Customer Reviews

Dirty Little Secrets

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Everyone has some dirty little secrets. But how would you feel if yours were about to be exposed?

Tyler Blake is in love with the idea of being in love. Starry eyed and naïve, she's looking for her Prince Charming to one day arrive and sweep her off her feet, to see fireworks, for the earth to move. Her fairy tale soon becomes a reoccurring nightmare as she goes from one bad relationship to the next, losing a bit of herself to each man. Can Tyler find the one love that she needs before it's too late? The one love that's she's had the power to possess all the time...self love. Or will she continue on the carousel of dysfunctional relationships placing the wants, needs and welfare of a man above her own?

Dirty Little Secrets is a novel that announces the welcome arrival of a truly fresh new voice. Loosely based on her life, Joy tells a riveting story while exploring the effects of physical and mental abuse. For a young woman, such wrenching experiences must have left a mark and Joy King, in this novel, leaves that mark with the reader.

Reading Dirty Little Secrets I couldn't help but think of Mary J Blige's "My Life" cd.
"How can I love somebody else
If I can't love myself enough to know
When it's time, time to let go...I just wanna be so, so, happy
But the answer lies in me."

And the answer did lie in Tyler Blake as it does in all of us. Sisters, be happy. Love yourself!

I saw this book at the library and checked it out. It's gotta be one of the best books I've ever read so I had to purchase a copy for my own personal collection. This book helped me to learn to love myself even more, and never let anyone, no matter how good looking or much money they have to dictate my freedom.

There was just something about this book that I did not like and I think I've figured out what it is... This is like a "self-help" book with a hypocritical main character. Tyler Blake was just completely AND totally screwed up. I wish the author hadn't told us that this was "loosely" based on her life.

That immediately made me wonder how true to life this story was/is. Tyler was a really messed up girl/woman because she kept making stupid decision after stupid decision after stupid decision AFTER stupid decision!! It's like she never learned anything. And she kept making excuses and it really sounded like the author was trying to justify her reason for writing this book that was based "loosely" on her life.

I started to give this book only "2" stars but gave it three because I really might pick this book for my book club. We could easily have a weekend discussion based on the character of Tyler and the men that she chooses to be with. The character/author writing was just filled with so many contradictions that it made reading this book very frustrating! But I guess that is what was meant to be conveyed. Tyler just really pissed me off and I was like "what is this woman going to do next"?

Ah well...

HI

I just received this book on Monday. After reading the first 5pages I realized it was a repint of her book
So Pretty... in Pink: In a World Filled with Deceit, Lust and Betrayal, Sometimes It's Nearly Impossible to Stay, 'so Pretty...in Pink. I really loved this book however it would have been nice to know this was the same book with a new title then I could have purchased a different book.

In Dirty Little Secrets, we meet Tyler Blake, a beautiful little girl who is pampered by her much-flawed mother, and raised to believe that the love of a "good" man is her birth right.

As Tyler enters her teenage years, she begins to desire the love of that "good" man that mother always told her about, and she sets out on a quest to discover it.

Because of Tyler's beauty, meeting men is NEVER a problem for her, it's just that the type of men she attracts are the scum of the earth brothers. Tyler is persistant, though. She doesn't give up just because this one uses and abuses her, this one beats her, this one controls her, that one is sexually aggressive with her, and that other one rapes her. After every unfortunate episode, she picks herself up, dust herself off and keeps it moving. Most of her new relationships are formed mere weeks (and sometimes only days) after the previous relationship ends. She is young, and naive, and never gives herself a chance to heal or truly evaluate what went wrong in each relationship. Tyler's the type who HAS to have a man. If she doesn't, she feels TOTALLY inadequate.

While Tyler did continuously make the same mistakes over and over again, I liked this book and her character. Whenever I felt the need to climb up on my soapbox and judge her, I would remind myself that during most of this book, she was a teenager. Although she grew up fast, and started having sexual encouters at a very young age, she was still just a baby, who was thrown out into the world with very little SOUND guidance.

This book was a fast read, with a great amount of drama, though most of the drama was repetitive (because she kept doing the same things OVER & OVER). I've enjoyed Joy/Deja King's other books, and I enjoyed this one, too. I would definitely recommend it to teenage girls, as a reference book for the terrible things that can happen to a young girl who has her eyes on the wrong prize.

THIS STORY INTRODUCES TYLER BLAKE. HER MOTHER RAISES HER WITH THE SELF IMAGE THAT SHE IS A PRINCESS AND SHOULD GROW UP TO MARRY A RICH MAN. HER MOTHER BASICALLY LEFT HER FATHER FOR A MAN THAT COULD PROVIDE THEM WITH THAT LAVISH LIFESTYLE. THE STORY TAKES YOU ALONG WITH TYLER AS SHE GROWS UP WITH EACH PAGE TURNED. SHE GOES THROUGH PLENTY OF BOYFRIENDS BUT NEVER REALLY ABLE TO ESTABLISH REAL LOVE WITH ANY. RUNNING FROM A BAD RELATIONSHIP TO A WORSE ONE. TYLER STRUGGLES TO FIND WHO SHE IS. WHILE HER PARENTS ARE CONCERNED WITH THEIR OWN AFFAIRS AND NOT REALLY GIVING HER THE ATTENTION SHE NEEDS THEY FELL TO REALIZE ALL THE THINGS GOING ON WITH HER UNTIL ITS TOO LATE! THIS BOOK WAS SO HARD TO PUT DOWN....THERE WAS SO MUCH DRAMA ON EACH PAGE. BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE BOOK WAS THE MESSAGE IN IT. YOU WILL LEARN A LOT FROM IT.

The story line was good, but it was hard to believe that one person could value themeselves worthless, and allow so many people in her life to continuously abuse her. She never seemed to learn from any of her abusive relationships. This book kept repeating itself with the same boring formula. Girl meets guy, girl rushes to sleep with guy, guy beats girl, girl stays with guy after the beating, and then girl finally leaves guy to start painful process all over again with the next guy. And that repetitive scenario makes the book unbelievable.

This was an excellant novel. Really gives you something to think about.

Dirty Little Secrets was an excellent debut novel. I started reading it on Saturday evening and I was finished with it Sunday evening. I just didn't want to put it down. I won't spoil the story for you by revealing any of the plot but I must say that Tyler's story is one that every young lady should read. It's very eye opening. I can't wait to read more of Joy King's books. This is an author you don't want to sleep on. Read this book and recommend it for your book clubs, your friends, neices, daughters, everyone!!!

Tyler Blake is a young lady looking for love in all the wrong places...not knowing how to love, because of the lack of loving role models, not knowing that the first rule of loving someone else is to love yourself...

Joy King lays it down in DLS...she takes you on a journey thru the loveless life of Tyler Blake. You can feel Tyler's pain, that she doesn't recognize, all through out this story...you want Tyler to finally learn something from the last failed relationship, but does she? Time after time she allows herself to select the same type of man, maybe he's packaged differently, but once opened the ingredigents are still the same. Is Tyler in love with the thought of being in Love? Is it true that we are what we live/see?

So come on and sojourn with Joy King as she spins a tale about Tyler Blake you have no choice but to become a part of the book.
Ms. King is like a quiet storm, all up on you before you know it and you find yourself talking out loud to Tyler, cringing for Tyler, wanting more for Tyler and definitely emphazing with her. Does she finally wake up and smell the game of life/love...or does she continue to be a doormat?...can she take a lickin and keep on tickin?...or does she get even?....

Don't sleep on DLS...there are some real dirty little secrets...definitely a page turner, food for thought and destined to be a best seller....

Kudos to you Ms. King...and sealed with that CG stamp of approval....