Wallbanger by Alice Clayton has been on my TBR list for years now and I finally got around to reading it. I'm happy to say it was worth the wait. While Wallbanger wasn't perfect, it was still pretty darn charming. The romance was sweet and steamy and there's a cat with the personality of a person. I mean... what's not to love? 
 Alice Clayton's writing style was interesting. This is mainly told through the usual novel format but there are also text message exchanges and scenes where the characters are engaging in nonverbal dialogue. By nonverbal I mean there's a chapter that takes place during a very long, awkward car trip and the focus switches between all the characters individual thoughts. It was really an interesting experiment in storytelling and it paid off. It could have easily gotten off the rails but in the end it became of my favorite chapters. 
 The thing that kept this from being a perfect book for me was some of the references feeling out of place. At times I wasn't really sure what time period this was supposed to take place in because the pop culture references used are very outdated. For example, Caroline attempts to masturbate to George Clooney in his ER days. If this was taking place in perhaps the early 2000's then the references would have been really apt. However, I think it takes place in 2012ish with a 25 year old character. I was also 25 in 2012 and I don't know anyone that was my age that would do that or reference the same kinds of things they do. The out of date references made this feel like an older author was writing younger characters but not updating the pop culture to match the setting. 
 "He was wooing me. And I was letting him woo. I wanted the woo. I deserved the woo. I needed the wow that would surely follow the woo, but for now, the woo? It was whoa." 
 Fun fact about me: I've never seen an episode of Gilmore Girls. But, I have seen people make spoofs about Gilmore Girls. The dialogue's cadence in this is very similar to the dialogue I hear in those spoofs and therefore, probably pretty similar to Gilmore Girls. It was strangely immature but at the same time incredibly conversational. The natural way the characters spoke gave an air of realism to the story because the characters spoke how people actually speak. People don't always talk in coherent, complete sentences. This was just a small detail about the writing style that I noticed and felt like I wanted to highlight... 
 As for the romance and smut... this one is a pretty slow burn. There's tons of banter and sexual tension all throughout the story but Caroline and Simon don't actually have sex until almost the very end of the book. However, after they get that first time over with they proceed to pretty much bang each other's brains out for the remainder of the book. They make up for lost time in a big way! I was ok with waiting for the "happy ending" so to speak. The focus of the story is on their relationship and their love for each other. On a refreshing note: Neither of them is super messed up about relationships. There's no "dark pasts" to overcome here. We just get to see two people become friends and fall in love. It was really very sweet. 
 I really rooted for Simon and Caroline because they were incredibly likeable characters. Simon in particular was a fantastic male romantic lead. He's a man who actually likes women. He never spoke disparagingly about women or spoke in a belittling way to them. I love me a man who's not a sexist pig! Caroline kind of lived in her own fantasy world. She kept referencing all of her inner facets (ie: heart, nerves, vagina, etc...) as if they were all separate people living inside of her. It sometimes left me feeling like she was a bit immature but then she would turn things around and I would start loving her all over again. There's a great supporting cast in this as well and the best member of it was Clive, Caroline's house cat with a huge personality. Clive was the best! He acts as if he has a person's personality but definitely thinks like a cat at the same time. I'm not doing a good job of explaining him but it was like as if a person could only communicate through using the same rationale as a cat. That doesn't make any sense either... nevermind. Clive is dope. Let's just leave it at that. 
 So while Wallbanger did have some things that needed improvement, it had enough going on in the story department to make it a fun read. We had likeable characters engaging in a sweet romance and also some very steamy smut. It had everything it needed to have except for up to date pop culture references. This was a fun read and I would definitely pick up something else from Alice Clayton.