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oitb 's review for:
Blue-Eyed Devil
by Lisa Kleypas
CW for the book:
This book is significantly better than the first in the series. I wasn't used to Lisa Kleypas writing in first person in the other book, but I felt like she found her groove with this one. I really enjoyed the heroine, and it reading this book and the heroine's journey really felt like watching Lisa Kleypas herself work through her research on what it means to live in an abusive relationship, what narcissistic personality disorder means, how to grapple with very traditional gender roles, etc.
This is a 4-star book off the strength of the heroine alone, but I had a couple of niggling issues with the plot and the romance. While I loved Hardy, I didn't entirely buy why he would be so attracted to Haven beyond the intense initial physical chemistry they shared. Since this is first person limited POV (heroine's only), it was easy to understand why Haven was skittish around relationships and around Hardy, and how she works to a place where she can trust and love Hardy. But she's quite withholding of information with Hardy, and it just doesn't feel like she reveals a lot about herself — or at least we don't see a lot of it on page — so Hardy's devotion and care seems natural to the READER, but it's not entire clear what it's based off of from Hardy's POV.
A final complaint is that there is a lot of gender essentialist shit and a lot of casual misogyny too — men don't like to listen to problems, they like to fix things, "loose women," etc etc etc.
Spoiler
on-page rape, domestic abuseThis book is significantly better than the first in the series. I wasn't used to Lisa Kleypas writing in first person in the other book, but I felt like she found her groove with this one. I really enjoyed the heroine, and it reading this book and the heroine's journey really felt like watching Lisa Kleypas herself work through her research on what it means to live in an abusive relationship, what narcissistic personality disorder means, how to grapple with very traditional gender roles, etc.
This is a 4-star book off the strength of the heroine alone, but I had a couple of niggling issues with the plot and the romance. While I loved Hardy, I didn't entirely buy why he would be so attracted to Haven beyond the intense initial physical chemistry they shared. Since this is first person limited POV (heroine's only), it was easy to understand why Haven was skittish around relationships and around Hardy, and how she works to a place where she can trust and love Hardy. But she's quite withholding of information with Hardy, and it just doesn't feel like she reveals a lot about herself — or at least we don't see a lot of it on page — so Hardy's devotion and care seems natural to the READER, but it's not entire clear what it's based off of from Hardy's POV.
A final complaint is that there is a lot of gender essentialist shit and a lot of casual misogyny too — men don't like to listen to problems, they like to fix things, "loose women," etc etc etc.