The Scale (Martha's Way)

Contains Spoilers.This is my second reading of this book but don't remember it being as interesting or engaging.The Scale is a well written, engaging interracial romance. Jason is the wealthy white man who has scars because of his father's infidelity and his mother's suicide. Minka is the black, curvy woman with self esteem issues. They are fairly well developed characters with pretty good back stories.The secondary characters are all relatives or good friends of Jason and Minka. Keely is Minka's fraternal twin. Minka thinks Keely is everything she isn't. Blake was Minka's best friend. She was secretly in love with him for six years, and then he met Keely - the pretty twin who was loved by everyone. Everyone is gathered on Martha's Vineyard for two weeks for the wedding of Keely and Blake. Jason is Blake's best man and Minka is Keely's matron of honor. She feels betrayed by Blake and Keely, even though neither knew of her secret feelings for Blake.They are all physically beautiful, loving people, with interesting careers - even the parents. Jason, Blake, Adam and Forrest grew up together on the Vineyard and are gorgeous, successful men. Even Claire, who grew up with them, was beautiful and a singing star and fashion designer. She and Keely became best friends. Then you have Minka. Why did she feel so unattractive, physically and emotionally? Why did her parents, sister and Blake not see her pain or even understand her self esteem issues? Jason and his friends immediately saw Minka's feelings for Blake, yet Keely and Blake were completely unaware. There's something a little wrong with this picture.Of course, Jason and Minka hook up for a one night stand and agreed to a two week affair - sex only. You could feel their chemistry. The sex wasn't overly descriptive - not really well written. Still, their attraction was extremely sensual. Minka couldn't accept that a gorgeous, wealthy man could want her when he had his choice of beautiful "thin" women. Jason was known as a womanizer but a truthful one. He saw and understood Minka's hurts because of what his mother had gone through because of his father. He saw her beauty and even realized he was falling in love with her.After several missteps, Minka recognized her love for Jason and realized she had been infatuated with Blake. She decided she had to let Blake go so she could give all of her love to Jason. She handled the situation stupidly and hurt Keely, Blake, her parents but especially Jason. When allowed to explain, they all forgave her, except Jason. For me, Minka's self esteem issues were realistic. She had felt unloved and unworthy for over twenty years, for whatever reason. It would take more than several weeks for her to overcome those feelings and accept the fact that she was lovable.Did Minka realize she had to love herself before she could love Jason? Did she realize that her weight wasn't her real problem? Did her relationship improve with Keely and her parents? Did Jason forgive her? Did they have a HEA? Remember, it's a romance. It is worth reading.

I wasn’t thrilled with this book at first, because Minka was overly consumed with the wedding. It felt like a drag being stuck in the head of an insecure chick, as I am far from it. So, I would put this down for a few days, and resume when I felt like being patient.I grew to hate Keely, not because she was the embodiment of perfection as seen through the eyes of Minka, but because I was so damn sick of hearing about her and her damn wedding. In fact, even when her character sweetened, because Minka’s perception of her had softened, I still wanted to eject her from the story. This could actually be attributed to good writing though. I disliked Keely just as much as Minka did.Now on to Jason and Minka. . . I am all in for a good romance, but Jason’s promiscuity and disinterest in women made me skeptical about his ability to convince me that he could be vulnerable and fall in love with Minka. I think he was disrespectful to Rita. And, it was hard for me to forget that Minka was his 2nd choice the night they met; he would have been banging Rita if she didn't grow a backbone and decide to send him packing.Nevertheless, Jason won me over. He had me at “Mina”! From that point on, he was everything my heart desired in a man for Minka.The most surprising aspect of this book for me is that there was such good intimacy between Minka and Jason during their many interactions. It helped convince me that Minka and Jason were experiencing real love after only two weeks!I do maintain that Minka did deserve to be dumped in a public way for that immature move she pulled on Blake before the wedding. But, Jason’s willingness to forgive and move forward with their lives together attested to his maturity and greatness as a man.The love scenes had the perfect amount of passion and I ended up having a good ride with this book, even with the slow beginning. Also, I kept thinking who is Steve Maraboli!The only minor complaint I have is that it sends the wrong message to people. In real life, no man like Jason wants a woman who is insecure and overly consumed with her weight like Minka. He will just go look for the lady that is secure in who she is.I probably won’t read Liliana’s book, because she and Adam weren’t as interesting for me as Jason and Minka. I like Mika Jolie’s writing, so I will check out some of her other books that do not include The Martha’s Way friend group.

My Review of The Scale by Mika JolieThis is my first story by this author. This is Minka and Jason’s story.Minka, like many other women is insecure about the way she looks and this impacts all other areas of her life, including her relationship with her twin sister and her parents. There were many of her insecurities I could identify with especially her body image and size issues.Jason has his own issues and used to be a bit of man whore before he met Minka. There is something about her that arrests him. What I loved about him was that wherever he found out Minka was feeling insecure about anything in their relationship he went out of his way to address her insecurities, especially around all the other women he previously had in his life.The story is a great romantic read and I enjoyed reading it very much.My only negative point regarding the story is the vehicle by which Minka uses to say goodbye to the man she has had a crush for the last 5 years and who is marrying her sister. Minka is in a relationship with Jason and she wants to move on from her crush with Blake so she can give herself 100% to Jason. Why take the action that she did??? She could have simply spoken to Blake and told him how she felt (because he has no clue) and move on. Or better still she could have just come clean with Jason and tell him everything (like he did with her) and close that chapter of her life in that way. Blake did not even know she had said hello so how could what she did say goodbye? Any man worth his salt would read what she did as a betrayal as Jason did, which was totally understandable. Apart from this point I loved the story.I am looking forward to reading the other books in the series. Very well written and engaging especially since this is the author first book.

A great read and story. I loved the elements of the story that got Minka to identify the issues that she had with herself and that her friends and family were always there to support her while she realised this for herself.The lead romance was endearing and the supporting characters also added their own flair to the story. I can’t wait to catch up with the other characters in the rest of the series

First book by the author that I have read. I must say the book was good. I felt for Minka. Her parents could have handled the situation much better. Her parents seemed to b e to be somewhat oblivious. All the angst could have been prevented in childhood. I loved Jason and I loved the camaraderie and love between the gang. All in all good read.

I was really enjoying this book, liked all the characters especially Minka and Jason, and then just when it all looked tied and prettily wrapped, Minka just does something so stupid, so ridiculous and so far-fetched that it spoilt the whole book for me.Found it very frustrating and put me off the book, also was totally unbelievable, especially how everyone carried on afterwards

First time reading this author's work and it was neither a good nor bad book it was just sweet ideal for a first time reader to romance novels reminded me of a Mills and Boon book back in the dayI will give it 2 1/2