crabbygirl reviewed Beach Read by Emily Henry
Review of 'Beach Read' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Pity the author of a romance in the age of Tinder. where the supposedly progressive women are not only fine with a one-time hook-up, but view them as an empowering interlude. Our main character holds her 'cool girl' cred with an internal chant of one time one time one time and all the promising starts of kissing and fondling have to be interrupted in order to delay the main course (as this is a modern romance, there's little room for chaste pecks on the cheeks and furtive hand-holding. no, this is a modern scenario where a deep-throated kiss would naturally move to sex. we aren't prudes here, or slut shame-ers you know)
I admit the first couple of clinches were well-written; I was smitten. Being a romance novel, she had to start the hot and heavy at the midway point (I'm mean, who'd keep reading if the romance wasn't even …
Pity the author of a romance in the age of Tinder. where the supposedly progressive women are not only fine with a one-time hook-up, but view them as an empowering interlude. Our main character holds her 'cool girl' cred with an internal chant of one time one time one time and all the promising starts of kissing and fondling have to be interrupted in order to delay the main course (as this is a modern romance, there's little room for chaste pecks on the cheeks and furtive hand-holding. no, this is a modern scenario where a deep-throated kiss would naturally move to sex. we aren't prudes here, or slut shame-ers you know)
I admit the first couple of clinches were well-written; I was smitten. Being a romance novel, she had to start the hot and heavy at the midway point (I'm mean, who'd keep reading if the romance wasn't even delivering on THAT) and then, a-la Sam & Diane, she had to stall for another 100 pages before hitting the - ahem - climax. But this stuff was just too much for me. I'm going to be reading this with my book club of elderly women and I can't imagine they were too comfortable with the extended sex scenes.
anyhooo. I don't read romance (see note about the book club) and she explicitly knocks Frazen twice (coincidentally the last book I read. and loved) so it was never going to be a love affair for us. But when a romance author writes a main character as a romance author who goes off in detail about how It Is Women's Writing, and It Is Worthy. well... you get that there is some insecurity there.
more for one more complain? alright: I don't like books that 'cheat' by referring to cultural touchstones like books (The Storied Life of AJ Frikry was shit) or movies/tv shows or music. Like, I loved the bad boy romance of Veronica Mars as much as the next gal, but having her dad be the ideal dad for our protagonist is lazy, non-descriptive writing. Having Sinead O'Connor sing Nothing Compares 2U in the background of the oh-they-together! moment is movie script writing.