This is well-edited, but else reads like straight out of a lad magazine, the Hustler or the Playboy. Everything is male-1.5* rounded down for content.
This is well-edited, but else reads like straight out of a lad magazine, the Hustler or the Playboy. Everything is male-centric, everything and everyone just serves the "lads" in evidence. Women are there to be played with, quite against their will or even knowledge, to be fucked and fucked with, moved about between men as they see fit.
And this unfortunately not as in a fantasy setting which would allow female readers to dissociate and enjoy this, nope. This setting and presentation here is exactly how current patriarchal laddish culture and male privilege come across and work in reality.
It's a male's wet dream of which boxes he wants to stash women in and what to do with them, and not in a sexy way. A lot like the perfect Blonde joke. In fact, that's how the women come across. I'm sure there are people out there who'll love reading this, but there's absolutely no reason why I should like it. This had my skin crawling in a not so good way.
A note to the US readers:
While it is quite acceptable for a sixth-form girl to have an adult lover in the UK in reality (because the UK has a general AoC of 16), this still means that the girls written about in this erotica story are between 16 and 19 years of age. Meaning they could be "minors" and they could be "barely legal", both of which--in conjunction with erotica, non-con and porn--are quite illegal with most publishers and retailers, or simply to own depending on where you live.
When the narrative drops utterly boring and stereotypical descriptive bits on the first few pages...
looks like a model--her greTrite. Boring. Facile.
When the narrative drops utterly boring and stereotypical descriptive bits on the first few pages...
looks like a model--her green eyes--her full lips--sexy suits--long hair--long nails--cleavage--sculpted jaw line--sexy blue eyes--broad shoulders--sculpted abs--bulging muscles--puckered nipples--moist panties--pulled in lower lips
...and the two protagonists practically fall into each other nipples and cock erect, slotting together at the drop of a hat, I can't bring myself to finish such a trite mess.
Erotic? Nope. Not even interesting.
Merged review:
Trite. Boring. Facile.
When the narrative drops utterly boring and stereotypical descriptive bits on the first few pages...
looks like a model--her green eyes--her full lips--sexy suits--long hair--long nails--cleavage--sculpted jaw line--sexy blue eyes--broad shoulders--sculpted abs--bulging muscles--puckered nipples--moist panties--pulled in lower lips
...and the two protagonists practically fall into each other nipples and cock erect, slotting together at the drop of a hat, I can't bring myself to finish such a trite mess.
Not bad, not really good. Competent, but not extraordinary. And once again almost all characters are prostitutes who don't question th2.5* rounded up.
Not bad, not really good. Competent, but not extraordinary. And once again almost all characters are prostitutes who don't question the fact. When did that happen? I'm also getting tired of BDSM being always about sex, especially when S&M comes into the fray.
Merged review:
2.5* rounded up.
Not bad, not really good. Competent, but not extraordinary. And once again almost all characters are prostitutes who don't question the fact. When did that happen? I'm also getting tired of BDSM being always about sex, especially when S&M comes into the fray....more
I'm very sorry, but if you expect me to delve into the personality of someone mentally ill, please at least make their inner dialogueThank God for KU!
I'm very sorry, but if you expect me to delve into the personality of someone mentally ill, please at least make their inner dialogue and world interesting. I mean, as interesting as "Dexter", or maybe "His".
Reading about Loretta was as tedious as watching paint dry.
I held out until 15%, then couldn't keep going. One reason for that, apart from the lacklustre characters, was the fact that unfortunately the prose came across as if written by AI, a bad translation, or possibly someone to whom English is a second language....more
I hate books in which the author kills pets of any sort to explain human nature or its results. Always, to the last book, this artificially milks the I hate books in which the author kills pets of any sort to explain human nature or its results. Always, to the last book, this artificially milks the reader for emotion and tears. It's a cheap trick and a shortcut, and the conflict between Pachler and Walch could have been differently externalised. Probably too difficult or time-consuming to write it that way.
I absolutely don't read to cry. I hate crying, it depresses me for days, so why would I willingly read anything which makes me miserable?...more
This gets the fourth star for its chapters III and IV. Those are a truly helpful kick in the arse.
As to the rest, the author keeps 3 stars rounded up.
This gets the fourth star for its chapters III and IV. Those are a truly helpful kick in the arse.
As to the rest, the author keeps stating she is a pantser, only to then plot happily. I'm sorry, but as a pantser - if I wrote using this system - I'd get as far as the outline and then reject the story for being boring and already having been written. Some pantsers simply are like that, they do not want to plot. Not even to outline. Or plan....more
This was trying to retcon the Regency era, and not in any way more palatable than A Lady Awakened.
Once again I had very basic problems with digestingThis was trying to retcon the Regency era, and not in any way more palatable than A Lady Awakened.
Once again I had very basic problems with digesting the prose. Apparently I am not the target audience, I do like sparse, but I want elegant instead of dry.
The other problem is how the author tried to milk Regency stereotypes to come up with a halfway "modern" narrative, with characters she apparently believes are more comprehensible to modern readers and sensitivities. Unfortunately that's not at all what I read HR for. I want the mores and habits of former times, and I need an author to be playing intelligently with what is possible.
There were women of the Regency era who rode sidesaddle, raced as jockeys in thoroughbred races, travelled to the far and near east, and became queens of their own empires. Others crucially supported their mates and husbands, who were fighting the good causes. Others yet travelled to war areas and worked as nurses under very atrocious conditions for women.
It is really not as if there weren't hundreds if not thousands of lifestories of women of these eras which would make worthwhile novelisations! Yet Grant again resorts to inflicting modern mores and morals on the reader, which--quite frankly--means that this was my last foray into her books.
Twice bitten...
Merged review:
This was trying to retcon the Regency era, and not in any way more palatable than A Lady Awakened.
Once again I had very basic problems with digesting the prose. Apparently I am not the target audience, I do like sparse, but I want elegant instead of dry.
The other problem is how the author tried to milk Regency stereotypes to come up with a halfway "modern" narrative, with characters she apparently believes are more comprehensible to modern readers and sensitivities. Unfortunately that's not at all what I read HR for. I want the mores and habits of former times, and I need an author to be playing intelligently with what is possible.
There were women of the Regency era who rode sidesaddle, raced as jockeys in thoroughbred races, travelled to the far and near east, and became queens of their own empires. Others crucially supported their mates and husbands, who were fighting the good causes. Others yet travelled to war areas and worked as nurses under very atrocious conditions for women.
It is really not as if there weren't hundreds if not thousands of lifestories of women of these eras which would make worthwhile novelisations! Yet Grant again resorts to inflicting modern mores and morals on the reader, which--quite frankly--means that this was my last foray into her books.
Always the same story, and the same result. This gets an important literary prize, I decide to read it, because maybe it's actually good and re-Nope.
Always the same story, and the same result. This gets an important literary prize, I decide to read it, because maybe it's actually good and re-kindles my love for literary fiction, and after 20% or 30% I nope out, because it's unbearably boring. Or unbearably bad.
In this case it was both, and I got to 30% by forcing myself. Seriously, I have a hard time understanding how any person of 31 years can be that fascinated with his childhood and teen age. It's a bit like someone desperately concentrating on the most insignificant phase and events of his life. Wilfully. Like celebrating a pimple on your back. Or maybe a blackhead on your nose. There's an expression in German: "selbstverliebt". In this case it is the unfortunate outcome of not shedding one's elitist background before trying to be sarcastic about it.
So, as a corollary: the German Book Prize doesn't do better by me than the Booker Prize.
Sigh. I really should stop second-guessing myself....more
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