Robin Schone ~ The Lover

I know people love the books this author writes.
She sure writes with a passion, I can tell you that! Her syntax is good and she has no visible flaws in her text. She does not, like so many of the new authors, sound like a child trying to write. But...Oh and what a but that is!...her books sound so pretentious and cocky - it actually gets weird.

Only a few chapters after I plunged into this read - I have grown to hate the chopped up thoughts. It was tedious. It was horrorific. And most importantly - it was boring! The mussing of her characters were supposed to be deep and dark.
Well, guess what? They aren’t. They are mostly just pimped up phrases that are supposed to sell, sell, sell!
Plus, the plot? Don’t get me started on the plot! Wait…what the hell am I saying? What plot?

The desires!
The death!

It has no real meaning. Nothing does. Nothing in the WHOLE book has any kind of point, other than to sound majestic.
I realize that this kind of writing is supposed to make everything sound gothic and gloomy. Let us be real, it is a well known trick. It has been done before. However, not as badly as in the “Lover”, mind you.
In this novel the backbone of the illusionistic and mood producing writing was to bring up the word count. And nothing else.

You think this book is about getting a second chance? Hope for a better future?
Nah, it is a 101 manual about how to adjust your hopes and dreams in order to not be disappointed and disillusioned by life.

This is a love story?
Lies, all lies! This is a show and tell of how to make the best of horrible situations.

These are not happy endings.
There is no choice. Nothing. No decisions. Just two characters caught up in the winds of life, getting stuck together trough a storm. And not in a romantic and pre destined way, btw.

The author makes her lead characters friendless. Afraid. Beaten up. Broken down. She makes them settle for second best and then pretend to be happy.

Also, has anyone else noticed how all her male leads had a (prevous) grand love affair in their life? And how those love stories were not real love stories at all - since the guys were are always in love with happy-go-lucky-moronic-sex-addicts with a really pretty faces?

What ever kind of (ex) love there was I never felt –in any of her books- that the said love was transferred from the ex lover to the heroine.
And the ex lovers? They mostly die. What say I?
I say – what a cop out! Did we really need more angst? Oh! We did? Right!

Then again...I can almost understand why these heroes are reluctant to invest their emotions and time in to the heroines. The heroines are – in one word - pathetic.
They are portrayed as strong of intelligence and full of wit - but in reality they are ever so…broken. I cringed every time they asses themselves - and decided they were lacking.
I wanted to face-palm myself with every surrender of their self-esteem.
I needed a glass of strong alcohol when ever an inner monologue of verbal self-flogging started.

And the sex? It was never hot. Not one single time.
Why and how did this happen?
I guess it was all the mussing mussing mussing.
These characters never forget their dark pasts. They always hurt. They are always moodily dramatic. They never find anything nice, fluffy and happy things to think about...not even when they orgasm.

You would think that all this depth would make the acters of the story more dimensional!
Aaaaaaand…you would be wrong. 'The whore' and 'The spinster' are as flat as their superficial labels. And they stay that way right in to the pointless  finale of the book.

In the end, I had the weirdest epiphany – This book is the predecessor of the "Fifty Shades of Gray"!
No, really, it is! The boring drama drama drama…the inner rumblings…the not all that kinky sex…the utter lack of the hotness fact in a freaking erotica…basically, the only thing missing was an inner goddess. Would a inner ugly spinster do?