Review: Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston

Every time I pick up a Shelly Laurenston novel, I know I’m going to laugh. I am so in love with her world of arrogant, over the top shifters. They delight in violent behavior and irritating others. They have no shame and are completely at home in their lust. Really, what’s not to love? Especially when you throw in a large dose of immature humor. 😉

Going into this book, I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it quite as much as I have some of the other ones in the series since Cella is friends with Dee-Ann, the heroine of Big Bad Beast, who I did not like very much. I didn’t get to see that much of Cella in BBB, but I was afraid that she would be similar to Dee-Ann since they were friends. Luckily that wasn’t the case. In fact, Dee-Ann and Cella are the kind of friends where it’s hard to tell if they actually like each other or not. They grate on each other and get into honest to God fist fights. At one point Cella tells Crush

”Don’t try to understand our friendship,” she said to Crush without looking up from her paper. “Just accept it.”

and I think that’s good advice. Actually, that’s good advice for a lot of the friendships in this series. 🙂

I’ve seen Crush infrequently during the series but I never knew much about him beyond the fact that he’s a polar bear. It was so fun getting to know him! He was so orderly and resistant to change, and his obsession with hockey was downright adorable—especially because the players he worshipped did not include Cella, much to her irritation. Poor Crush finds himself moved to the special shifter division of the police and partnered with Dez, from The Mane Event, much to his despair—like I said, the poor guy doesn’t like change. His chemistry with Dez is great and it was fun getting to see them snipe at each other. Plus, it gave us a nice chance to discover some previously unknown information. Who knew that polar bears would become so angry over being offered a honey bun? 😛

After waking up naked with Crush in the beginning of the book (a hilarious scene), Cella becomes determined to loosen him up. Just like any cat with a secret attachment, she delights in annoying Crush and burdening him with her presence. She torments him in front of his coworkers and likes to tell everyone that they’re dating, even when they’re not.

”Why don’t you just say you don’t know how to deal with a nice guy?”

“I know I don’t know how to deal with a nice guy. That’s why I’ve been torturing the man every time I’ve seen him. But I don’t feel like torturing him at the moment. I feel like shooting him in the head.”

“Do you ever have small emotions, Cella? Little ones? That don’t involve either sex or death?”

“I’m a tiger. I’m either fucking or killing something. I can’t be all sitting up in a tree, lounging around like you people.”

But that’s just Cella for you. She just slowly works her way under your skin until one day you realize you’re in love with her. Of course, sometimes it takes a while to get to that point. Until then you’re just stuck being put into awkward situations and being conned into pretending to be her boyfriend.

I absolutely loved how completely unimpressed Crush was by Cella’s antics. He was flustered and befuddled at times, but for the most part he regarded her as something he was determined to escape.

“I’m trying to figure out if you’re just a dick or if you’re really an uptight, over-thinking good guy?”

“How about I make the decision for you.”

Crush stepped around her and walked out, determined to get away from this insane feline. And, as the door closed behind him, Crush heard her bark, “Well I guess it’s just you being a dick then, huh?”

It was fun watching him be so relentlessly cornered. His irritation with her also gave us a nice opportunity to watch their friendship slowly develop before they did anything about their attraction. Speaking of friendships, we also got to see Novikov (from Beast Behaving Badly) get a friend. Shocker, I know. 😀 Novikov and Crush’s unlikely friendship was one of my favorite parts of the book. It was just so unexpected and adorably awkward. I mean, Novikov is not the easiest guy to get along with, yet both Crush and Cella do. That right there tells me that they were made for each other.

The only thing that kept this from being an A book was the suspense portions of the book. I didn’t really care about those parts and was more interested in getting back to the humor and drama of the other characters. But that’s just me. I’d rather just read about the antics of the shifters without all the rest of it getting in the way. Maybe that’s why I loved The Beast in Him so much. Regardless, I had a blast reading the book and can’t wait for the next one.

Favorite Quote:

“KZS is made up of cats. In general, we’re a lazy species. So we don’t do what you’d call actual”–she made air quotes with her fingers–“‘investigations’.”

“Then what do you do?”

“Someone says, ‘I’m thinking they’re a problem’…and then they send one of us in to eliminate the problem.”

Scowling, the bear demanded, “You do that for every situation? Even nonlethal ones?”

“Oh, God, no! Of course not. If you just irritate us, then we just come to your house and pee all over everything.” She shrugged. “Sometimes shit in your shoes.” When the bear only stared at her with his mouth open, Cella quickly added, “Not me, though. I’ve never done that. Not ever. Because it’s…it’s…” She thought a moment. “It’s ‘morally‘ wrong.” She smiled, proud of herself for remembering the phrase.

“Did you just air quote morally?”

Not sure how to answer that, she said, “Just for clarity?” Probably would have sounded more believable without making it a question, but God, the bear had so many damn rules! How was she supposed to keep track of so many damn rules?

“I don’t think I want to hear any more,” he said.

Rating: B+
Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston
March 27th 2012 by Brava
Tempting Teaser
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Also reviewed by:
The Book Pushers
Ramblings From A Chaotic Mind
Love To Read For Fun