Hello Shiquers and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe! I am back with another book review! Let’s get started!

Title: Trying It All
Author: Christi Barth

Disclaimer: This review is based on observations and opinions of the lead writer and producer of this blog~! Please respect her thoughts and opinions on this book! There might be spoilers by the way!

Synopsis: This is the fourth installment of the Naked Men series which I should talk about the first three books since I haven’t reviewed any of them here.

The Naked Men series is a book series about five guys who went through a major accident while in high school and survived while playing soccer in Europe. The bus they rode in ended up falling off a cliff and killed their bus driver and the bus went up in flames charring their belongings leaving four of them stranded and one of them help the French rescue teams rescue them. Well, they did come out of caves and shown that they were able to survive the accident in a mountain range.

Now fast forward where the guys end up falling in love with girls that met up with them which Griffin fell for Chloe, a survivor of a deadly college shooting who wants to feel safe but willing to risk anything to be with him, Knox meets Madison, a girl who came to D. C. to not only be with him but also find the brother that she wanted to meet her entire life, and Logan, Madison’s brother, who catches up with long-time high school buddy Brooke, who has a secret about her job that she is willing to move on and show that Logan can be able to give everything up for love and get closer not only to him but also him closer to his sister and father.

Now we are onto Riley Ness, the control freak of the bunch, he is always the guy with the plan and knowing how to survive danger when it comes to it. He always has this notion that danger should be predicted to get over his anxiety from the accident that almost cost him and his best buddies their lives many years before by working for the NTSB. Even though he is a pain to a lot of people including his buddies but he knows that he needs to tame the fighty and sexy Summer Sheridan, who is also a college shooting survivor with Chloe from the same college they went to and owns a clothing boutique, has to help him loosen up and able to try to live. Even though Riley wants to feel like she shouldn’t risk her life by trying everything, he wants to show that he wants to save her in the name of love while she wants him to loosen up for it and enjoy life.

Thoughts: I felt that this book was a really good continuation of the story. Ever since I read Risking It All, the book that started it all, it took the idea that Lara Adrian did by having each character meet the one they fall for and shows the ups and downs of the relationship while they are dating to lead to the full on conclusion of them being together forever and it does continue those relationships in the kanon. For instance, Risking It All ended with Griffin letting Chloe to be the one asking to marry him if she wants it and it continues into the next in seeing how their relationship continues and how Knox, the braniac and millionaire overnight of the group, ends up with Madison which he felt that she was pushing onto him and doesn’t want her at first but then Chloe helps Madison with advice along with Summer and Anabeth, Madison’s roommate and who works at the expensive bar the guys like to go to, in how to get Knox’s heart and agree to marry her. Then it moves into Giving It All which Logan leaves his world saving gig in order to meet Madison after her revealing herself to him over a satellite call and then ends up on an island as a hurricane hits and runs into an old high school friend and has to help her get over a tragedy that happened and thought she was responsible by saying, “It wasn’t your fault!” And then it moves into Trying It All where all the girls and guys help Summer and Riley get together with advice in how they have to handle each other since Riley is afraid of falling in love and losing Summer while Summer is afraid of living life to its fullest even in love! Forgot to mention with Giving, it does show how two have to give it all up for being with each other which that was another bit of advice with Trying. So yeah, the narrative was able to blend with each other as the series progresses. I wished that Barth gave a preview of the next book because I have a feeling that Josh is the last one unless she is planning to do one for their butler. (Which would be interesting.) I can’t wait to see what may happen with Josh since he is the only guy among the Naked Men that is left.

I did find it weird in this one that they didn’t show anything of the podcast or blog postings. Throughout the first three books we see how the guys perceive topics within the “Naked Men” blog and podcast they do in the series which the books are named after. This one had Summer become a guest and be on camera and wishing to see how that went when the other books shown the guys talk about the topics but not this one which was to promote a project to put seatbelts in buses. I even saw how the chapters were a bit like cliff-hangers as I read, I think Barth wanted to change it up since in the other books it shown how things were solved as the book went on even if the girlfriends/fiances are pissed at them and how they had to fix it like in a lot of romantic movies. This one, it just gave a summary of what had happened to show what happened in the next chapter in order to fill in the blanks from the previous one such as when both Riley and Summer got really hurt due to a storm while in a nature preserve and Summer locked up their phones in the car and he had to go and get help to get Summer from underneath a tree which it summed up in the next chapter that he kept falling while finding help through the storm and Summer gets rescued and brought to the hospital. I am not sure if she wanted the book to be slightly shorter since it was twenty something chapters long and just focus on the romantic bits. It is good but wishing it didn’t go that way.

Rating: 4.5 Star Pawprints Out of 5! All thanks to summing up the parts, it does take five points off because the last three books didn’t do the summing up and having a chapter be a cliff-hanger each time. I do like the characters of Summer and Riley since I didn’t expect Riley to be a bit of control freak. I always remembered him being a bit cheeky and always being a wingman. I didn’t know that he didn’t stand for Summer, it didn’t really show in the past few books actually. I wished it did since I did like Summer from the start of the series since she was the fashion lover and I didn’t see her as flighty. I guess Barth was waiting until this book to develop her more which can happen in a books eries with a ton of characters. I am hoping with Josh it will be even more interesting since he owns a food truck. I even came up with names that would probably fit such as “Taking It All,” “Betting It All,” and “Missing It All.” Unless she is writing something with their butler that is also some possibilities too.

That is it for this review! More books to come! Stay tuned!