"Lip Service" by M.J. Rose

Wow...where to start with this book...  The blurb for Amazon gives this blurb about the book: 

 "On the surface, Julia Sterling's life seems blessed. Married to a renowned psychiatrist, living on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side, Julia deeply loves her stepson, and is forging a career as a journalist.

When a writing job at The Butterfield Institute - a sex therapy clinic - exposes her to the world of phone sex, Julia glimpses a world that stirs her erotic fantasies but threatens her

carefully constructed reality. As she explores her emotional and sexual

connections to the men she knows and several she will never meet, she confronts evil, perversity, and her own passions.

Tracing the currents of desire, illusion, and psychological manipulation,Lip Service is an astonishingly vivid glimpse into one woman's inner life. At the same time, this electrifying

thriller grips the reader as it builds toward a battering climax."



Again I was so excited to read this book because it had been compared to Fifty Shades of Grey.  Granted I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey personally, but if I didn't have a lot of people who said it was a great book and one they know I'd love...I wouldn't read it after reading this novel. 

Julia Sterling is the quintessential repressed housewife, mother, and fragile woman child with a horrible past.  In college, she went through a breakdown and as a result of that never went back.  She finally met her husband Paul (who you hate through the entire book) and quickly married. 

Skip forward too many years where you meet Jack the best friend who has been secretly in love with Julia for so many years.  I found myself through the entire novel rooting for Jack and Julia.  Max, whom you know already knows his parents divorce is inevitable and a whole host of other people who float in and out of the story line.

I don't know if it was just me, but the story seemed disjointed.  We start the novel on one of Julia's calls and she talks about how she has always been disturbed by this caller and then are plunged into the back story.  How she became a repressed adult/child who is constantly talked down to by her husband and whom doesn't have any passion towards, what their social life consists of, and how she was introduced to the owner of the Sexual Therapy Center where she starts her alternate life.  Then get into the awesome nitty gritty dirt where lets just say, you really don't need to be reading it at work, and then page turn your dealing with all the scary crap. 

I have to say the novel would have been better written if it would have just been one flowing story.  Build it to a crescendo and then let all hell break loose!  Other than that it was wonderfully written with semi-believable characters.  (I can't imagine that Julia would be so repressed, her husband such and ass, or Jack hang on so long for Julia to realize she loves him, much less as a man call her everyday without letting on his feelings.) 

If this is a mindless read like many of my books are for me..I would say go for it!  If your wanting a compelling and gripping erotic novel compared to Fifty Shades of Grey, skip it.

Thanks to Net Galley for the great read!