After losing his engagement to the woman he thought would be the great love of his life, twenty-three-year-old aspiring writer Graham Herrera is in pieces. After four months, though, it becomes clear just how he can get his life back on track and reassemble his soul: write a book about his lost love and shed her bad blood forever. There’s just one problem: that would make him a “male romance … author,” and according to society, men know nothing about romance, right?
Humorous and heartwarming, Seth King’s Hopeless Romantic is an inside look at what happens when you toss away the world’s judgments and decide to write your own future, one romance novel at a time.
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So, I have been thinking of not doing this review now for a few days.
Seriously, no one wants to write a negative review, especially me, and I feel like a total asshole for it, but I feel this is that one review that I Have to write regardless of it not being a “good review”.
But I promise this isn’t all negative nor is this an author/story bashing, so hold your horses before you all send me to the gallows for my 1-star.
So, the gist of the story is that Graham is a hopeless romantic who is kinda over the top with the lovely dovey mushiness and is head over heels in love with his girlfriend of three years, Olivia.
With the natural progression of a relationship, he wants to take it to the next step and propose, and decided to do it after sky driving at a place that’s closing down. . . .
The plane fails and plummets them downwards, in an attempt to save themselves, they jump. He survives. She dies.
Now, this is where things are meant to be heart-wrenching, ugly crying, grief ridden, but it’s not. I honestly felt nothing. Before someone pipes up with the “omg, how heartless” comment, I am far from heartless.
13 years ago, the love of My life was ripped from me in a terrible accident. I know all too well the heartache, well it’s not even heartache, it’s something much more but something that doesn’t have a word to accurately convey the pain that’s felt. Getting on with life after that kind of loss isn’t easy, it is a lifelong struggle that you have to deal with every day.
I Know that everyone grieves differently, trust me, I get that.
The rawness, that whirlwind of emotions and that all-consuming grief that threatens to pull you under and not let you back up. . . . None of that was found within the pages of Hopeless Romantic and THAT is where my problem lies.
After Oliver dies, Graham continues to Tell you he is sad, that he misses her, that he loves her and that he feels responsible for her death. But he doesn’t show that or give off any emotions at all. I wanted to be moved, I wanted to Feel what he was going through, the grief, the guilt, the loss. I wanted to have my heart handed to me all pureed in a glass because of this story . . . .
That didn’t happen. I didn’t get sad. I didn’t cry. I didn’t believe a single bit of Graham’s sadness. It was all . . . empty, does that make sense?
In all honesty, I feel like the main focus of this wasn’t about heartbreak, grief, remembrance, or the loss and learning to live without one’s soulmate, it was about Graham wanted to be a “Male Romance Author.” This story could have very well just been about a couple who separated and the guy decided to write a story about it but was torn because you know, “real men don’t write romance and don’t have feelings. “
Now, I know you guys are thinking “OMG she’s a cow!” and believe me, I am not trying to be in any way, but I don’t want people going in thinking it’s going to rip their hearts out and then mend it all back together when love shines back in because that does Not happen. At all.
As I said above, this is more about a guy who wants to be an author but is fearful because being a Male Romance Author is “taboo.”
Now I said this wasn’t all negative, and I meant that.
I will most definitely be giving Seth’s work another try.
Seth King is an amazing writer, and has all the right words, he was just lacking the emotional punch that a story like THIS one needs, I think to write something so gut-wrenching like a loss like this, you really need to delve into a very dark and emotional place.
*This is just MY thought’s on the book. I have read books in the past that focus on losing a partner and rebuilding your life after that and have been fine with them, so this was Not a trigger book for me.*