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A review by andipants
Beowulf for Cretins: A Love Story by Ann McMan
Did not finish book.
DNF at 216 pages. It started out with a promising premise, but it's gotten so boring, I'm pretty sure it's terminal.
The plot isn't a plot. They keep talking about how they shouldn't be seeing each other, seeing each other anyway, and not doing anything to try and reconcile that. They keep bringing up the fact that their relationship is totally unethical but then just keep going anyway, and despite paying lip service to discretion, are totally cavalier about the possibility that someone will find out, for all the world like it's not professional suicide. Two-thirds of the way through the story and neither of them has taken any steps or even given any concrete thought as to what, realistically, they're going to do about the situation. I get every impression that a magical solution is just going to fall into their laps, and I'm not reading a hundred more pages just for that bullshit.
The secondary characters are nothing but plot devices, lacking personality or motivation, existing solely to push the main characters from point A to point B. Lorrie in particular is ridiculous and pathetic; she's a caricature of a 12-year-old with a crush, not a grown adult with a life and a job. And I'm sorry, but you're going to have to try a lot damn harder if you want to make a Trump supporter into a lovable buffoon, which seems to be what the author is going for with Dean.
The constant witticisms and one-liners also got real old, real fast. The first couple conversations were cute and funny, but nobody talks like that all the time. It's like an Aaron Sorkin show without the substance.
But the worst sin here is that it's a romance and I don't buy the romance. The characters meet once and are suddenly so mad for each other that they're willing to risk both their careers over a one night stand and some clever remarks? It doesn't even have any smut to compensate; it's all fade-to-black, meaning we can only assume it's a physical thing, and we just have to take the narrator's word for how great the sex is. Blegh.
The plot isn't a plot. They keep talking about how they shouldn't be seeing each other, seeing each other anyway, and not doing anything to try and reconcile that. They keep bringing up the fact that their relationship is totally unethical but then just keep going anyway, and despite paying lip service to discretion, are totally cavalier about the possibility that someone will find out, for all the world like it's not professional suicide. Two-thirds of the way through the story and neither of them has taken any steps or even given any concrete thought as to what, realistically, they're going to do about the situation. I get every impression that a magical solution is just going to fall into their laps, and I'm not reading a hundred more pages just for that bullshit.
The secondary characters are nothing but plot devices, lacking personality or motivation, existing solely to push the main characters from point A to point B. Lorrie in particular is ridiculous and pathetic; she's a caricature of a 12-year-old with a crush, not a grown adult with a life and a job. And I'm sorry, but you're going to have to try a lot damn harder if you want to make a Trump supporter into a lovable buffoon, which seems to be what the author is going for with Dean.
The constant witticisms and one-liners also got real old, real fast. The first couple conversations were cute and funny, but nobody talks like that all the time. It's like an Aaron Sorkin show without the substance.
But the worst sin here is that it's a romance and I don't buy the romance. The characters meet once and are suddenly so mad for each other that they're willing to risk both their careers over a one night stand and some clever remarks? It doesn't even have any smut to compensate; it's all fade-to-black, meaning we can only assume it's a physical thing, and we just have to take the narrator's word for how great the sex is. Blegh.