Review: Ally Hughes has Sex Sometimes by Jules Moulin
Note: This ARC was provided by Penguin Group (Dutton) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Ten years ago, Ally Hughes was a college professor who spent an unforgettable weekend with a student of hers that she had labeled "the boy in the back" but who actually went by the name Jake Bean. In the short amount of time they spent together, it became more than just meaningless sex for both of them, but the ten-year age difference, Ally's position at Brown University, and her wanting Jake to experience as much of life as he could and not be saddled with a single mother with a ten-year-old child made her let him go.
Ten years later, Ally Hughes is still a college professor and she's still a single mother, one who is as over-protective of her now twenty-year-old daughter as her late mother was of her. Her life is the expected routine it's always been, but then the guy she believes is dating her daughter shows up for dinner. He's a famous actor named Noah...who turns out to be Jake, the very same Jake from ten years before. She's shocked and confused, but she's still as drawn to him as she was a decade ago, and it seems so is he to her.
Ally Hughes has Sex Sometimes is a contemporary romance novel and the debut publication of Jules Moulin. This was a wonderfully exhilarating story about a woman who decides to take a risk and experiences something she's never encountered before with a man ten years her junior only for them to part ways and then have their paths unexpectedly cross again a decade later. The fact that this was more than a teacher-student taboo love story is what helps set it apart from those that share a similar trope.
There was a lot of humor but it was cleverly interjected in the story and not merely thrown in for the sake of a laugh or two. Ally Hughes comes off as a tad neurotic but endearingly so, making it clear that she's someone who will always put her daughter first, even when it's clear that she should allow her nearly adult child to make her own choices and learn from potential mistakes. Being with Jake then and now allows her to open her eyes to the possibilities of what her life would be like if she would just take a few more risks.
I liked Jake Bean. He was sweet as a twenty-one-year-old student needing money and equally so as a thirty-one-year-old accomplished and well-off actor. When he expresses his feelings to Ally in the past and in the present, it's obvious that he knows what he wants and isn't afraid to go after it. The things that bother Ally about pursuing a relationship with him don't seem to faze him, or if they do, he doesn't allow them to overwhelm him. He surprisingly comes off as more secure and more mature than Ally at times.
We get to see what happened ten years ago via flashbacks that are interspersed with the current events in Ally's life, so we have a clearer picture of just how monumental her time with Jake was before and why seeing each other again had such an impact on both of them. I loved Jules Moulin's storytelling style and how she presented her story and characters in an intelligent but quirky manner. Ally Hughes has Sex Sometimes was such an amazingly pleasant surprise and a fantastic debut for the author. It gets five stars. ♥
Release Date: 25 August 2015
Date Read: 23 August 2015
Learn more about author Jules Moulin here.
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