Devil of the Highlands by Lynsay Sands

[lightreads]

Devil of the Highlands by Lynsay Sands

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Nope, couldn’t hack it, sorry fellow RBRS…ers. Ites? Standing room only on the train, heat index already at 115, nauseous service dog, and this book. My whole being just cried out NOOOO, and I skipped through the last five hours of audio in about twelve minutes.



My God this is terrible. I mean, okay, the part where he tripped and fell and his mouth accidentally landed on her nipple as a literal plot point was funny, and the fact that her nipple was described as "trembling" was funnier, but then it all just went embarrassment squicky. For the characters, for the author.



I still have opinions, though! Of course I have opinions.



I was struck by how much like – and I can’t be the first person to make this comparison – I was struck by how much like commercial video porn this is. Two people, he defined by his nasty reputation, her by . . . uh . . . I got nothing here. She was a woman? And they have improbably good sex like a couple of blow-up dolls. Only in the case of this romance novel, the background gestures at context involve an arranged marriage and something something family secrets something. Instead of, say, a cheerleader selling cookies knocking on the door of a lonely middle-aged guy. Also, this book cares more about the woman’s orgasms than a lot of porn I’ve seen, (though I’m not sure I believe hers any more than one usually does).



Anyway. The point being that these people are so empty, so arbitrarily jerked around a farce of a story . . . commercial video porn turned into a book and aimed at women. That’s what it reminded me of. Which, okay, sure. But don’t these people know there’s so much better porn out there?





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Comments

[readerjane]

(Of course I have opinions.)

LOL! That's what I love about your reviews: whether the book is good or not, you always have something interesting to say.

(But don’t these people know there’s so much better porn out there?)

I wonder that, too. With such a banquet all around us, why eat the junk food? And then I think, maybe it's a case of "sometimes you just want the ice cream"? Not just any ice cream, but the cheap ice-milk half-melted refrozen slush you grew up on?

[ecaterin]

maybe it's a case of "sometimes you just want the ice cream"? Not just any ice cream, but the cheap ice-milk half-melted refrozen slush you grew up on?

This is totally why i still occasionally read schlok novels : D. Sometimes you want the utterly familiar comfort food. Predictable and bland :D

[lightreads]

Right, but my comfort food is different comfort food (cough* Pern *cough*. And I am really, really confused by the people on goodreads who think this is a good book

[ecaterin]

rofl!!! Ahem. *cough* Pern *cough* is on my list of 'feel good' books as well. And I don't even have the excuse of "childhood favorites" to justify it, as I discovered Pern in my 20s!

Of course, the first ones I found were All the Wings of Pern and Dragonsdawn, which appealed to me in good measure because of the egalitarian society represented in each (and the mashup of pre-industrial & space-age cultures). It wasn't till years later that I read some of the earlier books and went WTF??? What is up with these characters I know from later in the timeline to have sane boundaries, now merrily raping away??? *headdesk*

[cahn]

Hee! Yes. I absolutely positively agree. It's like... twinkies vs. raspberry mousse? I know sometimes one just really wants extraneous sugar and fat, but why wouldn't you at least pick something that also tasted good?

(And, I'm sorry, that picture on the cover makes me giggle every time I look at it, which I don't think was the intent.)