Review: Shallow characters and shallow themes...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2012
Identical twin sisters Gwendolyn and Anora are complete opposites, but fierce friends nonetheless. Gwendolyn is the tomboy of the duo - even going so far as to cut her hair short and wear men's clothing, while Anora exudes a very feminine nature. As the eldest by minutes, Anora has been placed in an arranged marriage, but thankfully, it turned out to be a love match anyways. The night before her wedding, the two sneak out unchaperoned for one last sisterly moment of bonding, when the unthinkable happens and they are kidnapped by two wandering Vikings. They believe Gwendolyn to be male (in men's clothing and short hair) and take the duo back to their ship in repair, even though it is expressly forbidden by the captain, Hakon. From here on out, the story is about Hakon and his interaction with the 'brother' Garric and sister Anora. Gwendolyn continues her identity as Garric in hopes to keep Anora's virtue intact for her betrothed.Well, the one thing that attracted me to the story was the outline. As most of these stories go, I thought I could have predicted what happened, but unfortunately, I think my assumption was probably a better story than this. I found the story to be trite, shallow, messy, and incredibly misogynistic. I know well that most romance stories have a bit of misogyny in them, but this one was pretty thick with it.Let me start with the storytelling. It's messy in that it is constantly vacillating point of views. One paragraph is through Gwendolyn's eyes, the next is Hakon, and then the next one is some chambermaid in the same room giving her $0.02. So it goes on. It took me many chapters to get used to it. And yes, I did read the whole thing (mainly in hopes to see a redeeming quality in the couple).And the descriptions, whoa. Adverbs stacked on adjectives stacked on adverbs. I like description, but most of it felt forced or trite, as if there was a book of synonyms on the ready for *every* sentence.Also, the beginning of the story held a lot of completely unnecessary crap. If the story is not going to be about Wulfgar and Anora, maybe one should stop writing such intricate details about their history and the political notions of it all. When it doesn't last past the first few chapters, never to be touched upon again, I feel like my time is wasted with pointless words completely lacking in entertainment or reason.The twins' ruse was poorly written. I believe another reviewer noticed the same. How can the both be so incredibly fair and beautiful and gorgeous and gifts of the gods when one can be so easily mistaken for a young boy? I absolutely hated Hakon as a character, but it was laughable to read the spew of compliments he would bestow upon Anora, then hate so easily on Garric without any inkling of her identity, then praise Gwendolyn (as Anora) exactly the same - never the wiser! Yet every chapter some background character made a comment on how absolutely magnificent and awe-inspiring was the beauty of either...but only if they were in a dress. /eyeroll/ Put some pants on a girl and she's too mannish to believed to be a girl. Riiiiight.Now to the 'romance' of Gwendolyn and Hakon. Not once did I feel any genuine love between the two. For chapters, Hakon praises his affections and lust for Anora, from the very beginning. When they are first discovered on the ship, the reader anticipates a kind captain with morals, but instead the reader gets an arrogant warrior who's okay with raping and taking some hostages as slaves. While I get his reasons for not turning around and dropping the twins back off at England, did he really have to enforce slavery? Not only slavery, but insist on getting Anora to bed him as some kind of sex slave (incredibly confidently, I might add). I get that this was probably exactly the kind of man one would expect in this era, but it's not very attractive to read about in a romance novel. So not only is he constantly forcing his affections on an incredibly frightened Anora and just scaring the bejeezus out of her with his talks of forcing himself upon her, but he doesn't even get a whiff of difference when Anora and Gwendolyn change places. Absolutely nothing is amiss to him. The first night Hakon and Gwendolyn (as Anora) are together...it's just very...rape-y. He does force himself...but it's some kind of weird thing that Gwendolyn (all this time has completely hated and disgusted by this guy) just turns over like a cat in heat all of a sudden. I think, as a reader, one is supposed to just accept that her body knows what's best for her heart...or something like that? Even through the realization of love and all that, Hakon never knows who's who. I mean, I would think true love should at least be able to see a person past their indescribably beautiful body to fall in love with someone and then fall in love with an identical someone without realizing the difference. It just leaves the romance's credibility in the negative.This also applies to Gwendolyn. The reader does not come across her transition into loving him. She's wishy washy and just moody. She hates him because he took her and her sister as slaves away from her homeland! She loves him because he's great in the sack! She hates him because he's so mean to her when she's Garric. She loves him because just look at that hot, Viking body! Once she starts pretending to be Anora, all plans to escape home are just gone. Months are supposed to go by, and Anora is just sitting on her thumbs trusting her sister. I just don't get it. I don't get any precourse to love beyond lust or obligation/duty/honor above whatever it is that feels good.I mentioned the first scene of intimacy between Hakon and Gwendolyn are...rape-y. Well, the acceptance of rape was one of the biggest themes that disturbed me. It wasn't outright acceptance, per se, but it was darn close. The constant attempts to rape the twins were disheartening, but then to have the 'hero' consider it so much...yeah, not cool. One line from a background character left me doing double takes:"Whatever happened to the days when a Viking chieftain took a wench if he wanted her, and that was that! She closed her heavy-lidded eyes, a secret smile on her face, as she remembered her youth."This particular quote in context implies that Hakon should just go ahead and rape Anora, because he's so good looking and rich and a spectacular lover, the rape will be null and void because the wench in question will love it.Yeah...this is just a horrible impression for a romance novel...and towards the 'good guy' especially.Again, I believe another reviewer also noticed the abundance of Gwendolyn's stupidity. Keep getting in trouble by walking around alone? Just keep doing it! Yeah! Not only is it a poor setup for danger, but it's also poor characterization. Need the heroine to come across the bad guy? Just write in there that she's walking around for funsies. Maybe she can not learn her lesson and do it again later...a few more times, at that.There was one line in an (albeit decent) scene of war: "Acting on finely honed instincts..." referring to Gwendolyn in fight. I literally laughed out loud. "Finely honed" indeed.A great line that's later in the book, after already been in danger numerous times:"Perhaps a walk would take her mind off the memories that continually plagued her. Aye, that was what she would do!"Such excitement for a walk!!! She must know that danger and excitement are ahead whenever she goes out alone! Good one, Gwennie!So why two stars instead of one? I read the whole thing and still hoped for a romantic redemption. I really wanted Hakon to be a decent guy. I really wanted true love to peek it's cute little head and yell, "Surprise! I really AM here!" If the story was just an outline, I would have enjoyed it better, because I really do like the premise. If only I had a trophy in poor execution...Lacking characters, lacking writing, overwrought descriptions, glorifying rape, zero hero/heroine presence...and thusly.Thank Odin it was free.