Review: I Paid for a Romance Novel And Got a Religious Sermon
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 28, 2013
Look, the book was well-written; no doubt about that, lacking the ubiquitous grammar, spelling, and revisory mistakes. But the Christian dogma oozing out of every line is too much. If you want to write a Christian romance, that just happens to be a time-travel, that's fine; but can you at least label it under the correct genre? Or mention it in the book description, so suckers like me don't pay for a romance and get a steaming platter of sanctimonious, Judeo-Christian, guilt-based mythology? Much obliged.The entire book was sprinkled with "God's plan", "you NEED to do this or that because of God" "the Lord's will", etc., etc. ad nauseam.  Even little italicized asides with prayers to "the Lord".And the heroine, ARGH!The heroine was so weak-willed and accepting of all the abuse aimed at her: the perfect Christian stereotypical lady.  Nearly raped several times, slapped, worked to a physical exhaustion, and verbally abused- but no, she didn't stand up for herself and demand respect like a well-rounded, confident, modern woman.  She just toiled through a crucible-like cross, trying out some self-righteous humility- all of which was squeezed into the plot- the "divine purpose".  It was frustrating to see a character have the personality and will of oatmeal.  I cannot stand heroines who just sit there and take abuse; I mean, for all that's good and holy, the ENTIRE book was stretched out because of her mealy-mouthed, 'fraidy cat lack of conviction: Garren asking her what was wrong, her being too scared/weak/confused to tell him.  It was like 1/3 of the way through the book the author ran out of plot, and had a rinse and repeat cycle of this garbage to make this a full novel.And another thing: Garren- he has a goatee?  Really?!  Can he be any more of a stereotypical small-group leader/youth group leader/pastor/Evangelical Christian "nice-guy" EVER?  Goatees are a rather recent male facial hair trend (maybe there was some version of that in Elizabethan men- but longer and curled). What I'm trying to say is that, Garren seems unoriginal, like the author looked over from her laptop and described her husband.Three stars for the quality of editing and revision, minus two for the eye-rolling sermonizing and watered down plot.