Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Believe it or not, this is the short version of this review. I felt I had to say SOMETHING about this book I bought on a whim, only to be made so angry that my money was supporting the glorification of partner abuse. I know one reads Romance expecting a fuzzy rose glow over behavior that would be unacceptable in real life, but this goes above and beyond. Full disclosure: I didn't finish. I skimmed other reviews to see if it would get any better, but it seems that it doesn't. My comments stem from the first few chapters, and are the explanation of why I put it down and regret buying it. In a Romance novel I can forgive an emotionally battered woman falling into the patterns of a battered wife; that's realism. The 'heroine' surely shows all the signs, excusing her husband's fits of irrational temper (but he always calms down and is sorry!) and blatant cruelty when she tells him she's pregnant (he'll realize it was mean to say he can't be the father and accuse me of deliberately skipping my pills if I just wait him out!). She also limply allows her voice and wishes to be drowned out, even though her daughter's emotional (maybe physical) safety is unsure if her father is around. Apparently, it's better to have a father with an explosive temper who says cruel things to woman than no father at all? She only hides from him because, if I read correctly, she's sure he's rejected her for reals, y'all, and doesn't want to inconvenience him with her pathetic existence. OK, fine, she's been abused by a man who does nothing to reassure her insecurities about their relative wealth and status. Some of my favorite romance novels are about battered women who find true love. This is NOT such a book. Dear reader, she got back together with the abuser. That's bad enough, but not enough to make me one-star a book someone spent a lot of time crafting. But what made me toss this book and desperately want to pull my money back from its support of this book was the complicit behavior from all the other characters, who enabled the abuse at every turn. Her employer was unbelievably awful to her as a single mother (it's 2014 y'all), the hospital staff stood by while two men not on the visitor's list shouted at their patient, her babysitter (who must have known that the heroine was a single mother hiding from /something/) glibly hands the child over to two strange, angry men just because one claims paternity. The brother-in-law's wife, herself a new mother, knowing that it's upsetting the heroine, not only fails to speak up, but tries to sweet-talk the heroine into going along with what is, essentially, a kidnapping. I am not kidding. The brothers, while shouting at the heroine for an accident she 'caused' but knew nothing about, ordered her to quit her job, berated her daughter's cheap clothing, and told her to come with them. All of this happened in a HOSPITAL! Where walls are rare and staff is all over the place! Where staff is trained to intervene! The entire universe here conspires to override the heroine's voice and enable the abusers to kidnap her. But that's just the characters. Perhaps this is a clever social commentary in which the characters' actions highlight the pathology of abuse? If only. No, the omniscient third-person narrator is complicit every step of the way. It's subtle because the book is written in the standard alternating hero/heroine POV, but you can see in the way the heroine's codependency and the hero's abuse is treated as romantic, stemming from the intention to set up a Big Misunderstanding plotline. Only the author miscalculates; the big misunderstanding would never have happened if the hero weren't an abuser. The heroine treated this abuse as a normal part of her husband's personality even before he flipped his lid about her pregnancy. And the resolution of the misunderstanding, as I understand it, doesn't seem to be each party realizing their pathology and vowing to do better. I'm left feeling very, very afraid for the child who will grow up seeing this every day of her life. I take no pleasure in trashing an author's work. I write myself, and I know how much of one's self is in writing, and how much it hurts when other people view it very differently than intended. I'm sure Ms. Anders in no way meant to imply that abuse is normal and fine! The premise was good enough that I paid my $4 and had a go at reading it. That said, this text, however unconsciously, encourages girls and women to submit to abuse. That abuse is romantic. That men are weak creatures who can't help but dominate, accuse, and bully. Silly and unrealistic conventions of the genre are one thing - all us readers of Romance know that, yes, real men aren't all a rakish duke/ cowboy/ SEAL/ firefighter/ Scottsman with mind-blowing bedroom skills. But there are real men out there who do act like this abusive hero, and women also are raised to make excuses and stay. Romance, with all its fantasy, also provides benchmarks of what is and is NOT romantic behavior. Again, had the heroine used her time as a single mother to grow a spine, and had the hero realized what a brute he had been to his family, and had just one of the supporting cast stood up to support the heroine's wishes (no means NO, people), then I'd not be so irate. So basically, I found it disturbing on a number of levels. Some readers didn't! But I hope this helps buyers to choose wisely and encourages the author to step back and examine the way her plots look to other eyes. Also, get more honest and critical readers.