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cellular_cosmogony 's review for:
Fix Her Up
by Tessa Bailey
Usually, I’m relatively successful in avoiding romance books that are overtly unhealthy, but Fix Her Up somehow managed to slip through the cracks. This review is a bit longer than I usually write, and is quite spoilery. To sum up before we get to the spoilery section, the story has some quite problematic elements like the way the character’s virginity is written, the overall toxicity of her love interest and the half-hearted attempt to make her seem like an empowered woman, that make it a one star read for me.
SPOILERS AHEAD
1. The Romance Progression.
The first scene of the novel is Georgie entering Travis’ place, where he’s been living in filth since a traumatic injury and the loss of his sports career. The whole situation is presented more comically than I’d have preferred, and Georgie acts quite familiarly with him. The book later establishes they never were close beforehand and weren’t anything more than cordial acquaintances, so the whole situation seems quite unrealistic in hindsight. But Georgie is special because she forced Travis to go outside again, a thing even her brother (who is actually his friend) managed to do.
There is little to no explanation given as to what makes her special (other than being especially annoying and acting childish). This is how the couple is written throughout the novel – all moments between them seem like ticking off plot points from a novel outline, and their attraction and love for each-other is never explained properly. The two of them getting engaged in the end seems especially unrealistic, given how little they know each-other, and how unhealthy they are throughout the story.
2. The Weird Virginity Stuff
The way the story treats Georgie being a virgin makes me uncomfortable. The story is a about her trying to become more mature and to gain her family’s respect as a grown adult. One of the ways she does this is by being a part of a fake relationship with Travis.
The way this relationship progresses into sexual territory is kind of bad – upon learning that Georgie hasn’t been in any relationships Travis immediately reacts by kissing her and ends up having non-penetrative sex with her. He can’t handle the idea of her having her firsts with someone other than him, so he decides to act. But her refuses to have vaginal intercourse with her, because it is “real sex”, and apparently humping your best friend’s sister to orgasm is less weird than having penetrative sex with her. He is also quite dominant in bed; while I personally don’t have anything against this in a consensual sexual relationship, he never discusses boundaries and consent with her, which is quite unhealthy, given her lack of experience.
The set-up of the novel would have been perfect for discussing the way sexually inexperienced people and virgins, are often infantilized regardless of their level of maturity. However the book never challenges this misconception and sometimes seems to even support it. Georgie’s relationship with Travis is shown to be essential to her becoming respected as an adult and her virginity is treated as a first that’s his to take.
3. Travis is a piece of shit in general
This point is self-explanatory. Travis is an unlikable piece of shit. He refers to a family car as an “oestrogen trap”. His biggest fear is “Georgie dating other men”, and when he list a bunch of things he wants to do with Georgie if they dated for real he concludes the list “most importantly, tell other men to stay the hell away”. I love when men have clear priorities. Also, someone really needs to explain to that guy that not all men are straight and allosexual, because there were a couple of times he made comments about “every man” wanting to fuck Georgie or liking sex. That’s not how it works, hon. Along with the virginity thing, this felt really demeaning to me as a person on the asexual spectrum. He is described as “possessive” five times in the book. This isn’t cute, either. None of these problems with him are actively challenged.
4. Fake Empowerment
The book tries really hard to show us that, despite the fact Georgie is in a relationship with Travis, she is an empowered woman. She opens a women’s group, after all! What is more empowered than that? The whole subplot seems quite under-baked, and the only narrative significance it has is setting up the main character for the next instalment in the series. I suspect it was added to negate the criticism bound to rise about such an unhealthy romantic relationship. The business she starts also gives me the same impression, especially given that it seems completely irrelevant to the story, and it could have been more interwoven in the narrative.
Georgie is far from empowered. She has very little agency even in confronting her family for treating her as a child. It is Travis who slams his hand on the table (literally, he should learn better ways to channel his anger…) and demands that they treat her with respect. This scene would have been so much stronger, if he’d been there for her, but she’d been the one who called her parents out on their behaviour.
5. Conclusion:
The only positive thing I can say about this story is that the author’s style of writing is very well suited to the genre – it is light and easy to follow. However, I feel like I’m following the story as it digs deeper and deeper into a pile of problematic ideas, only to uncover more and more problematic ideas. And this is not a fun experience.
CW: unhealthy relationship dynamics (possessiveness, jealousy), explicit sex, misogyny (often unchallenged), child abandonment described in brief flashbacks, references to alcoholism
SPOILERS AHEAD
1. The Romance Progression.
The first scene of the novel is Georgie entering Travis’ place, where he’s been living in filth since a traumatic injury and the loss of his sports career. The whole situation is presented more comically than I’d have preferred, and Georgie acts quite familiarly with him. The book later establishes they never were close beforehand and weren’t anything more than cordial acquaintances, so the whole situation seems quite unrealistic in hindsight. But Georgie is special because she forced Travis to go outside again, a thing even her brother (who is actually his friend) managed to do.
There is little to no explanation given as to what makes her special (other than being especially annoying and acting childish). This is how the couple is written throughout the novel – all moments between them seem like ticking off plot points from a novel outline, and their attraction and love for each-other is never explained properly. The two of them getting engaged in the end seems especially unrealistic, given how little they know each-other, and how unhealthy they are throughout the story.
2. The Weird Virginity Stuff
The way the story treats Georgie being a virgin makes me uncomfortable. The story is a about her trying to become more mature and to gain her family’s respect as a grown adult. One of the ways she does this is by being a part of a fake relationship with Travis.
The way this relationship progresses into sexual territory is kind of bad – upon learning that Georgie hasn’t been in any relationships Travis immediately reacts by kissing her and ends up having non-penetrative sex with her. He can’t handle the idea of her having her firsts with someone other than him, so he decides to act. But her refuses to have vaginal intercourse with her, because it is “real sex”, and apparently humping your best friend’s sister to orgasm is less weird than having penetrative sex with her. He is also quite dominant in bed; while I personally don’t have anything against this in a consensual sexual relationship, he never discusses boundaries and consent with her, which is quite unhealthy, given her lack of experience.
The set-up of the novel would have been perfect for discussing the way sexually inexperienced people and virgins, are often infantilized regardless of their level of maturity. However the book never challenges this misconception and sometimes seems to even support it. Georgie’s relationship with Travis is shown to be essential to her becoming respected as an adult and her virginity is treated as a first that’s his to take.
3. Travis is a piece of shit in general
This point is self-explanatory. Travis is an unlikable piece of shit. He refers to a family car as an “oestrogen trap”. His biggest fear is “Georgie dating other men”, and when he list a bunch of things he wants to do with Georgie if they dated for real he concludes the list “most importantly, tell other men to stay the hell away”. I love when men have clear priorities. Also, someone really needs to explain to that guy that not all men are straight and allosexual, because there were a couple of times he made comments about “every man” wanting to fuck Georgie or liking sex. That’s not how it works, hon. Along with the virginity thing, this felt really demeaning to me as a person on the asexual spectrum. He is described as “possessive” five times in the book. This isn’t cute, either. None of these problems with him are actively challenged.
4. Fake Empowerment
The book tries really hard to show us that, despite the fact Georgie is in a relationship with Travis, she is an empowered woman. She opens a women’s group, after all! What is more empowered than that? The whole subplot seems quite under-baked, and the only narrative significance it has is setting up the main character for the next instalment in the series. I suspect it was added to negate the criticism bound to rise about such an unhealthy romantic relationship. The business she starts also gives me the same impression, especially given that it seems completely irrelevant to the story, and it could have been more interwoven in the narrative.
Georgie is far from empowered. She has very little agency even in confronting her family for treating her as a child. It is Travis who slams his hand on the table (literally, he should learn better ways to channel his anger…) and demands that they treat her with respect. This scene would have been so much stronger, if he’d been there for her, but she’d been the one who called her parents out on their behaviour.
5. Conclusion:
The only positive thing I can say about this story is that the author’s style of writing is very well suited to the genre – it is light and easy to follow. However, I feel like I’m following the story as it digs deeper and deeper into a pile of problematic ideas, only to uncover more and more problematic ideas. And this is not a fun experience.
CW: unhealthy relationship dynamics (possessiveness, jealousy), explicit sex, misogyny (often unchallenged), child abandonment described in brief flashbacks, references to alcoholism