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elenajohansen 's review for:
Your Irresistible Love
by Layla Hagen
Well, that didn't take long. DNF @ 27%, and let me show you the quote that did it.
"Nothing. She's a grown woman. We have to respect her decisions."
Out of context, I'm all for this. In context, it pissed me off to no end. The hero says this to his younger brother because they've both been excluded from attending their sister's divorce hearing; she doesn't want them there, and so they're not going.
Too bad this is a complete 180 for the hero, who has been irritating me right from the beginning with his utter inability to respect the heroine's boundaries. She says she can't accept his gift of a spa afternoon because she barely knows him; he refuses to take it back and insists she use it. She says she wants to explore San Francisco on her own because she's new to town; he insists on going with her. She explicitly states that they can't date because she's a consultant newly assigned to his company and there's a clause about it in her contract; he asks, "Is there really no way around that?"
He's a control freak, and he gets what he wants. I was tolerating him even though he was acting inappropriately because the heroine a) was constantly flirting right back, which made it seem more like a game than being pursued by a creeper; and b) never stuck to those boundaries she attempted to set for more than two minutes at a time. She uses that gift card. She goes with him around San Francisco and has a great day. And at the point where I've given up reading, she's actually considering how to get around that no-dating-the-boss bit of her contract. She's clearly enabling his pursuit, despite her lip service to the contrary. So their dynamic isn't one that sets my world on fire, but I didn't consider it as harmful in this case as I so often do in other stories when a man thinks it's sexy to keep pushing a woman to accept him.
But if the hero outright states that he'll respect his sister's decisions, while constantly challenging his love interests...
That doesn't sit right with me.
I wasn't really enjoying the book anyway, it's got plenty of other issues. Stilted and unnatural dialogue, flat characters, weird pacing. I was hanging on in case things got better when they actually got together, but now I see I don't need to, because I simply can't respect the hero and his double standard for women's autonomy.
"Nothing. She's a grown woman. We have to respect her decisions."
Out of context, I'm all for this. In context, it pissed me off to no end. The hero says this to his younger brother because they've both been excluded from attending their sister's divorce hearing; she doesn't want them there, and so they're not going.
Too bad this is a complete 180 for the hero, who has been irritating me right from the beginning with his utter inability to respect the heroine's boundaries. She says she can't accept his gift of a spa afternoon because she barely knows him; he refuses to take it back and insists she use it. She says she wants to explore San Francisco on her own because she's new to town; he insists on going with her. She explicitly states that they can't date because she's a consultant newly assigned to his company and there's a clause about it in her contract; he asks, "Is there really no way around that?"
He's a control freak, and he gets what he wants. I was tolerating him even though he was acting inappropriately because the heroine a) was constantly flirting right back, which made it seem more like a game than being pursued by a creeper; and b) never stuck to those boundaries she attempted to set for more than two minutes at a time. She uses that gift card. She goes with him around San Francisco and has a great day. And at the point where I've given up reading, she's actually considering how to get around that no-dating-the-boss bit of her contract. She's clearly enabling his pursuit, despite her lip service to the contrary. So their dynamic isn't one that sets my world on fire, but I didn't consider it as harmful in this case as I so often do in other stories when a man thinks it's sexy to keep pushing a woman to accept him.
But if the hero outright states that he'll respect his sister's decisions, while constantly challenging his love interests...
That doesn't sit right with me.
I wasn't really enjoying the book anyway, it's got plenty of other issues. Stilted and unnatural dialogue, flat characters, weird pacing. I was hanging on in case things got better when they actually got together, but now I see I don't need to, because I simply can't respect the hero and his double standard for women's autonomy.