ARCHIVE Reader Reviews Romance: Brier Hospital Trapped

Is that the only review we get of it? We want more, dammit...err please.

 

Yep, where are the rest?

 

That's swearing? Couple of curse words in one paragraph. Lame if you ask me.

 

You really missed the point, didn't you? Hint: everyone else is talking about the book.

 

Ok, ok, so the book sounds hilariously bad with characters that make no sense and do stupid things.

Aren't most romance novels like this?

 

Only the awful ones.

 

This sounds like one of the really awful ones.

You would have thought it would be easy enough to add a decent plot to a romance story. It's not like it doesn't affect most of the adults in the world at some point in their lives.

 

I think the problem is when they are fantasies that utterly forget the real world. The best ones are grounded: even in Pretty Woman, Edward still goes to work. He blows large amounts of money to impress her only once, because wealthy people don't stay wealthy by repeated splurging. In a deleted scene she pays her rent. The world around them drives the drama, and because it is real, it makes the romance more real.

Then look at the number of billionaire romance 'heroes' with no discernable income, just the title and infinite cash, and how flat these romances fall. If there is no problem that they can't overcome by waving a wallet at it, there's no conflict or obstacle, so nothing interesting to read about.

 

Yeah, just generally falling-in-love romances are dull. If there's no conflict, there's no point.

Half the time, it's just padding to try and squeeze a couple of sex scenes in where you sit and wonder how they got from A to B.

 

My core problem with the genre is when the author thinks that being pretty and in love excuses everything the characters do. Just because you love your characters does not mean everyone else does or will, so you need to make them loveable and interesting to the readers not just to each other. Show their good qualities, not just their material possessions, and give us a reason to care.

Understand that if your lead female falls for the male lead because of their Maserati and bank balance, that isn't a reason for the reader to love him. First, he's not offering the car to the reader and second, there's a word for women who fall for men based on money, and it's not a nice one. If a female romance lead must be something a female reader can project herself onto, then at least understand that most readers do not want to consider themselves golddiggers or worse.

Otherwise you end up in the classic pairing: he's rich and she's shallow and their eternal love will last forever as long as his bank balance and her looks.

(And now I shall climb off the soapbox.)

 

I'm still reeling from the fact she swears.

 

I think Reader only does it only special occassions