The Misterby E.L. James
Blurb:
London, 2019. Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. With his good looks, aristocratic connections, and money, he’s never had to work and he’s rarely slept alone. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. It’s a role he’s not prepared for and one that he struggles to face.
But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. Reticent, beautiful, and musically gifted, she’s an alluring mystery, and Maxim’s longing for her deepens into a passion that he’s never experienced and dares not name. Just who is Alessia Demachi? Can Maxim protect her from the malevolence that threatens her? And what will she do when she learns that he’s been hiding secrets of his own?
From the heart of London through wild, rural Cornwall to the bleak, forbidding beauty of the Balkans, The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the reader breathless to the very last page.
My Reaction:
Let me waste no time in absolving myself of this book choice by pointing out that it was a 372 Pages podcast selection (and as such, a read-aloud shared read with Donald). I have no problem with romance as a genre (though it can be difficult to find one that I truly enjoy, now that I'm so much pickier, as an adult), but this particular one is kind of embarrassing...
It's just not good, in so many ways.
I can't be bothered to think up a cohesive, thoughtful review for this one-- or even the thrown-together, not especially cohesive type of review that I usually end up posting.
The characters are stupid, uninteresting, and unrealistic. The plot is an odd mixture of the predictable and the bizarre. The sex scenes are cringe-inducing and mind-numbingly repetitive. (I think I probably sighed and rolled my eyes every time it became obvious that we were in for yet another of the "romance" scenes. They were awful, and reading them aloud made them a hundred times worse! I quickly made the executive decision to just skim through them and only read aloud any particularly hilarious tidbits that leaped off the page.)
There is very little going for this book. ...Unless you happen to be reading it explicitly for the purpose of finding the humor in it, which is what 372 Pages boils down to.
Reading this "as a joke" made it so much more enjoyable than it would've been, read seriously.
It's still not a good book, though.
