Rate this book

Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (2011)

by Karen Doornebos(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0425243826 (ISBN13: 9780425243824)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Berkley Trade

review 1: I have a new test for books. If I am about a hundred pages in, give or take, I will ask myself one question: if I died tomorrow, how would I feel about what I was reading when I died? Sometimes, the answer is "Really pissed off that I never finished it--I want to know what happened!" "Deeply satisfied" "Pretty okay", and so on. However, sometimes the answer is: "Really f***ing annoyed that THIS was the last book that I read." Well, that's a sign that I should abandon the book. Life's too short--and this is my new metric to measure this. Can you guess what my answer was when I asked that question about this book?So I have officially abandoned this book. It's not that the premise wasn't interesting. It was very interesting. The book was simply not well written. The... more character had no real... drive, motivation, actual human characteristics. She felt flat and hollow to me. I JUST abandoned this book, and I've already forgotten her name! I got bored and frustrated with the total lack of characterization. It was like poorly written fan-fiction--and, in fact, if I'd been reading it on the internet as fan-fiction, I would've have gotten this far before abandoning it. I'm going to add, I don't abandon books lightly. I usually prefer to just finish them, unless I really can't find it in myself to read another word. Hell, I even finished Fifty Shades of Grey for a bookclub read, and that was actually bad fanfiction that got published. This was just worse fan-fiction.It's not that "I just couldn't get into it." Nope. I just kept finding myself rolling my eyes at the book. It was almost unbelievably cheesy--a lot of the characters would say this ridiculous lines, and I would expect someone to make fun of them and then... nope, wait, I was supposed to take that seriously! So in addition to the poor characterization, the dialogue was very painfully written. Further, let's face it, the plot/premise was an attempt to combine beach romance with regency dignity while still appealing to the reality television prurient interest. If the dialogue is awful and characterization nonexistent, I'm out. That premise isn't good enough to make up for it, even in such a short book. I don't even care enough to be curious to find out how it ended.
review 2: I enjoyed this a lot. I thought it described both worlds quite accurately, the modern-day setting contrasted with 1812 England. It stayed within the realm of reality especially when the main character, Chloe, really does leave and resumes life back home in Chicago rather than having the predictable romantic last-minute change of heart or having the romantic lead show up at the airport wooing her to stay with him in England. The ending left me wanting more which is a good thing but also left me feeling a little frustrated that it wasn't the "happily ever after" most romances offer. I appreciated the historical details as well as the glimpses of what life really was like for women and the lower classes in Regency times. Sleeping on a lumpy hay-filled mattress doesn't sound enjoyable, and chamber pots - blech! less

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