuses on how all those other women failed to look past his money. They didn’t want to spend time with his sister. This does nothing but highlight Simon’s inability to pick the right kind of woman or his inability to recognize what makes Cassie special.

He is also didn’t learn from his prior mistakes of introduced woman to his sister prematurely, rather than wait until he was certain of his own commitment to these women. Each time he breaks up with the gold digger, he sister keeps asking about the women he was dating.

I understand that as long as Simon doesn’t tell Cassie he has money, she can’t ruin his fantasy that she would be different from the other women who want Simon to pamper and indulge them. She can’t fail him, if he never gives her a chance to.

Instead of listening to Simon’s constantly growing lament about how he wished things could be different with Cassie. I would rather have seen him realize that she was different from his usual date. He can see that she is different than her own sisters who are more concerned with status and money, so why can’t he take that next step to understand that she isn’t like the other women he has dated. If he knew Cassie at all, she would be understanding of not hurting Simon’s sister and why Simon hesitated to tell her about his money. It doesn’t go so well for Simon, or Cassie, in the story when he is found out.

I thoroughly enjoyed Cassie and Simon and their exploits and just wish we didn’t have to listen to Simon lament so much, rather than just have him man up and give Cassie an opportunity to prove herself as better than the others.