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chessakat 's review for:
Daring and the Duke
by Sarah MacLean
Ok friends, this is a hard review to write!!!!
The TL;DR here is:
Emotional/feelings rating: 5 stars
Internal logic/brain rating: 2.75 stars
So the good stuff. I LOVE a set of star-crossed lovers. LOVE. IT. And Grace and Ewan? They got it. They loooooove each other, even though it is complicated and Grace doesn’t want to. But they do, and it is extremely swoony to join their adventure of following feelings over logic. It’s hot, it’s so romantic, I felt many feelings.
HOWEVS.
Let me start by saying: in addition to reading romance, I’m also a big fan of SFF, a genre that can require a pretty major amount in the suspension of disbelief department. I am pretty good at this! I can go along with your seemingly nonsensical story if we eventually get to the sensemaking - eventually.
This book requires MASSIVE, ASTRONOMICAL AMOUNTS of suspension of disbelief. If you aren’t good at that? This is NOT going to work for you.
Ewan has been a straight up horrible bastard for the last two books. Just, petty, evil, murderous. And now? He’s just better. Like *magic*. You guys! Now that he knows Grace is alive, he can stand to be a good human again! Her living is apparently a requirement of Ewan’s humanity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Look. I can enjoy a good grovel novel. And this is a grovel novel! BUT! All of Ewan’s growth/development/return to goodness? It HAPPENS OFF PAGE. Like, what??? But...he was just? A murderous bastard??? And now HE’S FINE.
The other thing that I just felt was a Bridge Too Far is The Explanation. Like, I have been waiting for The Thing That Makes This Whole Thing Make Sense for three books. And all we got is that (DUH! DUH DUH!!!!!) Ewan drove the other three away to protect them. DUH! Of course he did! We all knew this! This is not news! But somehow, these geniuses that run underground empires are like whaaaaaaa????????? There was another explanation? He didn’t just want the title?! OF COURSE HE DIDN’T UGH.
So I guess my real problem is this. I just can’t make Bastard Ewan and Good, Sweet, Protective Ewan the same guy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can’t. They are two different people in my head. So I feel like in many ways, this book fails at something fundamental.
Also? I felt pretty let down by Grace’s character. She was just so...sketched in? Like, it was assumed that we already knew enough about her and her badass-ness to carry us through this book. Because really, there’s not that much in here about her. Very thumbnail sketch. And I wanted more. We have had such amazing heroines in Felicity and Hattie. I had such high hopes for Grace! I want to love her! But, I feel like we got an over-reliance on past-Grace and not really enough detail about current-Grace. Other than that she does NOT want to love Ewan, but, in fact, does. And runs a cool club.
Look, I realize I may have gone into this with unreasonable expectations.
The TL;DR here is:
Emotional/feelings rating: 5 stars
Internal logic/brain rating: 2.75 stars
So the good stuff. I LOVE a set of star-crossed lovers. LOVE. IT. And Grace and Ewan? They got it. They loooooove each other, even though it is complicated and Grace doesn’t want to. But they do, and it is extremely swoony to join their adventure of following feelings over logic. It’s hot, it’s so romantic, I felt many feelings.
HOWEVS.
Let me start by saying: in addition to reading romance, I’m also a big fan of SFF, a genre that can require a pretty major amount in the suspension of disbelief department. I am pretty good at this! I can go along with your seemingly nonsensical story if we eventually get to the sensemaking - eventually.
This book requires MASSIVE, ASTRONOMICAL AMOUNTS of suspension of disbelief. If you aren’t good at that? This is NOT going to work for you.
Ewan has been a straight up horrible bastard for the last two books. Just, petty, evil, murderous. And now? He’s just better. Like *magic*. You guys! Now that he knows Grace is alive, he can stand to be a good human again! Her living is apparently a requirement of Ewan’s humanity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Look. I can enjoy a good grovel novel. And this is a grovel novel! BUT! All of Ewan’s growth/development/return to goodness? It HAPPENS OFF PAGE. Like, what??? But...he was just? A murderous bastard??? And now HE’S FINE.
The other thing that I just felt was a Bridge Too Far is The Explanation. Like, I have been waiting for The Thing That Makes This Whole Thing Make Sense for three books. And all we got is that (DUH! DUH DUH!!!!!) Ewan drove the other three away to protect them. DUH! Of course he did! We all knew this! This is not news! But somehow, these geniuses that run underground empires are like whaaaaaaa????????? There was another explanation? He didn’t just want the title?! OF COURSE HE DIDN’T UGH.
So I guess my real problem is this. I just can’t make Bastard Ewan and Good, Sweet, Protective Ewan the same guy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can’t. They are two different people in my head. So I feel like in many ways, this book fails at something fundamental.
Also? I felt pretty let down by Grace’s character. She was just so...sketched in? Like, it was assumed that we already knew enough about her and her badass-ness to carry us through this book. Because really, there’s not that much in here about her. Very thumbnail sketch. And I wanted more. We have had such amazing heroines in Felicity and Hattie. I had such high hopes for Grace! I want to love her! But, I feel like we got an over-reliance on past-Grace and not really enough detail about current-Grace. Other than that she does NOT want to love Ewan, but, in fact, does. And runs a cool club.
Look, I realize I may have gone into this with unreasonable expectations.