Duran, Meredith - Wicked Becomes You
Gwen Maudsley is incredibly nice, but after she gets jilted at the altar for the second time, she decides she's going to turn into a bad girl, preferably with Alex Ramsey, her late brother's best friend. Unfortunately, she's not so good at being bad, and worse, Alex keeps trying to keep her at arm's length. And then there is some random plot about Alex trying to figure out who is cheating his brother which necessitates the two of them traveling around France.
I was very excited about this when it came out-it's set in the late 1800s around Paris and Monte Carlo, the excerpt was very funny, and I was in the mood for romantic comedy. Also, I am a sucker for characters with some history who start to fall in love. Also also, although there's mention of Alex's business dealings abroad, at least there isn't as much colonialism as Duran's other books? But even though the interactions between Gwen and Alex are fun, and even though I appreciate how Duran tries to get deeper into the characters and what makes them tick, it didn't quite work for me.
A large part of it is that even though the book is ostensibly about Gwen overthrowing her old reputation and learning to live on the edge a little, all her realizations about herself are basically Alex telling her stuff. He tells her she's been crafty and canny in being the nice girl to stave off all the people saying she's using her money to buy into the gentry, he tells her to take charge when she decides she wants to have a fling, he tells her what she's looking for isn't love. Once or twice was all right, but when I ended the book, I felt as though it was all about Alex teaching Gwen about who she was, which seems a bit antithetical to her becoming independent and her own person.
And finally, much like Written on the Skin, the plot completely falls apart in the end. It doesn't just degenerate into nonsensical stuff, it retroactively makes itself a non plot. I think. It was a bit hard to tell after a while.
So... fun in parts, and Duran's prose remains pretty good for the genre, but if even I notice that the plot sucks, that's not a good thing. But even that could have been overlooked except I never really believed in the romance. The relationship between Gwen and Alex felt too uneven even as Duran kept writing that it was about Gwen taking control.
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I was very excited about this when it came out-it's set in the late 1800s around Paris and Monte Carlo, the excerpt was very funny, and I was in the mood for romantic comedy. Also, I am a sucker for characters with some history who start to fall in love. Also also, although there's mention of Alex's business dealings abroad, at least there isn't as much colonialism as Duran's other books? But even though the interactions between Gwen and Alex are fun, and even though I appreciate how Duran tries to get deeper into the characters and what makes them tick, it didn't quite work for me.
A large part of it is that even though the book is ostensibly about Gwen overthrowing her old reputation and learning to live on the edge a little, all her realizations about herself are basically Alex telling her stuff. He tells her she's been crafty and canny in being the nice girl to stave off all the people saying she's using her money to buy into the gentry, he tells her to take charge when she decides she wants to have a fling, he tells her what she's looking for isn't love. Once or twice was all right, but when I ended the book, I felt as though it was all about Alex teaching Gwen about who she was, which seems a bit antithetical to her becoming independent and her own person.
And finally, much like Written on the Skin, the plot completely falls apart in the end. It doesn't just degenerate into nonsensical stuff, it retroactively makes itself a non plot. I think. It was a bit hard to tell after a while.
So... fun in parts, and Duran's prose remains pretty good for the genre, but if even I notice that the plot sucks, that's not a good thing. But even that could have been overlooked except I never really believed in the romance. The relationship between Gwen and Alex felt too uneven even as Duran kept writing that it was about Gwen taking control.
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) | Link