Sunday Story - book ratings

I've been reading Nothing Left To Lose by Kirsty Moseley this week. I'm pretty sure I picked it up as a free book, and I grabbed it because of it's cover and the high star ratings.

The start of this book is horrifying, shocking and fast.

Anna is 16 and loves Jack, her best friend. He organises fake ID and takes them to a club for her 16th birthday - which I didn't think much of until I realised this was America, and it's not a 2 year age jump but a 5 year age jump! (but anyway).

They meet Carter, a criminal, who takes a liking to Anna and Jack's not happy about this. But Carter always gets what he wants and kills Jack so he can have Anna. It's horrifying.

Then we jump three years and find out Anna was kidnapped and kept by Carter for 10 months. She's severely traumatised and is largely non-functioning. Completely understandable.

Ashton, a newly graduated SWAT officer, is assigned undercover duty as her body guard and pretend boyfriend.

Up until here I was riveted to the story.

The book is large, maybe 120K or so (I'm guessing here). From this point on, my imagination's being asked to stretch and sometimes it's a big stretch. (eg we're told her parents love her and she loves them ... but I can't ever see that love. They largely ignore her, they can't speak with her and she's free to do what she wants like exercise until she almost dies. They just don't notice her.)

Anna and Ashton are a cute couple and the writing is generally okay, so I kept going. There's lots of tension in the story - sexual, and tension about Carter harming Anna.

By about 1/3 into the story, I was waiting for something to happen. Anna and Ashton's relationship is a great read but the suspense is hanging heavy. I'm waiting.

By about halfway, I'm still waiting but I'm getting a bit bored because there's so much promise with the suspense and the tension, but nothing's happening. I could nearly have stopped reading here because I was frustrated...but the 5 star reviews convinced me that something would happen.

By 3/4 of the book, I'm really annoyed. It's still rolling along with nothing happening. Lots of promises not delivered upon. I started to believe it would be all 'fake' tension and nothing would happen at all.

And then there are 2 huge chapters (or maybe 3, it's not much out of 50-something chapters) where it's action aplenty.

Then we go back to Anna and Ashton and a 'nice' story, with the HEA.

I was left completely confused by a story that had such promise, and for me didn't deliver. But maybe my expectations were too high. It was a nice story. It had lots of tension and suspense. It was a romance. There were bits of action.

I went on Goodreads to see how others felt. This book has HEAPS of 5 star reviews. Most of the reviews are 5 stars. Then there are a few people who gave it 1 star and felt like I did. There weren't a lot of medium stars. It was a love it or hate it book.

I wouldn't give it 1 star - ever. It was a good story, well written, but I felt it needed to be cut down to keep the action happening. But then why? I wanted action and delivery. Hundreds of other people loved it exactly as it is. And that's what confuses me. Obviously my taste isn't like the majority - but there are people with similar taste to me.

And that's what ratings are about - personal opinion. Makes the world interesting, huh? :)

Have you read this book? Have an opinion on book ratings?