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kjcharles 's review for:
American Fairytale
by Adriana Herrera
Very much a fairytale romance as handsome charming millionaire Thomas and charity worker Milo fall in lust at first sight. Milo works for the charity to which Thomas is donating vast sums of money. The relationship accelerates very quickly and the two are very well suited except for the financial gap between them. Milo has no despite to be a kept man and Thomas has a tendency to chuck money around, and a staggeringly obnoxious habit of ordering for Milo at restaurants. (I feel a bit culturally adrift here because I would stare in slack-jawed incredulity at anyone under the age of 70 who tried that, and particularly someone who ordered me alcohol *at a work meeting* without asking, but Thomas does it despite being generally very socially aware and conscious of the power disparity, and presumably of the fact that food intolerances and allergies and religions exist. I have seen heroes ordering for heroines a lot in US romances so I am going to assume it's an actual thing that actual American men actually do, and that they inexplicably don't get the food dumped in their laps when it arrives. Nowt so queer as folk. /shrug/)
The point is, Thomas is hugely successful, driven, has already messed up one marriage by failing to pay attention to a significant other, and has a tendency to assume he knows best and to treat his lovers lavishly. Milo has very particular issues about money in relationships because his mother was a victim of domestic abuse relating to financial indebtedness, but really what it comes down to is that for all Thomas's caring and honesty, and the fact that he places intense value on how clearly Milo sees the real him, he *will not learn* to respect Milo's clearly expressed wishes about financial boundaries and making his own choices. He not only repeats the same mistake three times: he actually escalates.
On the one hand this is deeply frustrating to read. On the other, it's brutally realistic because making the same mistake over and over again is what people do--and it is also perfectly possible to sympathise with Thomas because he is not acting out of selfishness or lack of care. He does the wrong things for Milo, for the right reasons, and on the third occasion it's very hard not to sympathise with Thomas because Milo is being straight-up pig-headed. Which is of course his right, but when the only solution to a problem is "chuck money at it" and someone has money to chuck at it, one can see the temptation. It's very nice to read a millionaire romance that actually faces right up to the issues of wealth disparity in this way: there's nothing fairytale about being the beggarmaid to someone else's king.
It's quite an odd combination: fairytale romance with two people who are pretty much perfect for each other from the start, plus this gnarly, stubborn recurring issue. It means we don't so much have a sense of the story flowing onwards going through different conflicts as building up and sticking at the same place every time--until they finally break through it, which Thomas achieves in an excellent practical grovel. To make this sort of structure work absolutely depends on us rooting for the characters despite finding them frustrating. I think Herrera pulls it off, in part by showing that Milo's not perfect either and allowing us to sympathise with them both in their mistakes as well as in what they get right, and also by giving us an excellent cast of minor characters to shout at the pair of them so the reader doesn't have to.
This is a very strong series and I'm already anticipating book 3.
The point is, Thomas is hugely successful, driven, has already messed up one marriage by failing to pay attention to a significant other, and has a tendency to assume he knows best and to treat his lovers lavishly. Milo has very particular issues about money in relationships because his mother was a victim of domestic abuse relating to financial indebtedness, but really what it comes down to is that for all Thomas's caring and honesty, and the fact that he places intense value on how clearly Milo sees the real him, he *will not learn* to respect Milo's clearly expressed wishes about financial boundaries and making his own choices. He not only repeats the same mistake three times: he actually escalates.
On the one hand this is deeply frustrating to read. On the other, it's brutally realistic because making the same mistake over and over again is what people do--and it is also perfectly possible to sympathise with Thomas because he is not acting out of selfishness or lack of care. He does the wrong things for Milo, for the right reasons, and on the third occasion it's very hard not to sympathise with Thomas because Milo is being straight-up pig-headed. Which is of course his right, but when the only solution to a problem is "chuck money at it" and someone has money to chuck at it, one can see the temptation. It's very nice to read a millionaire romance that actually faces right up to the issues of wealth disparity in this way: there's nothing fairytale about being the beggarmaid to someone else's king.
It's quite an odd combination: fairytale romance with two people who are pretty much perfect for each other from the start, plus this gnarly, stubborn recurring issue. It means we don't so much have a sense of the story flowing onwards going through different conflicts as building up and sticking at the same place every time--until they finally break through it, which Thomas achieves in an excellent practical grovel. To make this sort of structure work absolutely depends on us rooting for the characters despite finding them frustrating. I think Herrera pulls it off, in part by showing that Milo's not perfect either and allowing us to sympathise with them both in their mistakes as well as in what they get right, and also by giving us an excellent cast of minor characters to shout at the pair of them so the reader doesn't have to.
This is a very strong series and I'm already anticipating book 3.