Book Review: Dark Wild Night by Christina Lauren + Playlist

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Dark Wild Night
Wild Seasons #3
Author: Christina Lauren
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Romance
Released: September 15th 2015
Review Source: Gallery Books

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But what didn't happen in Vegas seems to follow them everywhere.

Lola and Oliver like to congratulate themselves on having the good sense to not consummate their drunken Las Vegas wedding. If they’d doubled-down on that mistake, their Just Friends situation might not be half as great as it is now.

... Or so goes the official line.

In reality, Lola’s wanted Oliver since day one—and over time has only fallen harder for his sexy Aussie accent and easygoing ability to take her as she comes. More at home in her studio than in baring herself to people, Lola’s instinctive comfort around Oliver nearly seems too good to be true. So why ruin a good thing?

Even as geek girls fawn over him, Oliver can’t get his mind off what he didn’t do with Lola when he had the chance. He knows what he wants with her now ... and it’s far outside the friend zone. When Lola’s graphic novel starts getting national acclaim—and is then fast-tracked for a major motion picture—Oliver steps up to be there for her whenever she needs him. After all, she’s not the kind of girl who likes all that attention, but maybe she’s the kind who’ll eventually like him.

Sometimes seeing what’s right in front of us takes a great leap of faith. And sometimes a dark wild night in Vegas isn’t just the end of a day, but the beginning of a bright new life...

** This is an Adult romance novel recommended for ages 18+ due to sexual content and mature subject matter.**

Whenever a new Christina Lauren book comes into my possession I barely have it in my hands for 24 hours before it gets read. I cannot and will not let it sit idly on my shelf unread, such blasphemy. This kick ass duo does it again with Dark Wild Night and continues to put a permanent blush on my cheeks.

Lola and Oliver are just friends, at least that’s what they keep trying to tell themselves, but ever since their drunken Vegas wedding neither of them can keep the other off their brain. So while they’re both busy ignoring the signs that they are both madly in love with each other they work on staying in the friend zone and having an amazing friendship and blah blah blah. Okay it wasn’t blah, but it’s perfect actually, the tease of knowing how bad each other wants one another and just waiting for it to happen and while we wait we actually get a sense of who the characters are. I’ve read a ton of New Adult/Adult romances and my issue that always comes up is not getting to know our characters, they never seem to build much of themselves outside of the bedroom. CLo’s characters all get real life situations, they deal with things everyone deals with and that is why I love these books. I fall for these characters because they become someone I can relate to, especially Lola. She just published her first comic book which took off with a bang, and is already on its way to becoming a major motion picture. She deals with the feminism that women face daily in Hollywood and in everyday life and she’s having a hard time dealing with it all. Life becomes overwhelming at times and it’s hard to balance everything and keep your head on straight. And then sweet, geeky, sexy Oliver is always there for Lola. He helps her through her overwhelming meetings, deadlines, and he’s there for her when her best friends are busy forging their path in life. Their friendship is strong and they get scared on taking it to the next level because they don’t want to ruin what they’ve built, they’ve become each other’s crutch. But when they do take it to the next level someone needs to turn up the AC because boy does it get hot! Honestly though, if you’ve read anything by these girls, you know they know how to make us blush tenfold.

“She leans in, looking at my eyes so closely as if searching for a stray eyelash, to steal a wish. Her gaze swims a little, but I like tipsy Lola. She cracks out of her shell and looks at the world around her. Right now I want to be that entire world. I want to be all she sees.” 

Ultimately I will shame you for not having read anything by Christina Lauren, and if you have, let’s be best friends. Because if you love kick ass chicks, swoon worthy men, and a great story line, these books are what you need to read. Seriously though, these books are one sitting books, you can’t stop, there’s never a good time to set it down. I try to read before going to bed and then it’s like 5 am, my alarms about to go off and I know I’m screwed for the day, but it was worth it. And that’s why coffee was invented for the book readers that just cannot put their books down.

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A Message from Christina Lauren:

Doing a playlist for each book has been one of my favorite things in the preparing-to-write phase. But with Dark Wild Night, there was one song that, every time I heard it, I thought of Lola and Oliver. Christina doesn’t write to music, but even she agrees it just feels like them.

That song is Ho Hey by the Lumineers. It’s the pacing, and the melody, and the calm of it – it has Loliver written all over it, and the first time we wrote the book, I listened to it on a loop while writing Lola’s chapters.

And then we rewrote the book (it wasn’t quite right the first time around) and I needed something to add to that song to make it feel different the second time. So, the second song for Dark Wild Night was Riptide by Vance Joy.

Both of these songs, whenever I hear them, just make me feel so nostalgic for Lola + Oliver. We are so excited for this book to be in readers’ hands, and hopefully when people hear these songs after they’ve read, they know exactly what I mean!!

Happy Reading!!

Xx

Lo