As a continuation of my reading romance books, I recently finished my second romance book of the summer, Bride, by Ali Hazelwood. As a quick recap, a coworker gave me a list of romance books to read. It’s completely different from anything I would ever read, but I have become determined to read each one. I read some romance novels in college and enjoyed them, despite not meeting their demographic. So, it’s not entirely foreign to me, but I do lack extensive knowledge of the genre.
For my first book, I read Five Brothers by Penelope Douglas. An admittedly unexpected enjoyment simply for the craziness of it all. The book was truly a page turner, with one outlandish thing happening after another.
Unfortunately, this did Bride a disservice, as I formed an expectation that it too would immediately hook me with wild unexpected moments. It did not. Instead, it was a slow build with a main character that I found to be annoying and odd.
However, that changed when I began seeing the character through a lens that I ignorantly hadn’t considered before. Misery, an odd name to begin with, is a vampire that has been offered to the Were’s to maintain the peace between the species. Prior, she was living amongst humans with her only friend Serena, a human. You learn early why she prefers to live with them rather than her own kind.
Once I stopped and considered this fact, I realized my issues with Misery failed to account for her upbringing, her lack of socialization, no romantic partners to speak of, and her hatred towards animals, and kids. The stuck-up, intellectually pretentious, sarcastic character began to fade away, as I saw her with more compassion than I thought she possessed.
In the later half of the book, the story shined. The plot became clearer, the characters more enjoyable, and unexpected twists kept me engaged.
Despite not being something I would re-read, Bride was an enjoyable read that at times was confusing and left me wanting more. Hazelwood’s style overall didn’t land strongly enough for it to become a favorite. At times, I found it hard to follow, misreading sections simply because I had trouble with the main character’s dialogue. However, once I started to sympathize with her, that changed.
Shifting from my overall impressions of the book, I want to discuss concepts that surprised me.
Again, I’m not totally oblivious to this type of literature. In the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyers incorporates the concept of a mate. Unaware of the fantasy novel rules, I didn’t expect a mate to come into effect here. When it did, I wasn’t surprised but rather left going, “Oh, okay, sure.” What did surprise me, was the mate of Misery’s Were Alpha husband, Lowe Moreland. I found myself confused and taken aback by the reveal. In terms of the plot, it fits perfectly, but admittedly, I expected a different outcome.
The second involves Lowe and Misery’s inability to be sexually active because of a trait possessed by him. Not to say too much, from what I have been told by avid fantasy romance readers I know, this is something that occurs often in romance novels. The novel does follow a generic romance template, so they do find a way to be together and have this experience. In the end, everything worked out, but as a new reader, it certainly caught me off guard.
I found myself wondering, what is the purpose of such a common plot-line? It seems better to simply have social or political reasons for them not to be together. Which does happen to some extent. But why also target the male character? When I did online research on this, I discovered that it’s the male character in many instances that has something unabling the love insterests from having sex. If this trope does exist across fantasy romance novels, I don’t understand the purpose other than to create more tension. It seems to me there are better ways.
It’s another reminder that I have a lot to learn about the genre. The literary rules that govern its plot are not the same as my normal reads. As I approached my newfound appreciation for romance novels, it would behoove me to keep an open mind. Avoid forming expectations about how a character should talk and act simply based on how I or how many of my favorite characters in literature would.
Bride is one of the stories that works. It’s fantasy, romance, funny, with a surprising well-constructed world within four hundred pages worth of material. Those who love the genre will most likely enjoy this book. Open-minded readers will also find it has its moments, both good and bad.
As I proceed to my next summer read, I wonder if more books will follow a similar template. From what I understand, Five Brothers isn’t the wildest in its genre, not by a mile. Bride was considerably different from the Twilight series, which I hate to say, I have what I would call an extensive knowledge of the material. It might explain why I have questions from Bride that are difficult for me to formulate into words. My expectation of a vampire and werewolf romance novel is the Twilight series. Likewise, as I previously mentioned, Five Brothers formed an expectation that Bride failed to meet. Each novel will no doubt bring its own surprises and possibly reshaping how I see the genre, but only time will tell.
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