Friday, March 31

You know it's bad...

I am a self-professed Eloisa James fangirl, I have liked everything she's written, even those books AAR gave D's to, but The Taming of the Duke threw me for a loop. I wanted to love it, but I had so many problems with it, that it almost hit the wall Thursday night.

It pains me to say this...

  1. I still don't like Imogen, I thoroughly detested her after Much Ado About You. She was a self-centered, self-absorbed bitch in that one and to be honest, the "transformation" didn't work for me, too much obnoxiousness to make up for.
  2. The Rafe making believe he was Gabe thing completely didn't work for me.
  3. All the theater references made not only my eyes glaze over, eventually I found it completely mind numbingly boring. I can't believe I just said that about a EJ book.
  4. Too much sequel baiting...is Lady Griselda with child, who the heck is Mayne marrying and what is going to happen to poor Josie?

Is it horrible, no, but it didn't live up to my expectations and that leaves me wondering if that's the problem...

did I expect too much?

I still think she has a wonderful writing voice, I love that she takes risks, her characters are far from perfect...bimbos, fortune hunters, drunks, philanderers, self-absorbed twits. They normally make for interesting reading. In the past I like how she handled sequel baiting. I loved waiting for Esme and Sebastien's story, and that carried on through a couple of books, but there was too much left hanging.

This is the first of her books that didn't work for me, but I'm still looking forward to the next.

Have a good one, and happy reading.

Tara

3 comments:

Sam said...

I hate when series degenerate like this, lol.
The worst for me was the Gabaldon series - I read them all but stalled on the next to last one. Bought the mast one hoping for redemption - couldn't get past chapter two. Skimmed through it. Thought it sucked.
Oh well.

Tara Marie said...

Sam, I couldn't finish The Fiery Cross. Haven't picked a Gabaldon since, not even for rereads of the first 4.

sybil said...

Never read a Gabaldon book. And never been much on EJ. Oddly enough she is one of the posters on SR I like to read but her books generally don't do much for me.

Did like the last one and have the first of this series TBR. But the more I hear about this one the less I have any want to read it. I don't like it when the h/h aren't together more and I really don't like the 'playing someone else' thing. It is funny I reread one recently I recall likeing and found it annoying as all get out even though it was clear she knew he wasn't who he said he was.

ah well, wondered if your love of EJ would help or not ;) I find I can be more forgiving of author I adore but also can lean toward expecting too much of them. Not sure if either of those are fair but what do you do?