Old School Alpha Heroes Get Even Hotter. Thank You, World.

I want to talk about heroes for a minute. Oh, who am I kidding, I want to talk about heroes ALL the time. 

In my early romance reading days, I think I only read books with alpha heroes. I was kind of convinced that every hero was basically the same dude. He was:

• Hot
• Smart
• Rich/successful
• Of a privileged class
• Sort of a bad boy (or at least had been in his unruly youth, but now the bad-ness lurks tantalizingly just under his skin; he's a saint in a leather jacket) - some of his "badness" is the spicy whiff of him just not giving a crap
• Uber confident - this man has life by the bollocks.
• Has a superhero complex - he has a biological imperative to protect his lovely lady with his money, prestige and powerful personality, and if necessary, his fists. 
• Suffering some sort of internal anguish that causes him pain, a situation that is alleviated by of the heroine in his life

These, as we know, are some of the features of the classic romantic hero archetype from the mad, bad and dangerous-to-know Mr. Rochester to our main man F.W. Darcy. This incarnation of the romantic hero is sometimes called the Byronic hero archetype, and is thought to have caught on with the ladies after he published his narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (More on this and Byron and the poem below).

In addition to all these qualities, the Old School alphas were also, alas:

• Arrogant
• Bossy
• Moody and 
• Terrible at communicating their feelings in a logical and sensible manner, preferring instead to indulge in fits of gross misunderstanding and scowly-ness.

Many of the 1980s and 90s romantic alpha heroes on whom I nursed continued this tradition. Think Clayton Westmoreland the Duke of Claymore from Whitney, My Love, or actually, any of Judith McNaught's heroes. The heroes in Susan Elizabeth Phillips' books who are always these alpha dog jocks and men with incredible success in the bed/boardroom. Every single one of the Scots/highland hero stories where our hero has such a surfeit of testosterone that he manages to make a skirt look as manly as a sweaty jockstrap.

And cheesy squeezy as all this was, I loved it. Listen, I KNEW those alpha dudes were fantasy and totally impossible characterizations of any actual man, even when I was 16, I KNEW.<Shakes head and makes Garfield eyes>. But by the Wings of Pegasus, I loved those arrogant douches.

But why did I love them? Sensing, as I did, that these men were totally unrealistic portrayals of Real Men, cringing as I often would at the rape-y sex scenes and heavy-handedness with which the heroine was often treated - why on earth were these men so attractive to me?

Weeeeelll....I guess one big reason was that as a young sapling, those guys made me feel like someone else, someone big, brawny and capable, would make everything ok in my tiny little world. In my little fantasy universe, unlike in my real un-fantastic life, I didn't have to take charge of anything. I could just hang out and wait to get my ass saved by some mighty highlander with piercing eyes who could see through to my very soul who was possessed of thighs of steel. I didn't know precisely why steely thighs were useful in a man (I was 16, and those were more innocent times), but there was no doubt in my mind that it was a plus. In return, I would be able to remove the tortured pain that he felt with my cheeriness and indefatigable niceness.

But, I have matured, dear Skeptics. I am happy to report that I am kind of over it with douchey heroes. Maybe because now I'm awesome enough to figure out my own cr@p and don't necessarily need a brawny dude to manage stuff, although it would be nice if one would deal with the laundry from time to time. 

Now. I am definitely not saying I like BETA beta heroes. At least not the way they are sometimes written in contemporary romances (you almost NEVER see a beta in historical romances so I don't have a whole lot to reference). 

What do I mean by the traditional beta?

The main characteristic I see exist in the beta hero is that he's passive and let's things happen to him instead of reaching out and controlling his own destiny. This is sometimes, but not always, because he is in a position of low power - he's poor, he's in a lower social strata, he has experienced certain things that have left him with poor self-esteem. 

I don't have a ton of examples, but I guess Mr. Bingley would be a beta in my mind. Would you read a whole book about Bingley? Meh. Mr. Knightly was also kinda passive but I guess that book wasn't so much about the romance between Emma and Knightly, it was more about Emma's own personal growth.

Anyway, over the past hmmmm 10 years or so, I have had a sort of come-to-Jesus event with the New, Improved Alpha who's been showing up all over Romancelandia. I call him the Modified Alpha. And he's the Man.

Alpha hero 2.0: The Modified Alpha

This new generation of heroes have many of the same positive characteristics as the traditional alphas (they're still tall, dark and tortured) but they seem to have shed many of their awful characteristics (moodiness and arrogance), and have become simply swoon-worthy. In a way they are even less realistic than the old school alphas - I mean, those guys had faults, at least. These ones are just decent, communicative (relatively) and sensitive guys who are ALSO awesomely hot, sexual athletes who respect women. 

I mean, what's not to like?

Anyway. The whole point of my ramblings is to say that there's a sea change happening in our dreamtastic fantasy men, Ladies, and I like it. I like it a lot.

What do you guys think? Do you desperately pine for the return of the broody swashbuckler who could pick you up with one hand and crush your problems to fine dust with his square jaw and meat hook hands while he ravishes you on his powerful steed? Or are you in favor of this new trend towards nicer guys with amazing pecs and ability to communicate their feelings AND fights fires for a living?

Do tell! 

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

I gotta be honest. I tried reading the poem and it was terrible. The hero is just a whiny little brat the whole time, but the interesting thing was how Byron introduced the idea that the hero was something quite different than those strapping Greek boys with their brawn and brutishness, or even those gallant knights who saved fainting damsels every Sunday and Tuesday. Byron's hero had some inner pain that followed him no matter where he journeyed. He may have reached the pinnacle of society in terms of money and prestige, but he would still be burdened by a torment impossible to convert into happiness until he found his true angel. 

Harold doesn't actually find an angel - if I understood the poem correctly, he ends with some ramblings about nature and the sublime, but to be fair Byron was probably high when he wrote this. And it really didn't end well for Byron himself. He left England after a series of scandals and bankruptcy and then after engaging some political intrigues against the Ottomans, he died ignominiously of fever in Greece. Anyway.

Moonlight Road by Robyn Carr

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

Here's how it went down - H & h meet under less than auspicious circumstances, then for 20% of the book they don't appear on the same page together. Then they meet again and decide they like each other. Then they meet some more and REALLY like each other. Then there's this whole drama with his ex-wife that goes on until the last 10 pages and then H & h live happily ever after. The end.

He: Aiden is a retired ex-navy doctor who is hanging out in the small town of Virgin River while he tries to figure out what he wants to do next in his life. He's a nice guy who's just happy tooling around in the garden and hanging in the great outdoors.

She: Erin is a somewhat uptight lady who's come to "relax" in the isolated town - her first vacation in 25 years. She's an extremely hardworking lawyer who's been responsible for her younger siblings from a really young age. Now that her brother and sister are out of the house and don't really need her anymore, she's suffering a bit of empty nest syndrome.

Conflict: The romance between the Erin and Aiden is actually fairly uncomplicated but there is this whole other story of Aiden's ex-wife who creates a bunch of drama that interferes with the two of them and lends to some of the tension between Erin and Aiden.

What I liked:
1) Robyn Carr writes really NICE people. Her heroes are decent, upstanding, no-games-playing lads, and her ladies are mature and sensible so you never feel like hitting your head against the wall because of some totally stoopid thing either the H or h does. 

What was only "meh":
1) SO slow. So so so slow. I just couldn't keep my mind on the story because it just moved along like molasses in January.

2) Just too much going on at once. This is a weird thing for me to say given my point above about the SLOWNESS with which the story moved. 

Because the main romantic story of Aiden and Erin didn't really have any built-in conflict (except for the psycho stalker ex-wife) it seemed like the author sort of just piled in a bunch of side stories and entanglements that made the whole thing seem a bit too busy and scattered.

For example, one character was dealing with the inability to have more children and she and her husband were trying to work through her difficulty fully coping with that stress. Then there was the H's mother who was in a new relationship and was rediscovering herself and her interests. Then there was some story about a man with Down's syndrome and how he forms a special bond with a lady with some other disabilities. 

Carr deals with each of these relationships really sympathetically and sweetly, but honestly, I didn't see how any of it contributed to the MAIN story, which is why I was reading the book in the first place. Personal preference, I guess, but it felt like a lot of sound and fury.

Skeptic's last word: It was a sweet story, I guess. Just way too slow and I think I prefer Robyn Carr's other stories.

Love Unlisted by Stephanie Haddad

Skeptic scale: ♥♥

Hmmm... I do I approach this review?

Let me begin by saying that I didn't hate it. Ms. Haddad obviously can wield her pen and write a cogent sentence. I think I had more of an issue with the heroine than the actual writing.

She: Obsessive list-writer with other entertaining but highly anal retentive quirks.

He: Free wheeling, perpetually tousled musician.

Conflict: See "He" and "She"

What I liked:
1) Well-written, snappy dialogue, 

2) Not terribly original, but still interesting supporting cast.

3) I'm not a fan of beta heroes but this one was ok. He seemed like a sweet guy and was appropriately knight-in-shining-armor-ish

What I disliked
1) In the end it was just one thing really... the heroine. She's a compulsive listmaker who has a borderline personality disorder. She is controlling, incompetent, so mired in her own neurosis that she is selfish and unsympathetic to everyone else including her best friend who had hand-held her through what sounded like a mountain of inglorious romantic endings. I just couldn't muster up any affection for her, and I really couldn't figure out why anyone would care for her given that she was just so difficult to care for. 

I see that phobias and quirks make a character "interesting". And I did find her interesting. But I would find someone like her incredibly exhausting to know in real life. 

She never expresses any true selflessness and sense of empathy for anyone else - for her best friend, for her widowed mother, for the H... sorry to say, I would NOT want to be friends with this chick.

But I would read something else by the author. She's on my list.

Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight by Grace Burrowes

Skeptic scale: ♥♥

I think Ms. Burrowes is a superb writer so it pains my to say how incredibly bored I was by this book. Usually, I cannot WAIT to take myself and my book to a quiet place where I can read in peace, but I found that I actually avoided opening my kindle because I knew I had to finish this thing and it was just too dull a prospect to bear. Sigh...

Anyway, now that I have finished it, let me explain why I was so underwhelmed. But first, a short summary.

He: A knight who has come back from fighting the war (bravely and honorably) with a limp. He isn't from a grand family, and only became knighted because of his performance in the war. In fact, he was so impressive he is endorsed by the great man himself - Wellington. Oh, and he's in line for a "proper" title of Baron but he really doesn't want it.

He has some secrets. Lots of illegitimate children that he has fostered. There is some attempt to make it seem like they are actually his bastards but that was SUCH a weak attempt at mystery that I won't even bother to keep the spoiler a secret. Because you'll see through it anyway in half a second if you do read this. Anyway, he's a decent, honorable chap who reads poetry to his pig and has long rambling chats with his horse. 

She: Daughter of a powerful duke who is just bored. With everything - society, her life, her routine. She's supposed to be quite a polymath - poet, mathematician, strategy expert, bruising horsewoman and excellent dancer. She's beautiful and kind and everything genteel and proper. With a hidden passion, that he uncovers, of course. 

She's got this terrible secret, that if exposed, will destroy her reputation so she stays away from men in general.

What was nice:

1) The writing is very Georgette Heyer-ish. There is a keen sense of time and place and absolutely correct usage of Regency language. 

What I did not like at all:

1) The pace was slumberous. I mean, it took 15 pages for ONE thing to happen. I think I've gotten used to more "modern" historical romances that are written with quicker pacing, with a structure that gives the characters more "tension".

I think we were supposed to feel urgency due to the fact that these two characters had these secrets that they were withholding from each other. But then it turns out they both find out about each other's terrible secrets before actually the other reveals it to them. Then we see that they're both just ok with those secrets. I mean, what was the point then? Where's the tension? What do they really have to overcome?

They have these made up internal struggles and then everything falls flat like a badly made souffle in this big "reveal" scene with a villain (who was a weak, pathetic person who had no real power over anyone). I felt a bit cheated that I struggled through the whole series of (extremely slow) events only to be treated to this weak climax scene.

2) Dull sex scenes. It's all just too proper to be really hot. Again, I think this is because I'm used to raunchier language in the more recently written historicals, but these two talk like they are at a tea party while doing it. In fact, there's just too much TALKING. Long, witty sentences that are fine when they're building the tension, but then when we're supposed to feel their passion, there is all this noise from their yammering that I was like SHUT UP AND DO IT ALREADY!

The weird thing is that the proper talk is juxtaposed with this incredibly clinical description of his bits and her bits and their bits mashing together. It just felt really strange and not very sexy at all. Like sex between the Queen (forgive me, Your Highness) and her consort. Shivers.

3) No tension. At all. None. And that was surprising. I mean there was a duel, some improper behavior, clandestine smooches, scandalous secrets in both their pasts, a villain... but it all was like a bunch of milky porridge with no texture or grit or sense of urgency. I just didn't give a fig by the end of it. Maybe the pace was intentional since this was a "Christmas" romance and maybe there was the feeling that readers want a nice, slow read for the winter days but I would have been annoyed if I wasted my Christmas break on this.

Skeptic's last word: I still think Grace Burrowes is a solid writer and I'm definitely reading her again. This one was simply too slow for me. Also, I need to be more strategic about when I read her. I need to be in the mood for a Heyer-type read with lots of fun language and less romp.

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥

He: the wastrel son of a baronet who's been banished to the Sussex countryside to behave himself. He's a good-natured, affectionate sort who misses his uncomplicated London life of fun and easy manners. But to end his banishment, he needs to prove to his father's steward, and by extension his father, that he has become a respectable land-owning gentleman and has left the life of dissipation behind him. 

The task becomes especially hard when his very pretty, very widowed neighbor makes him an offer impossible for a cad like him to refuse. Not that he wants to refuse.

She: The widow of a man who was rather careless of his lands and responsibilities while he was alive. She took on all the responsibility of running the household and oversaw the duties to their tenants and lands. But now that her husband has died without an heir, the land and life she regards so highly will be lost to her dead husband's villainous brother. She cooks up a plan to find an "heir" in a month by recruiting the H to be her hired stud. Wha whaaaat!

Conflict: She's prickly, proper to the point of being tedious, and entirely without the capacity to charm. She's single-minded in her goal to fake an heir because she knows if the property gets into the nasty old lech of her brother-in-law's hands, he will be a threat to the virtue of every female servant and she just can't let that happen. She thinks the H is vain and silly and has little respect for him, even though she needs his help to conceive. She hires him to be her "stud" for a month in the wild hope that she can keep the property but remains entirely aloof to his charms.

What I liked:
1) Considering that the construction of the story required 30 days of sex scenes I was worried that it would all get a bit comme ci comme ca by the nth description of their heaving bosoms and trembling nerves. 

Noting could have further from that expectation! In fact, for most of the book there were no heaving bosoms! The heroine remained frigid and unresponsive to his bedroom blandishments for the majority of their doing-it scenes. I thought it was hilarious that the only times she felt turned on by him he wasn't trying to seduce her at all - it was during totally serious moments where was talking about wheat prices or being "intellectual" or when he being useful and fixing a tenant's roof. 

2) There was some actual character development - as in both characters developed into richer, more complicated people as the story progressed and began to like each other as they saw and learned more of the other. 

There was an interesting juxtaposition of this puritanical, "innocent" friendship that grows between them, while they're conducting this strange, rather scandalous physical relationship where neither is getting all that much pleasure. Usually romance novels present stories the opposite way - beginning with this explosively amazing sexual chemistry and using the rest of the story to develop an out-of-bedroom relationship between the characters. This sort of turns that formula on its head a bit because there non-sexual chemistry actually grows a lot faster and their sexual relationship has to catch up.

What I thought was a bit weird:
1) It seems sort of a stretch to think that a prim, governess-y lady would approach a random dude to hire him to be her stud. Pun intended. Why not just travel somewhere and adopt a baby? I get that she was desperate and things needed to be done really quickly so the baby seemed legitimate - but surely there were other ways to deal with the issue that didn't involve sex with a total stranger who has a reputation for being a philandering rogue. Did no one fear the pox in those days!? Seriously though, why wasn't adoption a viable option?

2) Why does he try so hard? It becomes clear from the first few interludes that she wasn't getting any pleasure out of his bedroom skills. This sort of compels him to try even harder, going to even greater lengths to see that she derives pleasure from their little interactions. To no avail. In fact, she just sort of acts holier than thou the whole time because she considers him useless and directionless. Um. He's not the one hiring someone to fake an heir so I feel like her feeling of superiority was a tad misplaced.

I see why he would be intrigued by her initial suggestion and go with it for a lark. But then when she proves to be a pain in the butt, why doesn't he just end it? Wouldn't a guy just feel kind of demoralized after day 5 of frigid reception? She's not very likable in the beginning so not sure why he decides to keep going? The way it's described in the book, he is determined to turn her on with his legendary bedroom skills and needs to prove to himself that he can. I call bullshit. 

Skeptic's last word: Anyway, despite a couple of over-engineered plot points, this is a fun, craftily constructed story. CG cleverly weaves in so much more than a love story here - we talk about the rights of women during the times, the politics of land ownership and the social politics of the co-dependent role of landowner and tenant. The love story wasn't as dark and intense as the other one of hers I  loved (A Gentleman Undone) but all in all, a good read.

Getting Over It by Anna Maxted

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

In Getting Over It, Anna Maxted reminds us that the Brits, as a people, are hilarious. And even though I had some issues with this book, it cannot be denied that I laughed out loud so many times that the lady sitting next to me in Starbucks inched away and gave me a look reserved for the homeless dude who stares at the 2% milk carafe and talks to it all day.

Many, many more sour candy tidbits like these:

"...it'll be as awkward as sex in a bath. Your stomach bunches up and the aesthetics are ruined."

"I fed the hunger on a gluttonous diet of pre-1970s Harlequin romances."

"If we always made the smartest choices, we'd never get laid."

"I am dumping Jasper tomorrow. He deserves it for being called Jasper, for a start."

I struggled with this. 4 hearts because it was hilariously funny and there was a LOT going on (death in the family, serious trouble in a close friend's life, many hits and misses with some foolish men, anxiety at work, tumult with roommates, a sick cat at home)? Or 3 because the heroine acts like a serious wanker in every single one of her dealings with the hero and through all the other challenges in her life. Methinks 3.

She: A 26-year old lowly employee of a girly magazine who shares many of the manifold amusements one would expect of a young, hot City gal. She hangs with her friends and bitches about men, goes out and gets sozzled on a semi-regular basis, fails to save money, makes terrible decisions with men, and loves her cat. 

It's all plodding along swimmingly until her father dies.Then, suddenly, the depression, anger and her complicated Daddy-issues seem to attack from within. For half the book she is a viperishly angry creature and the other half she's a sodden lump of despair and  a BAD-DECISION MACHINE.

He: A vet. Hot. Sweet. Jolly-humored. Kind to her cat. Good in bed. Polite to her family. Takes the higher road with rude characters. Just a good dude. A little beta.

Story: There's no plot exactly. It's more of a story of how she needs to come to terms with her issues with her parents and how she must untangle the gnarly mess of her other romantic and platonic relationships.

The main thing stopping me from loving this is the fact that my main concern wasn't addressed and that is: WHY DOES THIS DUDE EVEN LIKE HER?

By the end of the book, she does some reflection and learns a few things so yes, at THAT point, I can see why he might think she's ok. But until that point? She's a HOT MESS for the entire book!!! Even the reconciliation scene was a sticky, icky bowl of day old chili. There are far too many misunderstandings (all caused by this crazy woman) and I can't believe that a guy wouldn't just be like, alright lady, ENOUGH already!

There is not one instance where she helps HIM out. She seems totally self involved (obsessed) and up her own arse. I understand that it's because she's going through a tough phase, but if the tough phases of life reveal what type of person we're dealing with, then here, we are dealing with an overgrown brat. She doesn't seem to have a nice, kind bone in her body. When she does do something nice, it's with some resentment and bitterness. Except for the thing with her friend. That was all good. But I can't say what it is because it was the one "surprising" thing in the book. 

Can we all just agree that there is NO person who will agree to take on such a garbage heap of unresolved emotion unless they were already in a relationship with them. It just defies everything that I observe to be true.

Skeptic's last word: Annnnnyyyyway... the book is funny. Hilarious, even. But it didn't QUITE pass the Skeptical smell test as an actual, believable romance. But who cares right? It was a fun read and that's all you need sometimes.

Rescuing Rose by Isabel Wolff

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

Rescuing Rose was definitely well-written and sometimes charming. But I thought the story has been told a thousand times before in sort of the same way (woman loses everything husband, job, home, security) and romantic interest seemed a little 2-dimensional.

My main issue with the lead character is that she seemed like a controlling, emotionally constipated, angry shrew some of the time and I found her a bit difficult to like. I guess she comes across that way because her character feels abandoned and insecure, but while I sympathized, I just never grew to like her. She spends her whole life trying to get into other people's problems (she's an agony aunt for a newspaper) so she doesn't have to deal with her own, which I thought was a little too obvious of a characterization. And then, even while "helping" people, she comes across as snappish and rude, rather than actually warm and empathetic to the troubles of her "clients".

I liked the angle of the adoption of the main character as a baby and how that affects her whole outlook on life, but I felt that her issues sort of just go on and on and the "Resolution" seemed a little too perfectly packaged to be believable. Just feels like this woman should have taken herself to therapy years ago!

I also appreciated the fact that the character is 40 and Ms. Wolff didn't make the story into a whole Must Have Baby Now thing. Thank goodness for that.

The romantic interest seemed very underdeveloped as a character. You learn a few things about who he is and what he does, but even at the end of the book, I feel like I didn't really grow to love him because I just didn't know WHY he was attracted to her in the first place.

Skeptic's last word: This was an ok read. I would save it for a "slow" reading time. Like if you're between some heavy books and just need a palate cleanser. I think it was a little light on the "romance" angle, but it dealt sympathetically with a character whose issues revolve around feelings of inadequacy and abandonment.

Make Me a Match by Diana Holquist

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥



It was better than the DH's other book about these gypsy sisters (one of which reviewed here). But worse than the feeling you get after running a really good 5 miles. She's a good writer. The fact that she held my attention even with the juvenile mumbo jumbo about One True Love means that DH must be a really talented woman. 

She: Overcommitted, in-control doctor who comes from a spacey family does everything in her power to control the outcomes in her own life - perfect apartment, perfect fiance etc etc. Everything falls apart when her psychic sister tells her who her One True Love is. 

He: Carpenter, widowed father of an 8-year-old girl, is sweet and sad and missing his dead wife. Nice guy. A bit on the beta side but a nice guy all the same.

Besides finding the whole psychic/One True Love crap hugely silly, the main trouble I had with this was that the 8-year-old daughter is simultaneously portrayed as precocious and wise beyond her years and then at times, borderline retarded. She seems to wander around the city of Baltimore (not a very safe city, I'm given to understand from The Wire) totally unsupervised but at the same time believes that she can magic up a mommy (or Santa, incidentally) through the Power of Wishes and Good Thoughts. Now, this is probably a sad commentary of the state of childhood, but there are zero 8-year-olds who believe in Santa anymore. The kid partakes in some sort of elaborate con* with the help of several other adults to get her father to move to Baltimore to find his One True Love. 

Are you still with me? No? It's doesn't really matter.

In the end, the mood set by the psychic stuff is so unbelievable and silly that your grip on reality is relatively looser here than in other books thereby allowing you to swallow some of the other absurdities with less difficulty.

Not a re-read but an ok little time-pass book if you need to change it up.

*Kids perpetrating cons to get their parents to Believe is a standard romantic comedy/romance novel device - remember little Jonah in Sleepless in Seattle? - and is usually quite cute. Most of the time, I enjoy a little quirkiness in romance novels/movies. Here however, I think the sheer number of zany themes were the tipping point that made this particular book unmanageable for me - starting with the psychic stuff and ending with the stuff with the kid and how she becomes pen pals with some lady in Baltimore and then starts calling this stranger "Grandma." In what alternate universe would this fly? 

Time Off For Good Behavior by Lani Diane Rich

Skeptic Scale: ♥♥♥

She: Everything goes wrong for the h - she loses her job, she suffers a terrible accident, she's getting harassed by a jerk of an ex-husband - and it has all left her a shrill and crochety cow. She needs to rebuild her life and while she's going through the painful process she meets the H.

He: A kind, patient lawyer who volunteers himself for the role of Knight in Shining Armor. We learn almost nothing about him except he is nice and has a sad back story. A nice, beta man that you wouldn't mind bringing to your Aunt Edna's knitting circle.

Conflict: The story is highly h-focused so the thing that keeps them apart is the h's (very accurate) conviction that she needs to sort out her own life before getting into anything with a dude.

What I liked:
1) The banter was quick and sharp and not forced even if it was a bit on the sitcom-y side.

2) Fast paced and generally funny

3) Had a sort of girl-power theme about it (hot pink cover = Girls Who Kick Ass But Who Still Totally Own Their Girliness) and I liked that we focus on the woman lead through the woman's own eyes, and not through the "Male Gaze"* (high fiving all my second-wave feminist sisters! woo hoo!)

What I mean by this is that we learn about the woman's thoughts and personality, her transition to a more centered human, through her own voice and not from the dude's description of how "her eyes seemed to glow with renewed vigor", or how "her skin, smooth and supple, did nothing to hide the inner strength he knew she possessed." This is a non-trivial point for me, because it almost never happens in romance novels.

What I was only meh about:
1) The hero was really underdeveloped. For example, you find out this tragic thing about his past and that is supposed to stand as proxy for his entire personality. Again, this is one of situations where H falls for h in spite of her craziness and I am left flapping my mouth like a trout  hung on a plaque in the basement - WHY DOES HE EVEN LIKE THIS CHICK???? GIMME A REASON!

2) The h is a bitter shrew. I mean, aggressively rude, temperamental and has a history of terrible decision-making. I was almost shocked in the first couple chapters with her portrayal (very impressed, but also a little scared - for instance I wouldn't want to be the chick reaching for the same cab door as her and then getting shoved out of the way into a slimy puddle because she would totally be the crazy cat to do that to someone who got in her way.) 

So yeah, hardly an endearing h.

3) ANOTHER crazy-stalker side story. This time it's an ex-husband. It's getting super old. I am not sure WHY the H would want to get involved with such a person? 

Romances always explain this point by making the hero out to be someone who wants to "save everyone". 

This is dumb and evolutionarily impossible. You only have a biological desire to save things you love/want to have sex with, or share genes with. And babies and puppies - but that's nature's way of making sure genes of the human race and those that we engineered to co-evolve with us are preserved. So gimme another reason he should fall in love with her before wanting to save her.

Side note: For as cavalier as people are about sex in general, there is this amazing tendency in romance novels to show how people fall in love in the seconds after doing the deed (usually the first time with each other and Bam!)... I wonder why? Is that the ultimate romance then? Lots of very modern sexual tension followed by an almost puritanical moment after fluids are exchanged where one or both parties realize this is love for Realz? Not getting it, and certainly not buying it. But I keep reading about it so maybe the joke's on me...

*Just in case anyone wants to know more about the objectification of women in the media and social consciousness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze#The_.22male_gaze.22_in_feminist_theory

Worth the Weight by Mara Jacobs

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

For every girl who's downed a pizza (or eight) after breaking up with The One

I wasn't blown away by this but I didn't hate it either. It was one of those middle-of-the-road ones that had its moments but didn't really sink in and make me want to trade lives with the h or anything.

She: Chick who's gotten her life together after a long battle with obesity and wants to go back to her hometown to celebrate her success with a quick fling with her then bad-boy boyfriend. This is a big deal because she hasn't felt confident enough to get intimate with anyone since him because she put on a bunch of weight and generally lost her mojo when they broke up

He: Small-town guy and former bad boy whose plans to get out into the Big City are smashed due to difficult family circumstances including bad marriage, disabled child and money troubles. Yikes.

Conflict: They come from different worlds and she has to choose between staying in the town she grew up in and her new life in the big city aka Detroit. 

It was kind of interesting reading about the h's problems with weight. The tone was a bit too squishy and old-school romantic so when there were modernisms such as the author's use of "fuck", they just seemed horribly jarring and discordant with the generally old-timey tone of the book. Not that I mind rough language, you understand, it's just that the whole rhythm didn't quite match up. 

Also, it seemed the the h went through a fat-phase after her high school romance with the H, and the breakup was one of the reasons for her spiral. But they meet again after she gets that part of her life relatively under control so he only hears about her issues from her later. It was unclear to me how the fat-theme really drove the story forward except to show that she made some big changes to take control of her life and becomes a better, more competent individual for it. She didn't really seem like a happier person for it, because she's obviously looking for validation from a boyfriend she had like a million years ago. But I could be reading too much into things.

Also, the hero was a bit too beta for me. He seemed to have been defeated one too many times by life. Mostly he was just really passive and hadn't really done anything except keep his head down and be all stoic and work-horse-y which isn't my favorite. But generally it was an ok read, the writing was fine and I didn't hate it.