My Book Room
Not for me...
DNF at 64%
This seemed to be a really promising story. If well developed, of course.
Due to the theme of the book, I was not expecting this to mostly revolve around the "same old" English chick-lit themes:
Female character that is determined to tell us her clothes size, in english and american measures...
Too much booze... honestly for once I'd like to read a chick-lit book, an english one in which most of the characters aren't always wasted. What is this??
Poor character development. I honestly couldn't care less how much she weights, or how big her boobs are, or what she's wearing... or what everyone is wearing!
The characters are so two dimensional, that in the end what we know about them can be resumed to this:
Freda:
Has two jobs. At home she bakes cupcakes, and then she works at a shop.
She has had two relationships with abusive jerks.
Thinks she is funny, says abrasive things, and behaves like a fifteen year old...
Drinks way too much...
Nicholas:
Was molested when he was a child...
He's obsessed with his late mother... and now he's a drag queen.
You see?
Nicholas could have been so much more!! If only the author had chosen to go with a more somber and dark tone!
This rating has NOTHING TO DO with the fact that Nicholas is a drag queen!
In fact, this was pretty much the only thing that made me keep reading!!
What ruined this book for me was that, much to my amazement, Nicholas ends up being portrayed like a macho asshole!!
A couple hours after he meets Freda he tells her that he wants to fuck her. He has no respect for boundaries, he's constantly coping a feel, and he basically tells her that she's an itch that he needs to scratch!
Romantic, right? Well, you have two hands buddy...
People can say, ah but she never told him: NO. Or that: Ah, she's able to handle him... yes, in the way that she can slap him in a minute, and in the next second she's asking him to forgive her!! She has the maturity of a high school girl!
Honestly, I can't help feeling that making Nicholas a Drag Queen was just a way to make people forget the many, many times when he's an abusive jackass!
Then honestly, as if it isn't enough, when I pick a romance written by a guy, most of the times I feel like hitting him in the head; due to poor characterization, and all the stereotypes that unfortunately still abound in the stories regarding the female gender. Would it be too much to ask for a female author to try to invert that tendency??
Would it be too much to ask to bypass woman on woman hate?
"I wanted to show people I wasn't a closeted lesbian. Some girl who didn't like me had started up a rumour."
well, of course it had to be a woman...
Name calling?
I make objections about wearing it, putting on a snooty voice and saying I look like a Jezebel or a harlot of easy virtue.
Slut shaming and rape culture?
"How do you know i don't have one night stands to keep me tided over?" I fake a sultry note.
"You don't. You're not that kind of girl. I can tell. Perhaps that's why you make me feel so clean."
"I hate this picture of her because it makes her look like a vacuous tramp, and despite how sometimes she comes across , Nora's got a brain inside that head of hers." (this is about her friend..)
"And you are? Look at this dress? You might as well have a sign over your head that says "fuck me".
"I am asking for trouble by dressing like this, and i know it."
Arrrgghhhh....
The banalization of behaviors such as stalking, and the idolization of Edward Cullen as a male role model.
Now, I know what you're probably thinking. What makes me so special that some guy would be that crazy about me? There lies the rub. There was nothing particularly special about me. Aaron was just one of those guys who fixated on a single girl and became obsessed with her.
Yes, they're called psychopaths....
"As you can imagine he's not the kind of person you want to have obsessed with you."
Well, truth be told I wouldn't want anyone obsessed with me...
Then this is what Nicholas tells her when she confesses to him that she's being stalked by an ex-boyfriend:
"There's no need to panic, just try to be observant and make sure you've got someone you can call on short notice."
And the crown jewel
When you're attracted to someone, extreme behaviour can be sort of... appealing. If Edward Cullen had been ugly I'm sure Bella Swan hadn't been quite so smitten with him coming into her bedroom to watch her sleep at night.
We females, can be strange, shallow creatures when the mood takes us.
Stop right there!! We females, my ***!!
This is the problem with Aaron, he's never gotten violent or threatened me. I would have gone to the police, if he had been. He's just been clingy, possessive, annoyingly obsessive and a touch mental.
This is just....O_O
Oh, and when a guy says this... run!
He eyes me shrewdly. "It didn't mean anything with her, you know?"
My breath catches. "Oh".
He sights. "Loosing myself in women I've just met, it's this habit that I can't seem to shake off."
Habits, can be broken, buddy...
Oh, and why not portray Freda according to her AGE???
Honestly! Who says this?
"That's another thing that I admire about this man, he is so completely unapologetic for his actions."
Really... Really???
I wonder if you would say this after twenty years of living with a guy.
Oh, and she advises her psycho stalker to join a dating agency??
"I suggest you join some online dating agency and keep searching for the one, because it certainly isn't me."
NO. No.
I'm done!!! There's only so much my mind can take!!!
But if this doesn't bother you, happy reading ;)
For me, reading this has nothing to do with keeping an open mind, but all to do with patience to abide this kind of writing!
The one and half star are solely for Nicholas drag queen performances.
Buy "Painted Faces"
