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A review by elisabeth_julia
Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios
3.0
I don’t know why, but contemporary YA fiction always turns out unsatisfactory for me no matter how great the premise may be. I never feel like it goes far enough, never feel like it has reached its full potential and explored everything it needs to explore.
Bad Romance is actually a book I quite enjoyed reading: It is gripping and hard to put down. I couldn’t stop. The book consumed me. I needed to know Grace, the main character, coming out at the other end safe and sound.
It also made me think – a lot – which is a very good thing when it comes to reading.
Demetrios addresses the hugely important topic of a relationship turned toxic and even abusive. She shows how easy it is to fall for the bad guy, to be blind and ignore alarm bells, how a relationships slowly chips away on everything you are as a person. It is scary how well the author describes the vicious downward spiral of losing confidence and every feeling of self-worth and how that binds the victim even more to their abuser because a world without the abuser consuming everything you are is no longer imaginable. This is absolutely horrifying!!!
I could relate to Grace and empathise with her so well although I’ve never been in a toxic or abusive relationship myself. To make me feel for a fictional character, although I would have made entirely different decisions and subsequently never found myself in her situation, is evidence of the author’s fantastic writing skills.
Also, there are beautiful female friendships in this book! This makes Bad Romance a very enjoyable novel to read because the friendships offer not only comic relief, but also warmth, love and a bright shining light in the dark that is the rest of the book.
Unfortunately, like mentioned above, the book doesn’t go far enough. While the dynamics of an abusive and toxic relationship are well explained, the book offers little reflection. The general message seems to be to stay away from abusive guys. Well… duh.
What isn’t addressed here is what made Grace so susceptible to her abuser and what she needs to do to protect herself from guys like that in the future. I’m not at all intending to lay blame on the victim here, but self-defense lessons, physical and mental ones, are simply necessary for all women in this day and age. We cannot expect this misogynist society to change anytime soon, which brings me to my next point:
I wish the role society played in influencing Grace’s mindset would have been touched upon in some way in the book. It is very obvious that Grace defines her self-worth over how thin and pretty she is. She is proud of being such a good girl: She is a virgin, she doesn’t drink any alcohol, never lies to her parents and is always eager to please them by completing endless housework tasks. Of course she gets straight A’s at school too – oh mind you, not because she’s talented and intelligent (quoting indirectly what she says about herself) but because she studies harder than everyone else. In short: She performs her gender role exactly in the way society wants her to: never complaining, never sticking up for herself, and never asking questions.
Grace defines her entire self-worth based on how pretty she thinks she is and how well she can attract men. That’s just another thing society teaches women and it needs to stop. If there is one thing that I regret about my teenage years is that I did the exact same thing to myself too, like all the other girls around me. It’s very normal unfortunately and yet so wrong. This thinking leads to a power imbalance in a relationship straight away: Women who think they are worth less because they feel less attractive than their boyfriend are of course making themselves vulnerable to be taken advantage of. Again, this is not exposed as contributing factor to an abusive relationship. In contrary: Grace repeatedly thinks that she doesn’t deserve to be with a hot guy like that and oh how lucky she is to have been picked as his girlfriend although she isn’t pretty enough to be with him and btw, his ex is sooo much prettier than her. All her girlfriends have to say to her is that the ex isn’t actually that pretty. Oh okay, problem solved!!
Sadly, that this is an issue never gets spelled out in the book. The message seems to be something along the lines of “even the good girls fall for the bad boys and no one is safe” but it should have been to toss these stupid gender ideals and to stop being so naïve and to focus on developing a sense of self-worth that is independent from men and society’s expectations.
Really, this novel lacks reflection from beginning to end. It’s an interesting case study and an important one, but that’s about it.
Usually I have the contrary problem where I feel like books are too teachy and preachy and lack subtlety but I wish "Bad Romance" would have been a little clearer on what lessons could be learned.
Bad Romance is actually a book I quite enjoyed reading: It is gripping and hard to put down. I couldn’t stop. The book consumed me. I needed to know Grace, the main character, coming out at the other end safe and sound.
It also made me think – a lot – which is a very good thing when it comes to reading.
Demetrios addresses the hugely important topic of a relationship turned toxic and even abusive. She shows how easy it is to fall for the bad guy, to be blind and ignore alarm bells, how a relationships slowly chips away on everything you are as a person. It is scary how well the author describes the vicious downward spiral of losing confidence and every feeling of self-worth and how that binds the victim even more to their abuser because a world without the abuser consuming everything you are is no longer imaginable. This is absolutely horrifying!!!
I could relate to Grace and empathise with her so well although I’ve never been in a toxic or abusive relationship myself. To make me feel for a fictional character, although I would have made entirely different decisions and subsequently never found myself in her situation, is evidence of the author’s fantastic writing skills.
Also, there are beautiful female friendships in this book! This makes Bad Romance a very enjoyable novel to read because the friendships offer not only comic relief, but also warmth, love and a bright shining light in the dark that is the rest of the book.
Unfortunately, like mentioned above, the book doesn’t go far enough. While the dynamics of an abusive and toxic relationship are well explained, the book offers little reflection. The general message seems to be to stay away from abusive guys. Well… duh.
What isn’t addressed here is what made Grace so susceptible to her abuser and what she needs to do to protect herself from guys like that in the future. I’m not at all intending to lay blame on the victim here, but self-defense lessons, physical and mental ones, are simply necessary for all women in this day and age. We cannot expect this misogynist society to change anytime soon, which brings me to my next point:
I wish the role society played in influencing Grace’s mindset would have been touched upon in some way in the book. It is very obvious that Grace defines her self-worth over how thin and pretty she is. She is proud of being such a good girl: She is a virgin, she doesn’t drink any alcohol, never lies to her parents and is always eager to please them by completing endless housework tasks. Of course she gets straight A’s at school too – oh mind you, not because she’s talented and intelligent (quoting indirectly what she says about herself) but because she studies harder than everyone else. In short: She performs her gender role exactly in the way society wants her to: never complaining, never sticking up for herself, and never asking questions.
Grace defines her entire self-worth based on how pretty she thinks she is and how well she can attract men. That’s just another thing society teaches women and it needs to stop. If there is one thing that I regret about my teenage years is that I did the exact same thing to myself too, like all the other girls around me. It’s very normal unfortunately and yet so wrong. This thinking leads to a power imbalance in a relationship straight away: Women who think they are worth less because they feel less attractive than their boyfriend are of course making themselves vulnerable to be taken advantage of. Again, this is not exposed as contributing factor to an abusive relationship. In contrary: Grace repeatedly thinks that she doesn’t deserve to be with a hot guy like that and oh how lucky she is to have been picked as his girlfriend although she isn’t pretty enough to be with him and btw, his ex is sooo much prettier than her. All her girlfriends have to say to her is that the ex isn’t actually that pretty. Oh okay, problem solved!!
Sadly, that this is an issue never gets spelled out in the book. The message seems to be something along the lines of “even the good girls fall for the bad boys and no one is safe” but it should have been to toss these stupid gender ideals and to stop being so naïve and to focus on developing a sense of self-worth that is independent from men and society’s expectations.
Really, this novel lacks reflection from beginning to end. It’s an interesting case study and an important one, but that’s about it.
Usually I have the contrary problem where I feel like books are too teachy and preachy and lack subtlety but I wish "Bad Romance" would have been a little clearer on what lessons could be learned.