Heroine and Hero: Liam, former abused orphan bad boy cum multimillionaire custom organ-donor-on-wheels maker. Zoe, former good girl, now a bad ass tattoo artist who fronts a rock band.
Setting: Contemporary Melbourne
Word on the Web:
TGTBTU, Limecello, A
Dear Author, Jayne, B-
******************Spoilers ahead***************
Conflict: Over a decade after a one night teen fling that ended with Liam roaring on his motorcycle out of Zoe’s life “for her own good”, Zoe and Liam cross paths again. The attraction is as strong as ever, but Liam fears his history of being abused has made him unfit for romantic love, and Zoe fears her womblessness has done the same.
Racy Romance Review: I really enjoyed the first Mayberry I read, Anything For You, and SGIB shares many of AFY’s strengths:
- Well written and compelling
- Likeable if flawed h/h
- Unusual h/h careers, described with enough detail to make them compelling and connect them interestingly to the characters, but not so much that it became distracting or boring.
- Sexual tension with great payoff/s. Smoking hot without being gratuitous or gross.
The book started with a bang, as we find ourselves in the bedroom of teen-aged Zoe and Liam. Normally I don’t like romances which rely on a teen fling gone bad, but in this case, the teen fling alone wasn’t relied on to create the conflict years later: it was the results of the fling, plus some other things, that made the adult conflict work.
Liam has kept an image of Zoe as virginal, perfect, and wholesome in mind, and when he comes across a portrait of the very naked adult, punk, tattooed sexpot Zoe, he just has to track her down. He does, and his dawning realization — achieved when he watches her perform as the lead singer in a rock band at a thrash club – that Zoe is a wild child with enough sex appeal to incinerate the city, sets up one of my favorite conflicts in all of romance: the upright guy hangs around the errant girl for her own good, but cannot help but sample some of her goodies while her is “reforming” her.
Unfortunately, SGIB did not live up to the initial promise: Liam’s certainty that he is “bad news” just because his father beat him was not credible given his totally nonviolent upstanding adulthood (he does lose control eventually, but it’s too late for it to do much good). And Zoe’s rock chick persona turns out to be a front, not a mark of female empowerment, but just the reverse: the result of old wounds that have not healed.
Maybe that’s a good thing in this case. Although Zoe the artist is given serious screen time, Zoe as a musician is an insulting joke. It amazed me that in two long scenes at the club, Zoe’s musical talent was not mentioned even once. It was all about her tits and ass. Real empowering, huh?
And what has messed Zoe up so much that she has to perform in her skivvies for men with hard ons and work as a — gasp — tattoo artist?
Zoe has become infertile via an ectopic pregnancy. I give Mayberry credit for raising this issue, and for not gifting Zoe and Liam with a miracle baby at the end. But Zoe refers to herself constantly as worthless and “an empty shell”. I really thought the days when women assumed they were only as good as their functioning uteruses were over. I get it that infertility is a major issue, and I don’t mind reading about a character who feels devastated by infertility, but as a reader, I was left with the impression that fertility does and should fuck you up totally, and that an infertile woman really is a grievously impaired female.
Not my cuppa. But, like I mentioned above, the book had its real strengths, and I liked AFY so well that I will certainly try another book by this author.
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#1 by willaful on April 7, 2009 - 12:57 pm
That’s an interesting issue. As someone who’s suffered from infertility, I can attest that those feelings are not at all atypical. And I don’t know if I would find it plausible for someone to just get over it quickly. On the other hand, that certainly does sound like a horrible message.
(Oh, and how sick I get of the miracle babies… though perhaps I really shouldn’t, since I had one myself.)
#2 by Tumperkin on April 7, 2009 - 4:14 pm
I have an infertile friend who does feel just like this. She doesn’t happen to deal with those feelings by singing in a thrash band but she does put on a ‘fine with me’ attitude and says she loves her lifestyle etc. whilst confessing to close friends her real feelings.
I think that’s a valid thing for a character to feel. Was the problem here that no other character was putting the opposite view forward? Oh dear – I’m asking for spoilers, aren’t I? Ignore me. I happen to find infertility tropes fascinating.
#3 by Jessica on April 7, 2009 - 9:00 pm
willaful wrote:
What bothered me the most was that her infertility and subsequent rejection by male partners was what drove her into the “bad girl” lifestyle, which was coded immoral in the text, and yet, she never deals with her infertility. That conflict just drops out of the book.
It’s also very hard for me to pin this down, not being a specialist in literary analysis, but I felt the view that a woman’s infertility made her an empty shell was being endorsed in the text. It was more than just one character’s feelings. As a romance reader, I am used to characters having an unmerited sense of low self esteem. It was the idea that the feelings were reflective of her true worth that wasn’t challenged enough.
Tumperkin wrote:
I am not sure if my reply to Willaful helped explain it. You should read it!!
#4 by willaful on April 7, 2009 - 11:46 pm
I felt the view that a woman’s infertility made her an empty shell was being endorsed in the text.
I haven’t read the book, but I think I get what you’re saying. And agree that it’s disturbing.
The thing about men (plural) rejecting for it seems very odd and improbable to me, as well.
#5 by Janine on April 8, 2009 - 1:34 am
If you don’t mind reading an adult book about a teenage romance, I have the perfect book for you. One on One by Tabitha King.
#6 by Jessica on April 8, 2009 - 4:39 am
Janine wrote:
Hmmm, that makes me wonder what the difference is between an adult book about a teen romance and a YA on the same topic.
I have read one T. King, years ago. I’ll add this one to the list!
#7 by Janine on April 8, 2009 - 1:52 pm
Mainly explicit sex. But I also think some issues, such as the heroine’s drug use, might have been dealt with differently (perhaps in a more didactic way) if One on One had been aimed at teens.