Kiss The Girl by Tara Sivec

Romantic Comedy. 3rd in a series of standalones.

I can’t get over the creativity of The Naughty Princess Series by Tara Sivec. While you don’t have to, I highly suggest you read the books in order. I loved At The Stroke of Midnight, but I never saw Cinderella, so I didn’t catch all the clever little details Tara worked in. I recently saw the live action Beauty and the Beast, so when I read In Bed with The Beast I was really able to pick out all the inventive similarities in Belle’s book. Well, being a mom of boys, and already an adult when The Little Mermaid came out, I never saw that movie either. Sadly it is in the Disney Vault, so I had to work for it but finally borrowed a copy from a friend. I am SO GLAD I did because I just can’t get over all of the adorable similarities that Tara worked into Kiss The Girl.

“Fairy tales don’t happen in real life. Shit. Forget I said that. They happened to both of my friends. Let’s just say they don’t happen to me and I’m fine with that. F-I-N-E, fine.”

Ariel is the tough, brash, wild one of the three women who open an at-home stripping business together. I’ve said it from the beginning, this series is like Bad Moms meet Disney Princesses (even though only one is a mom).

See the one on the right? Well, that would be Ariel.

“Then for the love of God, why in the actual fuck are you calling me? Hang up and text me like a normal person or I will slit your throat.”

This is typical Ariel, and Eric is totally into the prickly beauty. Ariel ‘hates’ him, yet she has a tough time not smelling him and getting goosebumps when he’s around.

“I am not a woman who needs to be saved by a man. I am not a woman whose heart goes all aflutter when a hot guy shows her attention. Especially a hot guy like Eric, with his annoying flirting and boy-next-door charm.”

But when her house gets foreclosed on with all of her precious antiques inside, Ariel’s tough exterior starts to crack, and Eric Sailor was right there to pick her right back up.

“Seeing you broken and hurting and sad is like having someone stick a fucking knife in my chest. I don’t like it. So I’m pissing you off because it brings me great joy to see you fired up.”

Ariel had a lot more behind her brusque personality than we knew. That mouth covered some MAJOR insecurities and self-esteem issues, and it was wonderful to see Eric give her some of that confidence back.

“I swear to Christ if you say you’re too heavy, I will walk you out on the deck and toss you overboard,” he mutters angrily, tightening his arms around my back and under my legs as he hugs me tighter to his chest, carrying me like I weigh no more than a feather. “You’re perfect. Everything about you is fucking perfect.”

I have a ridiculous amount of quotes from this book. From laugh-out-loud moments (Goga anyone?) to snarky one-liners (Crocs! lol!) amazing friendship moments, to wonderfully sweet moments. This book had it all. Eric was one of my favorite book boyfriends ever. The way he helped Ariel build herself up instead of doing it for her could not have been more perfect.

“You’re the rarest antique I’ve ever seen, and I want to spend the rest of my life making sure you know how perfectly imperfect and extraordinary you are.”

Tara did a great job wrapping this series up in the epilogue, and I’m so sad we won’t get Pocahontas or Frozen, because I just loved the little movie tie-ins, they were genius.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I loved the wonderful, supportive friendship between the women.

“In this day and age, it’s a beautiful thing to see women working together instead of trying to tear each other down.”

Likes:

Tara Sivec’s brand of snarky humor just totally works for me.
The clever tie-ins to the Disney movies (so many!). You don’t have to have seen the movies, but let me tell you, you really appreciate Tara’s creative gift more when you catch them all.
Eric. Sigh….he could not have been more perfect for Ariel. I loved the way he let her figure it out with his help. He was so patient and perfect.
How Tara was really able to address some important and emotional women’s issues in a fun way.
The friendship between the three women.
So many great quotes and snarky jokes I highlighted!
This was the most emotional of the three.
The series ending epilogue.

Dislikes:

There really isn’t anything I can think of!

The Down & Dirty:

Kiss The Girl is my favorite of the three books in the series, and that’s saying a lot because they are all 5 stars. Out of 125 books a year, only about 10 or less get 5 stars, but in this series all three did. The combination of Tara’s snarky, immature humor and hot and sexy fairytale romance with heart, mixed with tons of details from the Disney princess movies made this series one of the most creative I have read. Kiss the Girl kind of hit closer to home for me because I struggle with my self-esteem and I totally got Ariel. I loved seeing her start to heal with Eric. One of the things I enjoy so much about Tara’s romcoms are the friendships between the characters, and this series had it in spades. I want to be best friends with them! The Naughty Princess series is empowering, fun, sexy, romantic, and ridiculously clever. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

**AUDIOBOOK NOTE: I read the first book then listened and CJ Bloom could not have been a better narrator choice. I loved the way she had a different voice for each woman. I can’t wait to listen to the rest on audio as a re-read!