Things that make me wanna throw my e-reader at the wall...

Ya know, back in the old days, before e-readers, when you got a book that made you positively insane, you could throw it at the wall, get a satisfying thunk out of it, and then either keep reading, give it to a local charity, or in very rare cases, throw it away- since nobody needs to be reading such crap.

With the advent of e-readers, you can't really do that. Unfortunately.

I read a book yesterday that I won't divulge because, well, your mileage may vary. It was free, thank goodness, but that didn't excuse it, IMHO.

When a book says it's a romance, I expect certain things.

Romances should have happy endings, and this one kinda did... but not really.
Romances should be about building a relationship, and even if there is subterfuge in there somewhere, there needs to be an actual resolution BEFORE THE END OF THE DAMN BOOK.
Romances should have good sex, if they're going to have sex. Sex should ONLY be painful the first time, if she's a virgin or he's really hung. I do NOT want to read about it hurting every damn time. That kinda takes the fun out of it.

These are my opinions, so feel free to disagree.

In this book, there were aliens and humans. The heroine was a virgin, caught the eye of a rich alien CEO. He decided he had to have her. She decided she had to betray him because she had no other choice. She does give in to sex, though she hates the guy and feels trapped.

The sex is painful for her. Every. Time.
She's not all that likeable.
She betrays him, he uses her to betray the people she's betraying him to, but he still wants her in his life, even though she keeps telling him she wants to be free.
He's got a superiority complex from hell and doesn't let her forget that he's better than her and that she can't run.
 And at the very end, when she realizes that she can't kill him because she's falling for him (why???), he decides to take her to his home, where they'll start their happily ever after.

And the book ends there.

No 'happy' DURING the book at all. Nothing but constant fighting, scorching (to them) sex that she then has to have medical attention from him to recover from. Nothing but betrayal and threats keeping them together. HE likes her, she doesn't like him, but she likes his cooking. Go figure.

Bottom line... HOW was this a romance novel?? And if it was intended just to be an erotica novel, the sex was rather vanilla and perfunctory. A bit of nipple tweaking and kissing, a little finger action elsewhere, and then pain, discomfort, and only in a passing sentence did the author go into the bit about something else that made the sex 'mindblowing'.

Basically, this was '50 Shades' with aliens. Only the writing wasn't as good.

So why did I keep reading it?

Well, I THOUGHT that at some point, it had to get better. There had to come a time when the hero and heroine actually resolved their differences, admitted they were falling in love with each other, and had sweet, real love-making that didn't involve pain and -literally- drugging kisses.

I thought that there would be more of an explanation of why the heroine was being such a bitch and why the hero just had to have her, in spite of that.

I thought that at some point she'd grow a personality that would explain his obsession with her.

And I kept thinking that no way could this book have that many good reviews and be this bad.

Guess that'll teach me! :P

Sorry... I hate it when I pick up a book that's supposedly from a great author and end up hating it. I devoted far too much time to the story, and that's my fault, but still... I was incredulous that it was actually that bad.

Sigh.

So this is my version of throwing my Kindle against a wall. I can't do that, because I LIKE my Kindle and want to keep reading wonderful books on it.

But I can eviscerate the book. Even if I don't tell you the title. I'm sure the author is a perfectly nice person. Maybe her other books are awesome. I don't know and won't likely find out. I'm certainly not inclined to read the rest in this series!

GAH!

I had to read a mindless menage to get the taste outta my brain. Turns out the menage was much better written and more entertaining. :P Who knew? :)

Ah well.

When a book makes you want to throw something, what do you do to relieve that stress?? I'm curious! :)