F
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Theme: Crush, Friends with Benefits/No Strings Attached, Small Town
Archetype: Doctor/Nurse/Veterinarian
Perfectly Charming began as a perfectly serviceable contemporary romance about a woman who goes through a painful divorce from her since-high-school boyfriend in a small Mississippi town, takes some money she inherited from a close friend who died of cervical cancer, and finds herself a contract nurse position in a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, on the beach, far from everyone sticking their well-intentioned but overbearing and pitying noses in her business. I liked the setup, and while I noticed some cliches and some inconsistent development, I was eager to keep reading… until the dialogue and choice of language took a horrible turn into misogyny and ruined the story for me.
I’m drawn to books about people taking a mulligan and hitting reset on their lives, either because something has happened to them, or because they are about to happen to something. In this case, Jess, the heroine, was ready for the next step in her life plan of having a baby with her husband when he comes home with a bouquet of flowers to announce he wants a divorce (in part because he’s banging the florist from whom he bought the flowers). (You stay classy, dude.) Jess is inspired in her whole-life do-over by her late friend Lacy, who died and left each of her closest friends a letter, some money, and her charm bracelet, which each friend is supposed to add to as they fulfill their lives in some way or another. Each friend’s story is a book in the series.
Jess takes a short-term rental on a beachfront condo and finds a familiar face living nearby – Ryan Reyes, her high school lab partner, and a genuine genius, who graduated high school and went to college as a pre-teen, and has since gone on to earn an MD and a PhD. Prior to the start of the story, he’d invented a thing involving stem cells, sold the thing to some company for a lot of money, and then called his own mulligan and chucked all the science in favor of moving from California to Florida, buying a fishing charter boat, and hiring himself out to people to fish all day.
Ryan has taken great pains to cultivate a charming beach bum image. In high school, he was small, plain, awkward, and very nerdy, and some of Jess’ friends, including her boyfriend-then-husband-now-ex, had called him her “puppy,” because he had a serious crush on her. Since then, he grew up, worked out, and studied seriously how to be charming, how to meet women, how to be popular, how to sink cool shots in pool – everything he needed to know to have the life he wanted, which had nothing to do with science or research. He wanted to “live” but didn’t really question why or for what reason he wanted this tanned, laid back, charming life. Most of the women in the story, including Jess, do find him tanned and charming, so some of his work paid off.
Also, I can’t discuss the things that ruined the story for me without spoiling just about everything, so please be aware, spoilers abound. If you’re thinking, “Oh, this sounds like my jam,” you may want to stop here because this is the border between “Review Land” and “Spoiler Town” (which, if you’re using a map to navigate, is 45 miles southwest of Flavor Town).
The conflict of the relationship rests mostly on Ryan being himself, or playing a role, and how Jess being there, along with her knowledge of his history and who he used to be, threatens his new life. They get close and hook up, and genuinely like one another, but more conflict arises later when one of the charm-bracelet friends announces she’s getting married in their home town and Jess MUST be there.
I’ll be honest. This scene bugged the crap out of me for a number of reasons.
- The bride calls Jess to tell her that she’s getting married in two weeks. Not a lot of time.
- ON Labor Day Weekend.
- Jess HAS to be there. HAS TO. She can’t get married without her! (So, how about more than 2 weeks notice, eh?)
- And Jess, who, as I mentioned, is a contract nurse at a hospital, is WORKING on Labor Day but no, she has to be there.
- And by the way, Jess’ ex husband will be there because he has to be invited or something, and that’ll be awkward and said bride is really sorry.
So Jess begs Ryan to go to the wedding with her – and that adds a whole new conflict because the last place he wants to be is back in his hometown, where every memory makes him miserable. But of course the way she and Ryan have talked about their hometown and the way their relationships are and were isn’t the way they appear when the two actually show up. The telling from the characters doesn’t match the events of the latter part of the book, so the expected problems aren’t as big as they were made out to be, and problems that are large and substantial are treated as no big deal.
There were cliched phrases in dialogue and in narration, and descriptions like this one as Ryan checked Jess out:
Ryan allowed his gaze to wander over his “old” friend. Jess had thick, curly hair that often stuck out in riotous curls around her face. Her skin was golden, her eyes a sleek feline brown, her chin pointed elfishly. She was taller than most women, about five foot ten, and her breasts were a nice size, slightly out of proportion with her long, slim-hipped angularity.
At least she wasn’t looking in the mirror and describing herself, I guess, but… elflishly?
That passage was about 20% into the book, and I would have given up and stopped reading except that the conflict inherent in Ryan’s character, the brilliant and awkward dude transformed into a carefree, charming, beach dwelling fishing boat captain, was interesting to me. I wanted to see what would happen, and how his inner mega-nerd would appear. So I kept reading through more cliches, inconsistent descriptions of characters and backstory, and increasing slut-shaming as perfect, charming Jess is compared repeatedly to other women, especially the sexually “trying-too-hard” neighbor who also has a thing for Ryan.
All of this wouldn’t have bothered me too much except for the part where the slut-shaming devolved into outright steaming piles of misogyny that peppered the story. Then I was half rage-reading, and half hoping that someone, anyone, would call out the sexism and address it.
Grab a drink, because it’s about to get snarly in here.
First, there’s the general assumptions about men, emphasis on the “ass” sumptions:
The man had made no move toward anything more than friendship even if he’d checked her out over excellent Chinese takeout. He was a man, right? Men couldn’t help checking women out. DNA and all that.
Yeah. DNA. And all that.
Both Becky and Morgan wore bikini tops paired with athletic shorts and flip-flops. Conversely, Jess wore a T-shirt, tennis skirt, and sneakers. Her sex appeal wasn’t the blown up obvious type. She dressed like a lady who didn’t like to show the goods, which of course made Ryan want very much to see those goods. Some girls knew how to build anticipation.
Morgan is the neighbor, and Becky is one of Jess’ coworkers. This scene, coupled with another scene wherein Becky assumes that Jess and Ryan are going home together and Ryan protests that Jess isn’t “that kind of girl,” were early indicators of how badly this book was going to piss me off. All the other women who aren’t (a) dead or (b) part of a couple or (c) the future heroine of a future book are depicted and described negatively when compared with Jess.
So this is all taking place on Ryan’s boat, where he’s invited her and the other women plus two buddies of his out on the water. One of his friends asks Jess to dinner, which freaks her out so she runs into the galley to talk to Ryan, who is already very interested in her himself but aware that she’s recovering from her divorce.
Her touch wasn’t electrifying or erotic, but it was somehow profound. She’d never touched him intentionally before, and her fingers curled against his reminded him of eighteenth-century poetry, like Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” the ironic profundity of a simple gesture taken to new heights.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED.
Her fingers reminded him of 18th century poetry?
And that’s when Ryan, who had studiously directed himself over the years toward Gross Pointe Broville, took a right turn into Complete Misogynist Garbage Fire.
She had him discombobulated with the whole vulnerability thing…. Something about rescuing her appealed to his machismo.
Maybe he needed to step away from Jess and look for the man he’d been for the past year… before he had to go out and find tampons for his vagina. The thought made him smile.
I promise you, I am not smiling right now.
Really, really not smiling.
Go out and find tampons for his vagina? REALLY?
There’s so much wrong in that sentence I don’t have enough room to unpack it all. I’m reading this book specifically for his character and hey, he suddenly turns into a sexist, offensive shitbag.
Maybe this was an aberration. Maybe he’d say something like that OUT LOUD and Jess or someone else would call him on it. Maybe it would get better, or he would get over himself. Maybe the whole point of his shitbaggery was that he’d learn to extract his head from his ass!
So I kept reading.
Yeah. It was a mistake. None of that happens. Instead, it got worse.
Jess goes on her date with Ryan’s friend Logan, and Ryan and Morgan join them. They go to the beach, and I got this mix of descriptions:
“Nice bikini,” Logan said.
That was an understatement.
“Uh, thanks,” Jess said, clasping her hands between breasts that were tastefully covered. Her bikini was not as revealing as Morgan’s, having more substantial material and an almost modest cut, but her body was amazing….
He thought about the Jess he’d fantasized about all those years ago while lying in his twin bed…. Her Morning Glory cheerleading uniform showed her long, tanned legs and clung perfectly to her breasts, nipping in at her slim waist. She had amazing collarbones, and her arms were somehow both elegant and athletic. He’d adored her then…. Jess had been his ideal girl.
And now she stood in front of him, no longer girlish, but splendidly woman.
(NB: Morning Glory is their hometown.)
So yeah, in case I missed it the first time, Jess is ladylike and splendidly woman, Morgan is trying too hard and her bikini is less tasteful, and Ryan constantly thinks of Jess’ body, what it was in high school and what it is now. The combined physical descriptions make her his ideal woman – and no mention of anything other than her amazing collarbones and elegant athletic arms. Not, like, her intellect or her personality or anything about her job – the practicalities of which are rarely mentioned at all.
While she’s at the beach on this date with another dude who is paying more attention to Morgan, Jess decides that she’s into Ryan and why shouldn’t she go for what she wants. He’s made it clear he likes her, they’re adults, nothing holding them back, yadda yadda.
Wasn’t as if they would enter an awkward stage where for years down the road they’d not be able to meet each other’s eyes. So why the hell not?
Why the hell not?
That should be her mantra.
She unwrapped her arms from around her stomach and stiffened her back. Making her breasts stand out. They were nice breasts, the perfect C cup, still perky.
On behalf of every other person with every other letter-sized cup:
(Note to all y’all: there is no perfect size, no matter what the Wakefield twins or this heroine tell you, k? That’s what I’m telling myself at this point.)
But hey, if I was worried that Ryan noticed Jess physically but Jess didn’t notice him at all… not so, not so. Ryan is good looking, has a muscular body he has worked hard on (though he doesn’t go to the gym during the course of the book that I can tell) and…
He had slipped his shoes off when he came in earlier, and she noted he had nice feet — tanned, trimmed toenails, strong with crinkly hair atop.
Thanks and glory be to all cocktails above and below, I know what his feet look like.
Later, Becky and Jess are chatting at work after a bad day, discussing the double date:
“…You went out with Logan yesterday. How did that go?”
“Fine. I think he was more interested in Morgan than me.”
Becky made a face. “You’re better off. An accountant? Please. Besides, Morgan’s assets” – Becky juggled pretend boobs in front of her own chest – “were on display. It’s a wonder she can walk with those things. Wonder how much they cost?”
Jess laughed. “Maybe that’s what I need – a chest expansion. Seems to work.”
Didn’t she just get done telling me she had a perfect, perky C-cup? And exactly how does the chest expansion work? DO TELL, MA’AM. I might need it spelled out for me.
So Ryan and Jess hook up, everything’s going well, and then her friend Rosemary drops her “I’m getting married in two weeks and you HAVE TO BE IN MY WEDDING over Labor Day weekend” bomb. Ryan doesn’t really want to go to Morning Glory ever again, especially since Jess’ ex husband is about his least favorite human being ever and his childhood was a lot of loneliness and difficulty since he was raised like a human science project when his parents figured out he was a prodigy. But he agrees to go with Jess, who doesn’t want to be at the wedding without a date since her ex will be there with his latest girlfriend.
As an aside: I must confess, in just about every iteration, I do not get the “I HAVE TO HAVE A DATE FOR THIS WEDDING SO PRETEND TO BE MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER” trope. Is going on your own, dressing up so you feel fabulous, and having a good time with the other people you know not an option? How is it that attending without a date is the cause for so much agita and plot bunnies? It’s, like, a handful of hours, especially if you don’t stay for the whole reception. I remain baffled.
Of course, this whole I NEED A DATE FOR THIS WEDDING plot device gives Ryan some room to be more sexist and gross:
“So you want to use me?” he teased, even as part of him wondered if that’s all he was to her – just a good looking guy to have sex with and prove to Benton and everyone else she was doing fine. Something inside him wanted to be more than arm candy. Didn’t she feel anything for him other than desire?
William H. Macy, he was turning into a girl, wondering about feelings.
Mr. Macy sums up my reaction to that comment:
Feelings! Worry about another person! MORE FEELINGS.
Poor Ryan. Afflicted with human emotions that give him gender panic.
They make the trip back to their hometown. Jess is very happy to see her friends, Rosemary’s fiance is an Italian man from New York who is portrayed as ill fitting in the small Southern town as you’d expect, and Ryan is really miserable. They all go to a bar, Jess’ ex dances with her even when she doesn’t want him to, and Ryan gets all asshurt. They fight when they get back to his parents’ house, where they’re both staying (for some seriously convoluted reasons that are revealed in an ‘As you know, Bob,’ conversation), and we get this moment of glory:
“…You hide beneath a glossy veneer that you think erases who you truly are. You’re the one who’s afraid. So don’t lecture me on who I am.” She gathered up her purse and the bag she’d packed last night with her makeup and toiletries. “I have to go. I have to be at the brunch in an hour.”
“Hey, Jess,” he called. She turned and arched an eyebrow. Her heart thudded, and anger made her flushed. “Stop being such a pussy.”
“STOP BEING SUCH A PUSSY.”
I suppose it’s not a surprise that a guy who ponders buying tampons for his vagina after having too many feels would not hesitate to tell his girlfriend to stop being a pussy.
But holy hell, was I infuriated.
Does Jess turn around and give him hell?
Does she explain to him like a wrathful Sugarbaker exactly how sexist and unacceptable that was?
No, she slumps out the door and wants to cry:
She wanted to burst into tears and tell him she was sorry for saying such hurtful things. But she couldn’t do either of those things. Maybe tomorrow she’d think about not being such a pussy. Today she had to be a bridesmaid.
NO. ALL THE NO. OCEANS OF NOPE.
Jess internalizes the idea that she’s a pussy, and hours later is still going. She chastises herself:
She’d likely tossed away the best thing that had happened to her.
Because she was a chicken. Or a pussy. Or a pussified chicken.
“Pussified chicken.”
You know, in case you weren’t sure what being a “pussy” meant.
So then things get awkward and there’s a big misunderstanding because of course there is, and Ryan takes off right before the wedding in a way that allows half the town (who were all available and could drop all their plans and any vacation rental deposits on the last-minute wedding planned in two weeks that somehow included handmade bridesmaid dresses sewn by the bride) to witness his flounce.
Jess doesn’t fire up the truck and chase after him, though.
He did what he’d accused Jess of doing that morning.
He ran.
And he’d called HER a pussy.
Jess’ ex-husband proves himself to be a first-class piece of trash, saying of Ryan that he’s “kinda girly and …weird,” and that he’s a “pussy-whipped man” for having been so into Jess in high school and still being into her now.
Could the people in this book please stop calling each other pussies? Like, really, the best and most useful thing they can say to insult one another is to compare them to a vagina? Objectification insults? Really?
To quote Elyse’s review of another craptacular hero, Jake Sharp from The Protector,
I’m not sure what feeling pussy-ish means…. powerful and remarkable? Like he’s capable of delivering human life into the world? Like he’s made of tissue both capable of experiencing sexual gratification AND possessing the materials needed to grow and sustain life?
No, it’s the opposite of all that, because feelings are girly and being girly is weakness and I’m starting to feel a little terrible about myself.
Then there’s some driving and some apologizing and then kissing and the end. There’s an epilogue and the setup for the next book but I’m not going to revisit this series.
I expect better of the books I read. I don’t read romance to feel insulted. I want stories wherein the misogynist language isn’t left unchallenged when the hero uses it to insult the heroine. I don’t want to finish a romance feeling queasy and ashamed, like I’ve been insulted along with the heroine by the hero, who was pretty much the reason I was reading the book in the first place. The idea of someone who was intellectually brilliant achieving so much professionally then realizing he was unhappy (because a homeless person identified his misery, which is another thing this book does – uses homeless people, people with terminal diseases, and people recovering from addictions as foils and devices for the hero and heroine to learn about themselves) was interesting. Ryan was aware of himself enough to know that he needed to figure out how to function socially – and in most cases he was kind, considerate, and able to read the intentions of people around him enough to gently say no to women who were coming onto him, or give people space when they needed it. Most of the time, in early interactions, he was fine.
Then he’d open his mouth and garbage would come out and then I hated him. I hated the inconsistent characterization. I hated that the heroine internalized what he said and applied it to herself. I hated that no one in the story said, “Hold up, this is NOT ok.”
I’m baffled why any of these examples were acceptable. I don’t think they are.
For me, this was an otherwise better-than-meh contemporary romance which was completely soured by the repeated misogyny and sexism that was never addressed. It may have been internalized and accepted by the heroine and accepted by everyone else, but it wasn’t ok with me.
I wrote this prior to the Trump tapes surfacing, so the timing is entirely coincidental, but the point remains.
No one in the story called it out, so I will.
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I started reading the review thinking that I just found my airplane book, and discovered that what I thought was jam is really something tasteless and nauseating. I’m sorry you had to take this one for the team, but rage-induced book chucking on a plane would get me in big trouble.
So much for charming, perfectly or otherwise, as this sounds anything but. Definitely a hard pass.
I would be interested in learning whether her other works are equally appalling, i.e. if they’re as misogynistic and slut-shamey. Though, tbh, this review doesn’t make me want to find that out for myself.
The book sounds like a hot damn mess but this review just made my post debate hangover so much better.
Gah! Okay, even if this book didn’t have all the misogyny, the fact that the leading man (I hesitate to term him a hero) spends soooo much time gazing at the main character’s body and describing it is kinda creepy. Like, does she have no other attributes? Or is he so damn consumed with the superficial (and yet degrades women who dress differently as if they are trashy) that he can’t look beyond that? I seriously wish this character never ever got laid. Ever. Like all the women would say he was obviously trying too hard to be something he’s clearly not (i.e. ‘charming) and right down to his tanned toenails, he’s a douchebag. Then they would all go out in their skimpy bikinis and eat ice cream with sprinkles. That’s how I’d end this book.
I swear that I am going to write a romance someday where the heroine has awesome implants, loves them and so does her partner (because that’s real life, people). That’s also probably TMI, but sorrynotsorry.
Kim – Jill Sorenson wrote a book where the heroine is happy w her implants! (& the rest of the book is good too.)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18528423-backwoods
Sometimes I really wonder if books like this one are actually written by a man. It makes a lot more sense to think that “Liz Talley” is an alias, rather than that a woman was dwelling on perky C-cups and vagina-shaming.
HOWEVER . . . these GIFs were majestic. I will now be watching them on repeat and practicing these facial expressions for use in daily life.
1) is it bad I get so excited when I see an F review?
2) @Kim, one of my favorite Rachel Gibson books “Nothing But Trouble” has a heroine with naturally large breasts who is considering a breast reduction because she’s not happy with them and her family isn’t super supportive but the hero is bc he just wants her to be happy. It’s not clear if she ends up getting it though bc of where the book ends. Kinda the opposite of what you were saying but as a large chested girl I always liked it.
BURN IT WITH FIRE! OMG This review alone makes me want to find a copy of this book so I can THROW IT INTO THE LAKE. The rage began with the tampon part. I can’t even begin to describe how much I LOATHE misogynistic insults that equate female anatomy or being female as weak, insecure, not important, unworthy, inherently flawed, etc etc. HATE IT IN ALL THE WAYS. (See? I’m so peeved I’m writing in caps. I don’t do that.)
I need an antidote to this book. Maybe one where a guy talks like this and the woman – and maybe other guys – jump in and call him out for being an a-hole and educate him on misogyny, mansplaining, and patriarchy, and he actually GETS it and strives to be a decent human being who doesn’t see women as his personal blow up sex dolls and feelings as “girly and weak”.
breasts that are “tastefully covered”??? NO THANKS. I was already at RAGE for that. I am so sad that people exist (authors, editors, publishers) who think this is a book worth writing and publishing. I mean, it’s fine to write a character who has sexist thoughts and says things about his non-existent vagina, but it’s not okay for that character to be the romantic hero. No. Just no.
I’m adding this to my Goodreads list JUST so I can remember that I never want to read anything by this author.
Oh SB Sarah, your write the best F reviews, no one does it better! This book was reviewed at DA and given a B+….yes it was! This was about a month or so ago and I didn’t really read the review I just skimmed the beginning and I thought oh wow I might like this, well I didn’t and I was so angry I returned the book which is something I rarely do.
Thank you for your absolutely phenomenal review with gifs, I really love the GFDI….I copied it way back when it was used before in a review and use it often to express myself in a dignified manner. 🙂
@mel burns: Oh, wow – I’m glad I’m not alone in being angry, but I’m sorry you had a similar experience. Did the same things make you mad as well, or did something else set off your ire?
(Also, of all the gifs in the world, I am pretty sure that’s my absolute favorite.)
Great review, thanks for taking one for the team and saving me some rage. (My husband thanks you too.) I will read this review to my husband because the “STOP BEING SUCH A PUSSY” has been a topic of discussion (aka me ranting) on occasion. He doesn’t say it, but he will tell me about conversations at work and I will get on my soapbox. 🙂
I read many posts from Smart Bitches to my hubby and he tells me they talk about a few of them at work. So Smart Bitches reaches a bunch of military radio tech geek guys. Guys that don’t read romance! I love this site.
I once worked in a preschool where a group of boys insulted each other by calling each other a “girl”. I loved how one of the teachers handled this. When one of the boys said it to him, the teacher simply replied, “Thank you.” You could see the confusion on the boys’ faces. It was such a kind, radical way to handle this.
Thank you for this review. There has to be a point where this kind of sexism is just… over and done with.
Wow. That is a book that should be burned. Maybe the author is from Mississippi, like this poor heroine, and thinks this kind of bullshit is normal and okay?
Sorry to all the non-sexist people from Mississippi but I spent a lot of years in the deep south and I know what it’s like. It’s like this.
@That Other Kate, I thought the same thing at first, but then I decided it was more likely a woman who doesn’t have enough close interactions with men to know how they think or talk. For instance they might like breasts, be fascinated by breasts, but they don’t fall in love with them. Or as a guy friend put it way back in high school: “Sure they’re nice to look at, but it’s not like they talk.”
I have many brothers who have many friends, and while they might call each other a pussy (because, in my experience, men do) for not jumping out of an airplane with them, but not for having feels. They might tell me to man up and walk it off, after the initial throwing up of hands and “Jeez, she’s crying.”, but never that my emotions were something weak and “girly”. After all that was our big tough dad sitting on the couch next to me weeping through the end of Brian’s Song.
I really want someone to explain to this guy that since he thinks pussies are so terrible, he shouldn’t be upset when he never gets his dick near one again.
@SB Sarah: The objectification and the misogyny….I don’t think Liz Talley (and many others too) understand how “language shapes conscientiousness” or they wouldn’t write this kind of nonsense. Recently I read a book where the male characters called the women “girls” over and over and over, it bugged me because the women were in their mid to late thirties with successful careers and families. I imagine the author would have been surprised and confused at how insulting this is to women, but it is and it took away much of the enjoyment in her book for me. It’s what I call “friendly misogyny” and I hear it in my very professional workplace daily and it irritates me to no end!
@SB Sarah, thanks for taking one for the team. I won’t be reading this.
I decided that when you quoted the word, if it is a word, “elflishly.” My spell checker doesn’t like it and wants to rewrite it. Google, here I come… Evidently, there is no such word. Google refused to look for it and offered me “selfishly” instead.
I have to be honest, I think I only read about half of the review because I was so turned off by the misogyny and sexism you described. Usually, I laugh through the F reviews because they are so danged entertaining. Just as I laugh through Cover Snark.
Not this time. It made me too angry that a woman, presumably, would write this way about other women or put such words into the guy’s mouth. Yeah, there are guys like that out there and we call them abusive.
Man, just reading the review of this made me angry! You guys are the best, reading stuff like this so we don’t have to. <3
Too bad, because the premise sounded fun. I actually know a guy who got his master’s degree in some kind of science – physics I think – at 21, and went on to become – I kid you not – a mixed martial arts fighter. He was also good-looking and pretty sweet, and when I once called him on getting a bit too macho while hanging out with a bro-dude rock climber, he got it and backed down. He’d make a much better hero than this guy.
Wow, just the excerpts were nauseating, I can’t imagine reading a whole book of this crap. D:
Secret confession, I always think of this sort of book – where the heroine’s body is extensively lauded by the hero and/or narrator, and frequently compared to other, less-good female bodies – as being written by a woman who is working out feelings about her own body. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. BUT THERE I SAID IT. Often after reading something like “She wasn’t a stick… like other women” I’ve looked at the author’s photo and seen a zaftig lady, or after reading “Her breasts weren’t too big and sloppy like SOME peoples'” I’ve looked at the author’s photo and seen a petite lady. I always find it extremely awkward.
(I think of this as different than books where the hero loves the heroine’s body without comparison – there’s a specific thing where other women are physically not as good as the heroine that always makes bells ring for me.)
@cordy: I don’t think it’s fair to ascribe that motivation to the author in every case. It’s not always so simple or easy to identify how or why a book is the way it is. I do think that the language and choices of comparison and denigration of other women further the internalized misogyny that most if not all of us grapple with. It definitely makes me feel awful and awkward (and mad. Really, really mad).
@Cordy, have to also had troubles with the spam filter? Annoying, isn’t it?
I find your comments insightful. I know nothing about this author and based on this review may never know anything about her, I presume.
I’ve read any number of books in which the heroine had issues with her body and the hero was enchanted with her and her body. Everything she hated was a delight to him and there was no comparisons to other women made by the hero.
Did I read that right? Did he swear by William H. Macy? Because if so, I’m so disappointed that was not in a better book.
Perfectly charming? Not likely. The quotes? Perfectly nauseating. The fact that a woman wrote this about other women? Perfectly infuriating. The idea that she might have actually heard people talk like this? Perfectly horrifying.
Thanks for warning me. I read the Dear Author review, but I decided to pass on this one because the setup sounded very problematic to me. The whole “boy genius with two degrees who invented a stem cell thingie and by 26” is actually highly dubious for anyone who knows how experimental science works. Yes, there are quite a few child prodigies, but there are good reasons while the vast majority of them are in math and computer science. One of the basic things about chemistry and biology is that experiments take unavoidable time – often many days – and there is just nothing that can be done to speed that up.
In some ways, the book may be “true to life” – I can entirely that someone who managed to become a child prodigy in biology and medicine would have suffered social isolation and various emotional issues because of that. Since I work in academia, I have seen the effects.
But it looks from the review that this is a minor issue in a set of really major ones. So I am glad that I passed it up.
@SB_Sarah – maybe. I’m sure it’s not always the case. I disagree with you that it’s “unfair” of me to have theories about the motivations of authors, though.
This sort of thing – the comparing of the heroine’s body to other female bodies so you know that she is better than they are and more special – is SO common in romance novels (more often in contemporaries, for some reason), I’m surprised people seem to feel that this book is uncommonly bad about it.
I love this review so much. Thank you.
@MD agreed. And it’s a stem cell treatment of some kind, so you would expect that the FDA approval process/clinical trials would at least take a couple years, plus the majority of compounds don’t even make it past phase one. And on the business side, Medivation was founded in 2004 and was only bought out by Pfizer this year. Maybe it would be more believable if he wasn’t 26.
Especially in the wake of Theranos collapsing because their “genius” startup founder was actually a fraud, this feels super irritating. I’m sure most people don’t care and I know romance is a wish fulfillment genre, but like… this is about as annoying as that one biker hacker tech CEO. Couldn’t he have just inherited family money or something, that’s honestly how most people actually become independently wealthy at 26 in the US.
(And on the topic of Elizabeth Holmes, while I’m sad to see a prominent female startup founder fall from grace, I also really hate that she traded on the fact that she learned Chinese in high school and sold some code compilers to a Chinese university as proof of her “genius” among other things. Speaking as a Chinese-American, it just kind of highlights the weird shitty double standard and bamboo ceiling bullshit we have to deal with.)
@cordy: You’re right, and I apologize. You can have whatever theories you like – that wasn’t cool of me. I’m sorry.
Althoughhhhhh, I would be kinda interested in a romance where the hero was an Elizabeth Holmes-type character (minus the weird Steve Jobs cosplay) who was wealthy because he made a ton of money off his startup that ended up collapsing in valuation because it turned out that he couldn’t deliver on his promises since he actually had no idea what he was doing/promising. He would be humbled at the start of the novel and his name would be basically toxic, so he has no idea what to do with his life, but he would also have a lot of personal wealth that’s kind of almost tainted because he made out really well even though he lost investors billions and also did some shitty things while he ran the company. So his entire story arc would be finding some kind of life goal in the face of the fact that he will be forever defined by a massive failure and a.
IDK, I’m tired of CEO characters who are just emotionally stunted, I want heroes who are tortured by their personal professional failures. I feel that usually it’s the other way around, where heroines have these rom-com-style trainwrecks of professional lives. And I guess while I’m a staunch capitalist (apologies to my lefty friends), I’m kind of ambivalent about the really rosy picture of CEOs and tech people that ends up in contemporary romance.
I’m sad this book exists, but happy we got this review with all those amazing gifs, and ecstatic that it engendered comments about suspension of disbelief being thwarted by the specious stem cell invention premise. SBs are discerning readers, for sure.
I came to read this book following the review at DA. I am incapable of not reading the books of a series in order so I read Charmingly Yours first. It charmed me. The next evening I read Perfectly Charming and found it so different in tone that I wondered if the author was really the same person, got up and wandered around several times before returning to this book and made a note to remember the name of the reviewer because *phew* are our tastes different.
I really hate when romance novel hero/ines denigrate certain female bodies. I guess it’s supposed to make them relatable, but it’s just so immature (among other things).
It’s especially frustrating because romance novels too often recycle the same three “types” – the slender woman with “small but perfectly formed” breasts; the woman with curves (the hero always loves her butt); and the woman with the doesn’t-exist body and the perfect face, whatever that is. And then every so often there’s a petite woman who hates tall women.
Don’t drink the haterade, ladies! There are enough dukes and billionaires for all of us!
Why does “accountant” always equal “boring” in romance novels?
It’s not even “columns of numbers are boring” (which I could understand). It’s as though the profession equates to the person, so there’s nothing more to a man.
God, this reminds me of a book I reviewed recently which was pretty crap even BEFORE the author suddenly changed from talking about the Roma in reasonably respectful terms, to calling them ‘gypsies’. WTF. (I’m not even going to talk about the 15 inch donkey dongs).
Yeah the review made me smile in a hate rage laugh sort of way.
Never picking the picking the book up.
“Go out and find tampons for his vagina? REALLY?”
It always amuses me that men buying tampons is a symbol of being wusses. My brother who is the sportiest bloke ever and a devoted dad had no problem buying tampons for me when we were teenagers.
I read the first two books in this series, and the first book goes far toward explaining why Jess HAD to be at that wedding. I have to admit that I didn’t feel all the rage at this one. More of a resounding “meh.” Yeah the term “pussy” made me cringe, and I did note the the twentieth century, faux machaux internal monologue, but I attributed it to the fact that the hero suffered from stunted emotional growth. So many of his responses to the heroine channel the drooling inner 13 year old who had a fixated on her in high school. Even the persona he has created is sorta manic pixie dudebro–so misguidedly fake. Part of the novels resolution requires him to integrate his dual personalities and learn to accept his genuine self. At least, that was my interpretation.
I do want to say that, while I believe that all readers have a right to any interpretation of a book or opinion of an author they can back up, I am put off by judgment passed on an author whom one has not read, based entirely on a single review. I’ve read a number of Talley’s books. They tend to be sentimental, very southern, and steeped in traditional values, but there is considerable variation in the characters. I’d suggest tracking down His Uptown Girl for a sample of something very different.
There’s a comedy sketch that I’m mentally butchering, but it’s about the indignation of equating vaginas with weakness. That’s what I was reminded of when reading this – sure buddy, vaginas are weak and worthy of scorn. You wander through a maternity ward and then tell me vaginas are weak.
Be off with you.