Jonathan Maberry is real hit or miss for me. I like the Joe Ledger series even though I generally hate his writing style. But I still keep giving him a chance. This book won the Bram Stoker Award so I thought I was in for something good here. If this is what they honor, then I don't actually get what the BSA is about.

Once again Maberry has about fifty million characters and we have to jump to all of their POVs. It didn't feel like there was any sort of cohesive story just random vignettes that pull together separately. It was all slow as hell. There were hints at horror elements, but not enough for there to be anything called horror, really. There was more of the human crime element.

Even the people that were obviously supposed to be the good protagonists weren't in my opinion. Everyone knew this guy Vic is beating on his 14-year-old stepson but no one does anything about it because Vic is friends with cops or some such nonsense. Our "hero" Crowe calls himself doing something by befriending the kid, Mike. On this night Mike had already gotten into an accident and was injured and Crowe knew that sending him home with his stepfather was a bad, dangerous idea but did it anyway because the Mayor told him to. When he leaves the kid to do the job he was tasked with and comes back to be told by a witness that Vic came to get Mike and full on punched him in the gut before tossing him in the car, Crowe was pissed. And that was about it. We're then treated to a very extended and graphic scene of Vic beating the ever-loving shit out of Mike. It was horrific and supposed to somehow be ameliorated because Mike realizes that Vic is nothing more than human during the beating? What the?

Back to Crowe and the very next thing he's thinking about getting home to his girlfriend and the meal she cooked him. That's when I was done with this book. There are no good guys in this story if they just let something like that go on and do nothing. He didn't even bother to go check on the kid! Then he realized said girlfriend was probably in trouble and that's all that mattered. Speaking of the girlfriend, the topper on my DNF was her running back to the farm where the killer who had kidnapped her and her family was instead of trying to get any sort of help.

I don't care about these characters at all. Except Mike and since he isn't getting help I can't stand to read/listen to more. I don't care about what's coming, if anything is coming because the whole thing has been boring as hell. And long as hell. I actually groaned out loud when I was halfway through because there was still another seven hours left! I tried, but it's not worth my time. I'm super disappointed. I was hoping to have a fun creepy/scary trilogy to get me through the rest of October.

ETA: I forgot to mention that the narrator was pretty awful as well. I actually ended up getting used to him eventually, but he was in no way good.

This book was a giant waste of time. It made no sense. Seriously, none.  I'm just . . . confused.

There is nothing worse than looking forward to reading a book—especially for a long time—only to not enjoy it when you finally do get to read it. It's even worse when it is so I unenjoyable you have to flounce it.

I have been wanting to read Love Overdue for quite some time since I love library/librarian stories. But between plot elements I hate and how unlikeable I found the characters—as well as reading spoilers about the end of the book—this story doesn't seem to be salvageable for me.

First, the plot entirely hinges on the hero (Scott) and heroine (D.J.) having gross stranger sex eight years ago. You all know how much I hate that. To make matters exponentially worse D.J. did it to ~not he like herself~. On spring break, dressed like a hooker complete with plexiglass heels (who even?), encouraged by her friends she went out to find a stranger to fuck. (Here are my thoughts on that.) And she was a virgin. Just, why would you . . . just, why? That will never make any sense to me. Sorry I'm not sorry that I'm never going to find that to be in any way empowering and not stupid.

And Scott. He apparently cheats on his girlfriend in having that fling. Not that I abide or forgive cheating in any way, shape, or form, but worse—it didn't just happen, he set out to cheat. In reading other reviews apparently he had some convoluted reason: to get better at sex to please his girlfriend. Uhm. What? No . . . wait, what? I get his girlfriend made him feel insecure through no fault of his, but still! How in the world does cheating make things better??

So this entire scenario is off-putting, unromantic, and gross on a few levels. But I probably could have dealt with it as usual if the characters were at all likeable to me.

With Scott, the book had barely started when we're told he had carried on a sexual relationship with a married woman for sometime after his divorce. Given context clues, it didn't sound as if the woman and her husband had an open marriage, which makes him a homewrecker and he had no guilt about this at all. Worse, he got divorced because his wife cheated on him. What would possess him to do the same to someone else? So, between this and the previous cheating I did not like him at all. Add in what other reviews have said about the way he thought about women, particularly D.J., later on in the book and he apparently reaches dudebro levels of douchey.

D.J. was more actively awful, at least when it came to Scott. She, deservedly, feels stupid and mortified over her actions eight years ago. Lucky for her, Scott doesn't recognize her. So she takes her prim librarian persona to an extra degree with him so he won't remember. For some weird reason she thinks her life will be destroyed if he does. Okay. But on the other hand she gets pissed at him for not remembering! What? She already acted like an ass the morning after back then when she fled without a word. Now she meets him again and treats him like crap. With outright disdain. Initially so as not to tip him off, but then she starts making up shit about him in her head that makes no sense. According to her, because he jumped into bed with a stranger he's a liar (I still can't work out how she came up with that one), and a player. Then adds on more thinking he's a bigot against the town's lesbian couple. At no point in time, at least not before I DNF'd, does it occur to her that maybe he was pretending to be something he's not that night, too. That maybe she doesn't know anything about the guy whose name she refused to even hear then let alone learn anything else about him. That maybe there is some history between him and the lesbian couple that precipitated his attitude toward them. (Granted, it is a bigoted little town, of course, but she was just looking for more ammunition to hate him for no reason. Turns out half of that couple was his ex-wife, and the other half is the woman with whom she cheated. And she did get wind of the married woman affair, but it only reinforced what she had already convinced herself of.) Her whole bitchy, dismissive demeanor toward Scott and her nonsensical judgment of him made me really dislike her, too.

At this point I'm not enjoying the book and I don't think it's going to get any better. The only thing I do like is D.J.'s dog, Mr. Melville Dewey. So I go and look at reviews and thank the Book Gods I did. Turns out the only reason to even attempt to push through the book—Scott finally realizing who she is, the big reveal, and working things out—is completely absent. Most reviews lament the sudden abrupt end when he realizes it's her and it cuts to an eight years later epilogue. The climax is entirely absent. What?! Why would you do that?!?! I . . . am SO happy I didn't waste my time finishing this book. I think everyone would have felt my indignant rage. On top of that, everything to do with Scott's mother, D.J.'s landlady/boss, is so utterly ridiculous I almost started beating my head against something hard just reading reviews! (She tries to commit suicide with a botulism pie?! WHAT ARE YOU I CAN'T EVEN!!!)

So, yes. One very emphatic and heartbreaking DNF for me. Dammit.

Posting this because I just remembered it and think you guys will love it as much as I did:

When Chase and Amanda first had sex (and keep in mind she was reticent to date him in the first place because of his ~playboy~ lifestyle) he pulls out the condom then says, 'I've always used one of these, but I don't want to with you. I promise I'm clean.'

. . .

. . .

. . . 

obligatoryfacepalm.gif

Ah, dammit. This was so promising. Even with all the tell and no show. I was a fan of the hero, Chase, trying to get the heroine, Amanda, to date him. Even though it was semi-stalkery his staking out her restaurant and kind of being a pest. But he's a famous baseball player! I was a fan of her apparently being a double digit size and not going on about being fat. It was barely mentioned! I was a definite fan of them going out on a first date and doing nothing more than a kiss at the end. Then they went out for a few weeks before sex happened! WHA–THAT'S LIKE PERFECT ROMANCE FOR ME!

And then Stephanie Evanovich had to ruin it.

I knew the BDSM kink was coming because, like I said in a previous post, it was introduced in Chase's POV really early. I was not looking forward to that, but because of all the stuff I was liking above I was willing to power through because the story had earned that chance. I do not understand what in the hell Evanovich was thinking here . . .

Chase believes he has found the perfect woman in Amanda, but he doesn't want to scare her off with his spanking kink. So he doesn't say anything and it builds up in him until he's an insufferable crankypants and she calls him on it. She gets so pissed off at his attitude she curses at him and he grabs her and starts spanking her. Just like that.

Er, I say again, NOPE.

That is not how you start that kind of relationship. You don't just grab someone and start hitting them with no prior conversation or consent. That's not kink, or BDSM. That's assault. That's domestic violence. After grabbing her and smacking her on the ass once, then dragging her off to his bedroom to keep going, he says something like, 'you can stay or call the cops after but this is happening.' I . . . what the fuck? That's so . . . not okay. Not at all. He doesn't stop until she starts crying and then I don't even know.

And of course she stays and fucks him instead of calling the goddamn cops!

The next morning is he apologetic? Is he contrite at his behaviour? Does he sit her down to try and talk through what he did and why and would she like to do it again? Try to come to an agreement on this lifestyle? No, of course not. He's smug as shit about it because he got what he wanted and she stayed. He has a total cavalier douche attitude about the whole thing. Even when she starts to cry. He acts like any concern on her part is ridiculous. She's the one who has to start the discussion about what happened, and he's doesn't really feel like it's something that needs to be discussed. Turns out he likes to spank, sometimes as a sex-thing but not necessarily all the time. He will turn her over his knee at his discretion when he believes she's been "naughty". And his belief is that his woman should act like a lady. I shit you not. He says this. So if she does anything unladylike, especially uses profanity, he'll spank her. And apparently if she's too disobedient? I didn't get that part. She can argue with him up until a point and then he'll spank her if she goes too far? And she is not given any choice in the matter if she stays. What the shit kind of relationship is that? None of this is okay! Safe. Consensual. Sane. Say it with me, people! It's really not that hard a concept to understand.

Then Amanda starts acting like that chick from Secretary and baiting him to spank her because, just as he said she would, she likes it and wants to get him to do it. Sigh. Then, as he wanted her to do initially as a weird excuse to get around the spank!kink, she hires a manager for her restaurant so she can trail him around the country. Because she's a spineless weenine and I fucking nope on out of this story at this point. I would have earlier, after the morning after, had I not been in the shower. I looked up some spoilers of the rest of the book and just thank God I have the wherewithal to ditch this mess because the rest of it sounds terrible. Most of it about the damn spanking, and then some stupid occurrence later on.

Screw this book.

Screw these characters.

Screw the goddamn kink bandwagon. Why is it something showing up in what is supposed to be romance and not erotic romance??

You can do better than this, Evanovich.