The First Affair: A Novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

(Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book.)

about book:

Jamie McAlister has resigned herself to the fact that in this job market, her painfully expensive degree might only get her a position at Starbucks, when she suddenly lands a prestigious internship at the White House. Although she doesn’t hit it off with the other interns—lockjaws who come from so much money that ten weeks without a paycheck doesn’t faze them—she is eager to work hard and make the best of the opportunity while it lasts.

An unexpected encounter late one evening with the charismatic President Gregory Rutland seems like just a fleeting flirtation, but when he orchestrates clandestine meetings and late-night phone calls, their relationship quickly escalates. Jamie knows what she is doing is wrong: he’s married, he has kids, he’s the President. Yet each time she tries to extricate herself, Greg pulls her back in.

With the conflicted desires of the most powerful man in the world driving her to her breaking point, Jamie can’t help but divulge intimate details to those closest to her. But she must have confided in the wrong person, because she soon finds herself, and everyone she cares about, facing calculated public destruction at the hands of Greg’s political enemies, and—perhaps no matter how much he cares about her—at the hands of Greg himself.

my thoughts:

I love beach reads.  Fun, summer reads that are light and easy to get lost in.  Chick lit, women's fiction, New Adult, or whatever these types of books are called - I enjoy them.  They are my fluff books - the ones that I devour rather quickly and then forget all about.  Although now that I think about it, lad lit and crime thrillers and suspense novels fit the bill, too. Hmmm.  I'm thinking Dan Brown is the epitome of a fluff book, but I digress.  My point is that I love these types of books - they are my go-to read during the summer and when I'm in the midst of a reading funk.  However, I do not enjoy badly written or extremely ridiculous beach reads - those are the worst!  Unfortunately for me, The First Affair fell under the latter category.

This book was just not good.  It was crazy ridiculous.  We have a young woman interning at the White House.  She's just graduated from college and missing all the comforts of dorm life, keggers, and final exams.  All of her friends are at new jobs trying to make names for themselves, and all of her fellow interns are eager to do the same.  Jamie is undecided - sort of.  Anyhow, her life gets complicated rather quickly when she starts having an affair with Greg, aka POTUS (President of the United States).  They wind up kissing and the next thing you know, they are meeting up in his office for bogus meetings.  Promising to keep her mouth shut, Jamie of course tells her best friend, her new best friend, and her boss.  Yep, she spills the beans and soon enough someone else is spilling the beans.  Only thing is, that before the affair makes headlines, Jamie accuses Greg of holding her back in her career and demands he help her land a new job - which he does (but that all goes downhill rather quickly).  This demand gets taken as Jamie trading sex for job security and that makes the whole affair an even bigger scandal.  Tabloids run stories, her family loses their home, friends testify, and life for Jamie is forever changed.  Sounds pretty great, doesn't it?  Well, its not.  Nope, this story is full of ridiculous dialogue and unbelievable behavior.  Plus, a lot of the scenes appear to be too similar to the whole Clinton/Lewinsky affair - its rather annoying (instead of a stained dress, its a coat; and instead of a cigar its a hairbrush handle).  Suffice it to say, this book was a disappointment.  I found myself wishing I hadn't requested it off NetGalley in the first place.

Oh well, they can't all be great books, right?

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.