Review Of Two Months And Three Days By Tatiana Vedenska
Young and innocent Arina met with oh-so-handsome, insanely rich Maxim when she visited a gallery while roaming around Moscow. They liked each other immediately, though at the first parts of the story they were still in denial about it (mostly it was Arina). But because of strong attraction, Maxim offered Arina a two-month long contract in exchange for a summer of romance with him in Berlin. There they had their sexcapades, and Arina learned along the way how dominating Maxim can be. Still, she couldn't help herself from falling in love with the man, who was very clear in the first place of his intentions, and that is to just own her body. Then they had to go to London for the family matters Maxim has, and when he had brought her to a place (which I could not describe in more details as it may be a spoiler), the realization hits her that she has to leave him as pleasure is already consuming her.
What I like about Two Months and Three Days by Tatiana Vedenska is that, in the first part of the story, Maxim was reasonable. He had tried to keep his distance from Arina because of the circumstances, and even gave her a choice to not accept his offer when he offered her to come along to Berlin. In fact, he gave her a lot of choices, even when they got in Berlin! He knew he'd be trouble, and he stayed true to his words because upon reading the story I realized how hopeless he is in love, and his dominating character knows no bounds! The Snow White (I also like it every time he calls Arina Snow White, it's his endearment for her and I feel giddy everytime I imagine him calling Arina that) photoshoot part made me sympathize for Arina and hate Maxim, seriously. In other words, I appreciate the author sticking to that idea and not "minimizing" Maxim's character just to be the "acceptable" lead man in readers' minds. But what I do not like about it is, first, the age gap between Arina and Maxim! Like, it's 10 freaking years! I know 29 years best suit Maxim's character but for a 19-year-old Arina, it was unacceptable. For me, you can still create an innocent character having the age of 21-23, and you still have the big age gap to emphasize Maxim's dominant character.
Another downside of the story, for me, is that Arina changes her character and mood a lot of times in the story. The reasonable woman she is, after all the thinking she had in the cab trying to get away from Maxim, became irrational in just a matter of minutes. Of course I understand that she really has to come with Maxim for the story plot to develop, but I would prefer it if she changes her mind for, let's say, at least 3 days after talking to him?
All in all, I give the book a rating of 2 out of 4 stars. I think some readers would like the plot and the steamy sex scenes in the story, but I thought it lacked romance at all. It was all sex for Maxim, and I do not like it every time he sees Arina and gets all aroused all over again, like, can't the first book of the series have some of it, the romance thing? I assume the next book will tackle more about the romance, as hinted by the last chapter of the story, but please, I think Arina deserved even a little bit of love in this book. Some would say that Maxim hinted about having feelings for Arina in some parts of the story but I think his character is so overpowered in my mind that everything he does and say in the story is pure dominance to me. But yeah, I did not dislike the book in general, I still would want to read the second book as I'd love to know how (or if) Maxim will fall in love for Arina.
