Paradise Book

Rate: 500 million stars

"If you'll kiss me back," he whispered huskily, brushing his lips along the curve of her jaw, "I'll make it six
million. If you'll go to bed with me tonight," he continued, losing himself in the scent of her perfume and the softness of her skin, "I'll give you the world. But if you'll move in with me," he continued, dragging his mouth across her cheek to the corner of her lips, "I'll do much better than that."
Unable to turn her face farther because his arm was in the way, and unable to turn her body because his body was in the way, Meredith tried to infuse disdain in her voice and simultaneously ignore the arousing touch of his tongue against her ear. "Six million dollars and the whole world!" she said in a slightly shaky voice. "What else could you possibly give me if I move in with you?" "Paradise." Lifting his head, Matt took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced her to meet
his gaze. In an aching, solemn voice he said, "I'll give you paradise on a gold platter. Anything you want' everything you want. I come with it, of course. It's a package deal." Meredith wallowed audibly, mesmerized by the melting look in his silver eyes and the rich timbre of his deep voice. "We'll be a family," he continued, describing the paradise he was offering while he bent his head to her again. "We'll have children ... I'd like six," he teased, his lips against her temple. "But I'll settle for one. You don't have to decide now."

AHHHH! This review probably won't make sense because I have so much to say about this book and right now I am just so incredibly emotionally overwhelmed to think straight.

First, Judith McNaught is officially my author of the moment. Her writing style is perfect for me and I've already planned to read all of her books (every one I can get me hands on). Since Lisa Kleypas, I haven't read many authors I've liked but now I've finally found one!

Okay. I don't know how to say this but this book was almost the most perfect thing I've ever read - an exciting, frightening, stressful, horrible, joyful, tearful, painful and satisfying rollercoaster of a read. I was so emotionally distraught and actually on the verge of a heart attack towards the end of the book that I had to skim through to the happy ending then I forced myself to go to sleep to get some rest before going back and re-reading the last 60 pages when I was a lot calmer the next day. I'm writing this to try and let you understand what this book did to me (I know I sound like a madwoman but all of this is true).

Although this book is contemporary the beginning reminded me so much of a historical romance and it really embodied what I love about historicals - the sweetest young love followed by a destructive heartbreak that is definitely reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. This novel is divided into 3 parts - 14-year-old Meredith, 18-year-old Meredith and 29-year-old Meredith. We follow her through childhood, adolescence and adulthood which makes Paradise seem like the book version of a TV series (for those of you who don't know, this book is 700+ pages which is really long for a romance novel). The length of the book allowed us to fully appreciate and understand the development of each character.

I would compare this book to a long journey - one that really makes you feel. I'll be the first to admit a lot of my feelings during reading this book weren't positive and it is for this reason I'm describing it as "almost perfect". I don't have complaints about the length of this book but there is no way you can start this book and not finish it before you go to sleep but because of its length, you're forced to spend the whole day and night reading which sort of fatigues you and you start to lose appreciation for it towards the end. I'd love to read this book again and I know that it will be a much less intense and more enjoyable experience.

I know I'm going to disappoint a lot of you when I say this, but Paradise came SO CLOSE to becoming my all-time favorite book and I was thinking it would definitely end up being number one when I read the beginning but in the end I just can't give the book that title. Even though it was beautiful I was so frustrated by Meredith too many times in the book and her lack of complete trust in Matt throughout most of the book had me knocking off small fractions of a star in its rating. That's really my only complaint. I would have liked to see Meredith show more faith in Matt and allow me to fully believe that she deserved him. She did in the end but her doubts before that left me slightly upset.

Matt was the perfect hero. He is the perfect man to lead this book and much of the book's perfection is cause of him. God I loved him so much and I found myself feeling wretched and heartbroken for him repeatedly. He got his happy ending in the end but I wished he didn't have to suffer so much for such large parts of the book. I really wished that Meredith would just trust him and love him always like he deserved to be loved.

On a concluding note, I still love this book with all my heart. Paradise is a story I'll be reading again for sure and I'm forever going to be glad I decided to give it a go. I'll definitely be looking forward to keeping y'all updated with what I think of her other books.