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jacqueline1989 's review for:
What a Wallflower Wants
by Maya Rodale
DID NOT FINISH
Suuuuuuuuuuuuper Quickie Dropped Book Notes!
Pages Survived:
147
OTP:
I liked both characters but alas, hero was a bit too Perfect Prince Charming with his insta-love.
Writing:
I was mostly fine with the book, not ADORING it but not loathing it. There was hero insta love and a LOT of back & forth time line jumping, but I could deal...til we get a gratuitous rape scene. Our heroine opens the book as a victim of sexual assault and we see the affects of that manifest LONG before the flashback rape sequence.
In my opinion it's unnecessary to vividly depict a her sexual assault. It felt exploitative & emotionally manipulative. Before that scene, we got numerous examples of how this assault has devastated her. Her entire way of life is built around this assault and she we witness her endure panic attacks & depression. This tells us how traumatizing that experience was, so why take your reader through it? "Show don't tell" doesn't always work. After all, we don't always read every emotionally devastating moment in a character’s life.
Hero’s have dead wives, war trauma, or PTSD all the time, but don't ALWAYS read the moments that instigate those tragedies. What possible benefit does writing the assault scene give, other than to create emotional sympathy in your reader? Something that, might I add, shouldn't hing on depicting an assault.
(Whoops I wrote an essay!)
Pages Survived:
147
OTP:
I liked both characters but alas, hero was a bit too Perfect Prince Charming with his insta-love.
Writing:
I was mostly fine with the book, not ADORING it but not loathing it. There was hero insta love and a LOT of back & forth time line jumping, but I could deal...til we get a gratuitous rape scene. Our heroine opens the book as a victim of sexual assault and we see the affects of that manifest LONG before the flashback rape sequence.
In my opinion it's unnecessary to vividly depict a her sexual assault. It felt exploitative & emotionally manipulative. Before that scene, we got numerous examples of how this assault has devastated her. Her entire way of life is built around this assault and she we witness her endure panic attacks & depression. This tells us how traumatizing that experience was, so why take your reader through it? "Show don't tell" doesn't always work. After all, we don't always read every emotionally devastating moment in a character’s life.
Hero’s have dead wives, war trauma, or PTSD all the time, but don't ALWAYS read the moments that instigate those tragedies. What possible benefit does writing the assault scene give, other than to create emotional sympathy in your reader? Something that, might I add, shouldn't hing on depicting an assault.
(Whoops I wrote an essay!)