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A review by topy_loving_books
Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas
2.0
It's more a woman's fiction than a romance book. I struggled to get into the book and the all oil-Texan-Empire-family thing. Witnessing the heroine being abused & raped by the very person who should be protecting her (aka her husband) was very hard to get through. I didn't expect that much depiction on page. Not what I want in my romance books. She had met the MMC once a while ago. Just escaped her jailer, so I expect it'll take a while for them to become a thing. Doesn't feel like a romance.
I love Kleypas' historicals but I struggled with this one, it felt too shallow, mostly focusing on beauty, power and money. The characters don't have much growth through the book. Yes, the heroine recovered from her trauma and got stronger to get her boundaries, but as a person she's as annoying as she was in the start. She was really shallow so it's was quite annoying to be only in her head.
About the romance aspect, it took the MCs ages to get together. At 50% they were still not a couple, and more in foreplay mode. It's understandable with what the heroine have been through with her ex-husband, but I wasn't a fan of Hardy Cates, making double meaning jokes (even if casual), until she started to confide in him. Never having Hardy's POV didn't help. Making his trouble past echo Haven's was over the top. He could have been supportive and just a decent/patient human being without it. About the steam level, it was very disappointing as I expected way more from her contemporary. There are barely to none description, a paragraph and that's it, especially when they said they had the best sex of their lives. Frustrating.
Also don't get me started on Haven's boss, seriously?!? She's leaving one sociopath to fall with an other one...
Different things didn't work with me, and showed that the book didn't age well since 2008:
- The over sexualization of the characters. With the heroine describing in various ways how the MMC's body is hot (but not having much more to say about his character).
- The heroine insisting to know the label of her interior designer best friend's "bi-possible" orientation, and then objectifying her BF, even if she's "immune in any romantic sense" to him. His orientation really felt cliché and just there to give a bit of depth to his character.
- The focus on women's breasts... News flash misters, you have breasts too!
- When it finally start to get hot between the main characters, and the FMC stop the MMC because she got scared and he said "there is a word for a woman acting like her", probably "cocktease, bitch" like she thinks he might have thought of her after the act. Hated that thinking. What about consent?!
- When one of the male characters said to the heroine "you want a man with sensibility and tact, go find yourself a metrosexual"... Really...
I love Kleypas' historicals but I struggled with this one, it felt too shallow, mostly focusing on beauty, power and money. The characters don't have much growth through the book. Yes, the heroine recovered from her trauma and got stronger to get her boundaries, but as a person she's as annoying as she was in the start. She was really shallow so it's was quite annoying to be only in her head.
About the romance aspect, it took the MCs ages to get together. At 50% they were still not a couple, and more in foreplay mode. It's understandable with what the heroine have been through with her ex-husband, but I wasn't a fan of Hardy Cates, making double meaning jokes (even if casual), until she started to confide in him. Never having Hardy's POV didn't help. Making his trouble past echo Haven's was over the top. He could have been supportive and just a decent/patient human being without it. About the steam level, it was very disappointing as I expected way more from her contemporary. There are barely to none description, a paragraph and that's it, especially when they said they had the best sex of their lives. Frustrating.
Also don't get me started on Haven's boss, seriously?!? She's leaving one sociopath to fall with an other one...
Different things didn't work with me, and showed that the book didn't age well since 2008:
- The over sexualization of the characters. With the heroine describing in various ways how the MMC's body is hot (but not having much more to say about his character).
- The heroine insisting to know the label of her interior designer best friend's "bi-possible" orientation, and then objectifying her BF, even if she's "immune in any romantic sense" to him. His orientation really felt cliché and just there to give a bit of depth to his character.
- The focus on women's breasts... News flash misters, you have breasts too!
- When it finally start to get hot between the main characters, and the FMC stop the MMC because she got scared and he said "there is a word for a woman acting like her", probably "cocktease, bitch" like she thinks he might have thought of her after the act. Hated that thinking. What about consent?!
- When one of the male characters said to the heroine "you want a man with sensibility and tact, go find yourself a metrosexual"... Really...