A History Nut's Romantic State of Mind

MY GOD WHAT A PAINFUL READ.

I stayed up until 3am to finish this book, NOT because I loved it, but because I just cannot bear to have to come back to this book again. I knew if I had stopped, it would be another month before I could pick up the book again.

What makes this book so painful, is not that it is a bad book. On the contrary, it was a well-written romance with all the right ingredients to make a romance good. The writing is superb. Ms. Sarah MacLean I am sorry that I am giving this book such a low rating. I think you write beautifully.

But for the love of God, what a pathetic heroine. I despise Callie.

Imagine a woman, who did not believe that she was beautiful, fancied that she fell in love with a man who gave her a few nice words and fantasized about him for 10 years. Now firmly on the shelf, she thought oh let me live a little. I will do that with a list of things I would like to do to save myself from my boring aristocratic life with evening gowns and balls. And oh what a poor dear I am because I am so prim and proer and nobody notices me because I am not pretty enough and all that I am worth is to be a spinster and secretly dream about the man who does not even remember having met me. This, is Callie.

And that is not all. Callie listed kissing and decided to get that kiss from said fantasy man, Gabriel St. John. Their entire "relationship" is basically Callie wanting Gabriel to love her and Gabriel was just alone for the ride. What is one more woman to him? It is not that he had never done it before. And seriously, if a woman wants to lay her dignity at the feet of a man, who is he to say no?

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why would ANY woman do such a thing. A man tells his brother behind doors that he thinks you are plain, missish and passive. And he is not interested in you and he is not to blame if you find him attractive. Door opens and it is revealed that you have overheard the conversation. You are hurt and angry. And...............................you let him have oral sex with you right afterwards??

I am sorry this type of ugly duckling turn swan because of a man story just pisses me off. I love the writing and how the story was built up, the tension, the feel of historical romance. Sarah MacLean did well. But the characterization of Callie made me cringe from the beginning to the end. This "oh I am so ugly and he would never love me" sense of inferiority infuriates me to no end.

And th list. Jesus Christ, another bored high-born lady seeking "adventures". Do something useful, help the orphans, visit the sick. You are a spinster, ok, I get it. Do you have to be selfish too?

UGH the frustration I experienced reading this book was beyond words. Everything about Callie rubs me the wrong way. I hardly noticed anyone else. A cad that Gabriel St. John was, I liked him much better than Callie. I even felt sorry for him being stuck with a character like her. The only good thing I can say about Callie is that she is at least not a shrew. She is just a very bored, plain, missish, passive woman who realized she was well past her prime and wanted to "go out with a bang", so to speak. And that she did.

My rating is overly harsh but it truly reflects my feeling toward the character of Callie. Everything else about the book was good.