No, no…nearly…but NO.

*chucks book against the wall*

To protect the innocent, I’m not going to mention the title of the book I’m currently pissy about. Or the author. Both are popular and I’m not actually interested in bashing. (Or maybe I’m chickenshit. Probably both.) Point being, I’ve wasted several hours of my time reading something that everyone raves about. I want my money back.
In fairness, the writing was fine. In fact, the whole thing was a fairly fast read to start. Did I buy the premise? Eh. Not so much, but I could overlook it in the effort to find an actual plot. And it was a typical romance set up. Big, bad-ass hero. Dresses in leather. He’s a bazillion years old. Never known love. Driven by self-loathing. Hangs out with a bunch of other big, bad-asses who are side-characters atm, but are bound to be the stars of their own books. (And yes, they are – I checked). I guess what bothers me here is that we’re *told* all this. Dude walks into a bar and his aura of big-bad-assedness just sends people running. But that’s it. The guy doesn’t eat babies or rape sheep or slaughter whole villages. He kills the bad guys, sure. (Yay, hero). But then, why are regular people afraid of him? After all, he’s helping them out.
My point here is, if you’re going to make a fuss about how “sooper dooper badd” the hero is, SHOW me. What I got was a few paragraphs describing a bad rock video, but as soon as he met the heroine? He curled up on the bed and expressed his feelings. And I’m not kidding – there were whole pages that basically were like “I love you more.” “No, I love *you* more.” “No, I love *YOU* more. Let’s bang again.”
The heroine, of course, was perfect. Long, lustrous hair. Perfect body. Didn’t know who/what she actually was, which gives her that innocent, needs to be protected from herself vibe that the hero just loved to lap up.
They have sex within two seconds of meeting each other. Because he can smell her sex, of course. And she doesn’t stop to question why ‘big-bad-ass she’s never met’ is suddenly in her apartment. But hey, that’s ok – it’s instant love (Just add water!). Which of course, he fights for about four or five chapters. Because he’s such a bad-ass. And she’s too good for him. So, once she’s on her own feet, he’ll leave. But until then – “wow, I’m past puberty and never had an orgasm before. I love you.”
The get married. She gets kidnapped. He rescues her. He almost dies…but she sits and holds his hand in the ER for 3 days and he gets better. The end. Bad guy sorta gets away. Zzzzzzz.
I don’t mind it if the hero needs redeeming. (I mean, no – I don’t think I would want a baby-eater as a hero). But I want him to earn it. I want him to earn *her*. And vice versa, of course.
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