#bad books

Warning: This is a rant!

I’m reading this romance book and it’s bad. Granted, I’m only 16% into the book, but I’m truly hating it. The book is bad in that hard to explain way, where the writing is bad. It’s not the grammar or editing, but just the writing. I’m not going to say the name of the book, but here’s a screenshot of 1 page of it from my iPhone kindle. But first context.

The main character is 18 and she dreams of independence and wants to go to college with dreams of a Ph.D. But when she’s sold off by her father into an arranged marriage, she just accepts it. Her father is a U.S. senator (the most believable part of the whole situation) and he’s marrying her off to a rich family so that family can back his next campaign. Her new fiancé is only 26, and he’s handsome, so that’s fine. Her father could have married her off to an old bad of dirt, but he didn’t. She met her fiancé at her 18th birthday party, he was her birthday present (no joke). The scene below happens 3 months later, at their second meeting — their wedding day.

Now, I often find romance novels to be problematic because of all the genres out there, romance seems to be one where many bad writers make their names. The main character is compelling and her story has a lot of potential, but I have to keep rolling my eyes to the back of my head because of how badly this writer keeps butchering the story and characters. It’s bad.

I’ve read really well done books about dominant men and the women who love them. Books where the idea of, “you married him and so he owns your body now,” runs rampant. I’ve accepted a lot of sketchy writing from authors in the name of a good and well told story, but this one is just so bad. My whole mantra while reading this has been, “she’s only 18, she probably doesn’t know any better.” ‍♀️

It seems to me that this author only knew what they wanted these characters to do, not how to actually write them doing it. So, things are just thrown at the reader and we’re expected to process it and it’s problematic implications and move on. The section that I highlighted above, that statement is incredibly sexist and demeaning to women, but it is said in the book with no modifiers and no push back. How can someone who just wants to break free from her father and go college just unquestionably accept that ridiculous advice. And even worst, this is the 1st book in a trilogy and I, for the life of me, don’t know how that is possible.

This is where I’m always unsure what to do next with these types of books. Do I keep reading in hopes that it gets better? Or do I just stop the torture, but never know what happened to these characters? This is the dilemma that these types of books place readers in. At it’s the dilemma they place me in, and it really sucks.

Kevin Devine has just released the first single from his upcoming 9th studio album, Instigator. The song is called “No History” and you can listen to it below!