RITA Reader Challenge Review

Searching for Mine by Jennifer Probst

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Phyllis L. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romance Novella category.

The summary:

The Ultimate Anti-Hero Meets His Match…

Connor Dunkle knows what he wants in a woman, and it’s the three B’s. Beauty. Body. Boobs. Other women need not apply. With his good looks and easygoing charm, he’s used to getting what he wants—and who. Until he comes face to face with the one woman who’s slowly making his life hell…and enjoying every moment…

Ella Blake is a single mom and a professor at the local Verily college who’s climbed up the ranks the hard way. Her ten-year-old son is a constant challenge, and her students are driving her crazy—namely Connor Dunkle, who’s failing her class and trying to charm his way into a better grade. Fuming at his chauvinistic tendencies, Ella teaches him the ultimate lesson by giving him a special project to help his grade. When sparks fly, neither of them are ready to face their true feelings, but will love teach them the ultimate lesson of all?

Here is Phyllis L.'s review:

This novella would have been much better if I knew less about universities. Ella is….what sort of professor? Adjunct? Assistant? Associate? Is this a tenure-track job? Where was she before this? It really, really matters to professors. Really. The reality is that if she were an adjunct she would probably be teaching a ton of classes, maybe at other colleges, too, scrambling for work to make a living. Was that what she was doing before? Was she at another university? And no matter her exact role, she would probably be anxious about keeping her job, because really good professor jobs are few and far between. (Also: where are the committee meetings?)

Which leads to my big problem: I’m pretty sure that even though the H and H are in their thirties, the college would have a problem with a professor and a student having an affair. There are all kinds of ethics problems about who’s using sex to get a grade and who has power and is this sexual harassment and so on. Especially as a new prof at the college, Ella would have to be super careful about even the appearance of impropriety.

I constantly had this argument going in the back of my mind about missing details. I’m not affiliated with any university, but I grew up in a small college town with a professor father, I attended two colleges, and I have quite a few friends who teach at colleges. I’ve also been following the uptick in adjuncts and the downtick in tenure-track professors, cutting costs at the same time tuition and fees have gone through the roof. And also wondering how my kids are going to afford college.

Ella starts out as a mega-bitch feminist professor who gives feminist professors a bad name – or at least that’s Connor’s opinion of her. She does seem to be taking something out on Connor, mostly that he’s handsome and a bit too slick. She’s not helpful in their interactions. So they’re both immature and it comes across as annoying.

Connor’s character sort of had an arc, but I didn’t think he really did the hard work to dig down to why he thought he was inadequate for so many years, he just *poof* thinks he’s worthwhile. But I guess at the opening of the story he’s already dealt with that to a point, probably in his brother’s story in the series. He’s registered for college so he can get a promotion, after all, so he’s not giving up.

But lord, is he ever a misogynist jackass.

I loved the transformative power the class which focuses on women writers had on Connor’s chauvinistic mindset. As a feminist, I wish school worked like that. Though Ella said she would accept any well-reasoned argument in the essays, it was a good thing for his grade that Connor started to see how women, especially historically, were constrained and disregarded. It just took him getting with the prof to understand, which, as mentioned before, is not generally considered the best pedagogical method. I don’t think Ella taught him that in class, as she came across as dismissive instead of coaxing him and the class toward understanding women’s place in the literary canon.

(Side note: I’m not a fan of Virginia Woolf, either, though A Room of One’s Own makes a lot of good points: “Give her a room of her own and five hundred a year [$40K USD, adjusted for inflation], let her speak her mind and leave out half that she now puts in, and she will write a better book one of these days.”)

I’m also not a fan of the makeover trope (and I realize the matchmaking agency is the thing that links this book into the series). Ella doesn’t seem to be, either, and calls Connor on it when he doesn’t kiss her until she’s dressed sexily and wearing better makeup. He claims he’s been falling for her this whole time as they hung out (along with her tween son), just like she’s been falling for him. She has softened by the end, so maybe she’ll become a better teacher to those other back-slapping bros without having to sleep with them all.

(Erotica authors; you’re welcome for the plot bunny.)

Ella’s makeover made her more stereotypically feminine and the dates she went on made Connor jealous. So maybe Ella became less feminist (or more flexible in accepting that she could be more feminine in the eyes of society, which opens up a can of worms as to why she cares so much about what everyone else thinks of her) and Connor became more feminist? I don’t know.

I’m going to give this novella a C, because I was so busy picking at it while I read it that I was pulled out of the story over and over.

But all Connor needed to graduate was a C in this class, so I guess that’s OK.

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Searching for Mine by Jennifer Probst

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  1. Berry says:

    Great review. I especially loved “It just took him getting with the prof to understand, which, as mentioned before, is not generally considered the best pedagogical method.”

    Inaccurate depictions of university life and a makeover storyline? No thank you.

  2. Emmy says:

    The whole college professor/student relationship is really icky to me. As someone who’s worked at a university for nearly seven years now, I know of enough stories of students being sexually harassed by professors that I just can’t get over the moral issues to enjoy a book like this.

    And yes, I feel for you. I wish authors would occasionally ask actual researchers how universities work.

  3. Vicki says:

    Yeah, my daughter just started a tenure track at a university – she won’t even go to the gym on campus in case someone might think she is flirting with a student. Also, why do we think feminists need make-overs? And why do we think make-up and a decent outfit make one less of a feminist?

    Thanks for the review. You definitely took one for the bitchery.

  4. Leigh Kramer says:

    Your last sentence made me laugh out loud!

  5. Chelle says:

    Many years ago when my hubby was a brand new assistant professor he had a student (male, if you’re wondering) offer sex for an ‘A’. Hubby told him to study.

    And I agree with Vicki about feminists and make-overs. Why?

  6. Mona says:

    I am an adjunct (less than minimum wage) and Connor sounds like a nightmare student, the kind you want to drop out before he complains about you since he doesn’t deal well with women in positions of authority (no matter the age.) That said I know of a female professor married happily to her former student (40/50s age range), but that was clearly after the class was over. I married my former student, too (we were grad students and I TA’d), but also didn’t date until a year later.

  7. Rose says:

    Awesome review, sounds like a nightmare read. I think the flaws in a hero are not nearly as important as how they’re addressed in a story–you can start out with a truly stomach-churning, vile character and redeem him into a decent guy by the end, but it takes careful plotting. A chauvinist might come off more truly changed were he to go out into the world and form compassionate, nonsexual friendships with women he learns to view as equals. Sleeping with his dowdy-but-brainy teacher once she transforms into a conventionally attractive swan does not a reformed misogynist make.

  8. Lizzy says:

    As a relatively recent graduate student professor/student relationships are just gross to me. The power imbalance and potential for abuse are too great. I give the author some credit that the student was in his thirties, that is much less ick inducing than a person fresh out of high school.

    And I’m just not here at all for the militant feminist who just needs to relax and get a makeover. Number 1, we’re pissed off for good reason and number 2 a whole lot of us do makeup like a boss to begin with.

  9. Tam says:

    Aaaarggh, no, you cannot sleep with your student, even if they’re an adult. (I knew a girl who had an affair with her twenty-years-older MA adviser, and essentially scuppered her academic career once word got out. People claimed he’d written her MA for her.)

  10. Msb says:

    Thanks, I think I’ll skip this one. I have a lot of time for Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, but I like Three Guineas better.

  11. kkw says:

    @Rose Couldn’t agree more. If we’re talking ultimate fairy tale happy endings, vile hero reformed may be hard to believe, but oh how I want to. I want a book with the scenario you describe!

  12. Rebecca says:

    For those who’d like brain bleach for all that’s wrong with this book, I present the following op-ed, written by a real life college student who actually did end up in a required freshman composition course that focused on gender and sexuality even when he hadn’t chosen to take it.

    http://columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2016/01/27/grand-performance/

    As a traditional 18 year old student the author was a good 20 years younger than the “hero” of this novel when he wrote the piece, but knowing nothing of him beyond this article, I’d say he’s well on his way to becoming a good man. Unlike the annoying men-children who shamble around thinking that they’re god’s gifts to hot chicks until they’re eighty.

  13. Rose says:

    @kkw Me too!! Let me know if you find it!

  14. Edwina says:

    Just so not there for a student/prof relationship. Maybe a year after he’s been in the class, reformed a bit, etc., and then runs into her again…I could do that. But while he’s in her class? No.

    And for the love of all that’s holy…why doesn’t the guy just do the damned homework? (Can you tell it’s finals time? There could not be a worse time for this book for me.)

    @Berry I rarely read anything set at a uni or featuring profs because of the inaccurate descriptions. And I get tired of the female profs are dowdy description. My wardrobe is not dowdy, and I don’t do makeup because I don’t need it.

    @Vicki I won’t go to my uni gym, either, for that same reason.

    @Mona I adjunct, too, and he would be a nightmare. I haven’t had any quite that bad, but I’ve dealt with flattery, being hit on, and the rare instances of physical intimidation.

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