In the Dark by Monica Murphy ♡♡♡♡

In the Dark by Monica Murphy is the second book in The Rules series. I loved the first book, Fair Game, and I felt pretty good about this book.

In the Dark tells the story of Lucy and Gabe. Lucy is spending her summer at the beach house sitting, and her next door neighbor, Gabe, is hot as hell and completely irresistible. The only problem is they live in different states, and Lucy isn't the rich kid Gabe believes her to be. They're all up for a summer fling, but when their paths collide again in the fall, things start to change.

This boom started as a sort of naughty beach read for me. Then things got serious in the middle, which was a good change of pace. For the most part, I really enjoyed seeing these characters learn to share themselves with each other.

The two things I didn't enjoy were some skinny shaming and a few instances where the characters talked directly to the reader. The skinny shaming was reasonable for Lucy's character, as she is self conscious, but since Gabe admit her normally slept with pretty much any girl he could, it seemed out of place. Also, I think it's important to say that being healthy is what's important, not looking a certain way, so I was disappointed by Gabe referring to a skinny girl as a "bag of bones". Talking directly to the reader just pulled me out of the story.

Even with my complaint about the skinny comment, I really did love this story. I stayed up late and got up early to read this book. There was a bit of laughter and a decent amount of crying. And I'm really looking forward to getting Tristan's story in November. He is the character I feel is the least redeemable, so I'm interested in being proven wrong.

Have you started The Rules series? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Here's the blurb from the publisher:

Stuck spending the summer with his screwed up family, Gabriel Walker is bored out of his mind and looking for an adventure. And he seems to find it with the hot girl who lives next door. The attraction between them is instant. Electric. Soon they’re spending every stolen minute together. Talk about the perfect summer fling…Lucy isn’t what she seems. She doesn’t live next door—she’s the girl who’s been hired to house sit for the summer while the family goes on a worldwide vacation. If Gabe wants to believe she’s a spoiled rich girl looking for some fun, she can go along with that. After the summer, she’ll never see him again.They don’t count on running into each other at college. Now Lucy must keep up the pretense of being a rich girl—and it’s exhausting. She knows she’s falling in love with Gabe and she’s scared he feels the same. Will he still care about her when he discovers the truth? 

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