Review: Dark Wild Night (Wild Season #3) by Christina Lauren

Synopsis from Good Reads:

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…

Dark Wild Night is the third book in a series that I haven’t read. From what I gather, a group of friends went to Vegas and all ended up getting drunk and married. Two of the couples (from the first two books) are still married, but the two from this book, Oliver and Lola, only stayed married 12 hours. They are now, however, best friends and each other’s secret crushes.

The book started out pretty cute. Oliver is the owner of a comic book shop and Lola is an author of a graphic novel – which is getting made into a movie. I liked their nerdiness (though it was pretty downplayed). Even though I haven’t read the previous books, I really got invested in Oliver and Lola pretty much right away. Their friendship was great and the tension building up to them becoming a couple was very well done. I couldn’t make myself put the book down.

Where it lost me, though, is around the part where they became more. While there had been some lines in the book that made me roll my eyes a bit leading up to it, it was tolerable. However, it got extremely graphic and at times a little too crude. Sweet, sweet Oliver acted almost like a different person and while a little different I could deal with, I feel like it was taken too far. I also didn’t like that Lola had to get drunk in order to have any type of conversation about their relationship.

While I did like Lola overall, she did annoy me quite a bit. She behaved pretty childish throughout most of the book. While I understand her need for some space to get work done, the way she went about it was very frustrating. While I think Oliver was justifiably hurt, I think the way he responded was a little out of character, too. He knows her so well and could guess that she was going to freak out about things and I wish he would’ve been a little more steady when she did.

Overall, I’m a little torn about this book. I really did like so many of the moments and the relationship between Oliver and Lola. However, I felt that for me, personally, the multiple overly graphic scenes and language just kind of ruined it. If you’re into that kind of thing, though, you will probably really enjoy this book. I don’t think it’s necessary to read the first two books, though the other characters aren’t well developed here and I felt no connection with (or even real interest in) them. There’s also a character called “Not-Joe” that was never really explained. Based on the description of the other books, they sound like they involve a lot of the stuff that I didn’t like about this book, so I probably won’t read them. But…never say never.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2.5 Stars