Girls You Marry

Listen up all you Romance Authors - you know I love romances. We've been solid for a while now, but I’m going to be honest here - I feel like you all really let me down and don’t know me at all. Maybe it's me, maybe I’ve changed. I don’t want to be hasty, so I’m not asking for a complete break up – YET - I just need some time and space. OK? All righty then….<br /><br />This book was all kinds of ridiculous and aggravating. I look for romance books to ENTERTAIN ME – not to give me headaches &amp; enrage me to the point I question why I even bother with these romances any more! I don’t really care when authors bend and twist reality a little in their books. I certainly haven’t faulted them for it in the past. BUT this overused plot of Heroes cheating on heroines, having kids with OW and heroines always forgiving has not only been done to death already but it is just plain tiresome! And perhaps that is why they keep using it over &amp; over again....<br /><br />The Plot: This wanker of a non-hero was screwing OW during the 2 years that he &amp; heroine were dating in college. Heroine was supposedly the love of his life &amp; the one he wanted to marry but that didn’t stop him from f***g around. And his excuse? Way too lame.. (see spoilers below). <br /><br />When heroine finds out about the cheating, she tells him to take a hike and “hurt” he then goes on for the next year or so f**king everything in sight and by the 2nd year, he has a steady girlfriend (of course a beautiful model) who ends up pregnant with his kid because the “condom broke”. The gf ends up not wanting the kid, nor wanting to marry him so he raises the kid himself and becomes slightly less a manho for his kid (at least - he said he fucks women when he is on the road but never brings them home).... <br /><br />Then 10 yrs pass and his kid is now 8 yrs old and he just decides that he still loves heroine and wants a 2nd chance with her so he manipulates her to come and work/live with him &amp; his kid. He is at first “hurt” that she hasn’t forgiven his douchery past but then as always, heroine of course lusts after him and forgives him. The End.<br /><br />So here are some spoilers...<br /><br /><input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="9c7f58e4-b37f-4a1e-86ef-e09b6ea930e6" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="9c7f58e4-b37f-4a1e-86ef-e09b6ea930e6">When he &amp; heroine were first dating, his father told him there were 2 types of women; one that you f***ed around with and the other that you married. Since he was f****g around on heroine WHILE they were dating &amp; planning to marry, I’m not sure what category heroine fell into BUT while he claimed that he felt SOME guilt while he was f**king all those OW women, it didn't stop him screwing them. Also, he &amp; heroine at the time were not having sex as he was "saving" her for marriage.<br /><br /><b>“But what gets me the most is the way you just blew it off when I confronted you. Girls you fuck and girls you marry,” I mocked, gaining a small amount of pleasure when he flinched at his own words. “Was that supposed to make it all right, Dan? Were those lovely words supposed to make me feel better about the fact that the man I loved with my whole heart and soul stuck it to every girl who crossed his path? Make me feel less embarrassed about begging you to make love to me?”<br /><br />“Is that what this is about? You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about, Bri.”<br /><br />“This is about your inability to keep it in your pants while we were together.”<br /><br />“Is it?” His brow cocked. “Or is it about the fact that I kept it in my pants with you?”<br /><br />“Don’t you dare try to turn this around. I may not be perfect, but I never once cheated on you, never even thought about it.” I shook my head in disgust. “And the thing that really kills me is the fact that I fought you. Remember that? I didn’t want to go out with you because I knew it wasn’t natural. Ken dates Barbie, not the generic Dollar Store version. But you kept at me and convinced me to go out with you, made me fall in love with you.”<br /><br />“First off, you’re beautiful and smart and funny and I fell head over heels in love with you. The problem was… From the time I was fourteen years old, my father drilled it into my head that there are girls you fuck and girls you marry, and that you don’t fuck the girl you plan to marry until the wedding night. Even once you married them, he said that you treated them with respect in and out of the bedroom. If you wanted raunchy sex, again you’d go find a girl you fuck. Until I met you, I never questioned his theory again.” <br /><br />“What’s that supposed to mean?”<br /><br />“It means I never thought twice about it until I fell in love with you. But once we were together, I felt guilty as hell cheating on you.”<br /><br />“So why did you?”<br /><br />“I just told you.”<br /><br />“Let me get this straight. You couldn’t fuck me because you wanted to marry me, so you went to other girls.”<br /><br />“Pretty much.”<br /><br />“Did it ever occur to you not to fuck anyone?” The look on his face answered the question. “I wasn’t fucking anyone Dan, so why should you?”</b><br /><br />And because it is an overused plot, you guessed it. He cheats on heroine but of course he is faithful to his gf after her. He even begged the OW to marry him because he wanted to be a family &amp; raise their kid together. So while he followed his Dad's theory on women by cheating on heroine (the woman he supposedly loved), he didn't follow it with his OW whom he said he didn't love.... All righty then...<br /><br />And when heroine comes back in his life, he never does anything to earn her trust or fight for her. Basically this story is about a douche non-hero who is looking for a "momma" for his kid because the one he impregnated did not want them. AND he never even truly pursues her. He just sits back and "waits" for heroine to see the light - all the while his friends/family do all the pushing for him. <br /><br />These two lines from the heroine served up this entire read for me:<br /><br /><b>“The fact that he couldn’t keep it in his pants didn’t bother me as much as the fact that he had no problem keeping it there with me, yet whipped it out for every other female on campus”.</b><br /><br />So basically she was okay that he was sticking his d**k in every other woman, but she was ticked off that he hadn’t done same to her!!!???<br /><br /><b>"If fidelity was so foreign to him then, why would he be any good at it now? A leopard doesn’t change his spots, after all". </b> Amen Sister! Amen! </label><br /><br />Now THAT is the million dollar question! That said, the dialogue and characters that should bring the stories to life was just not there. When a story puts you to sleep or has you focusing on all the household chores you need to do instead of reading this crap, then it’s time to call it quits because I was NOT entertained by this douchery writing. <br /><br />Yet another Author added to my never-ending pile of never again. Who knows, maybe the New Year will bring a complete breakup of so-called romances these days. So yes, Authors, it’s not me babe – it’s definitely you! Sorry – not sorry! Yada Yada…

You know, I've got to say that I'm beginning to think the majority of people writing romance novels just might be challenged intelligence-wise. And the same goes for the high-rating, biased reviewers who swoon over a hero who cheats.<br /><br />Like this arsehat, who cheated multiple times on his gf in college but wouldn't sleep with her! Then he justified it by telling her that some girls you f*ck, and others you marry - and he wanted to marry her.<br /><br />What the ever-loving hell is that kind of buggered up logic?? He leads her on and teases her and then cuts her off and says he wants to wait till marriage, and all the time he's shagging every other girl that looks his way.<br /><br />People don't change, and this knob head is beyond redemption, single dad or not. Having a kid doesn't make it all better. This book is bog roll. And for anyone who doesn't know, bog roll is used in the toilet. <br /><br />Enough said.

I have never liked cheating or cheaters. I do not buy his excuse for cheating. I'm not convinced he has changed.

<b>Forgiving a Cheat</b><br /><br />From page one, we're given reason to despise Dan, especially the whole girls you [have fun with] and girls you marry rhetoric. Because I usually go into a book blind, I didn't immediately realize he was the second chance. I'll be honest. If it wasn't for Lexi, there's a chance I would've stopped. Her energy came through the pages loud and clear and I couldn't resist. I'm glad I stuck with it.<br /><br />While some people will never change, others are struggling to find their way through life and how they truly fit into it all. I won't discount Dan's cheating that occurred a decade earlier. I do know that who you are in your late teens and early 20s doesn't have to dictate who you grow up to be. It took three major events in his life to put him on another path - losing Sabrina, gaining Lexi, and his parents.<br /><br />Dan has a lot of atoning to do and he makes his actions work for him. That doesn't make everything smooth sailing but it definitely helps move things in the right direction.<br /><br /><blockquote><i><b>“In my mind, I recreated you as someone I could hate, someone horrible, someone I could never love. I blamed you for every bad experience and failed relationship I had, when in fact it was my own insecurities that were at fault.” </b></i> -- Sabrina Kelly </blockquote><br /><br />I listened to an author copy of the book as well as read along. The narrators, Michael Gallagher and Lee Daniels, were easy to listen to.<br /><br />Quick update: the bonus epilogue requires tissues! ?❤<br /><br />Story: 4 stars<br />Narration: 4 stars

God awful book. Hero is a cheater with a poor excuse in college. They break up and a year later he meet a model and is completely faithful to her, and has a kid with her, and even begs her to marry him. He broke all of the rules for this woman. He says later that he never loved the model that he gave his fidelity too, but was in love with our heroine, that he treated like crap... yea, ok. Just so wrong. This author combines too many tropes to make this character forgivable and the story believable/enjoyable. I probably won’t bother with this author again. I just don’t have the time to waste.

I hate when authors contradict, and don't follow their own logic. He cheated on the heroine bc you dont fuck the girl you love/want to marry, but he fucked and was faithful to the next girl who he wanted to marry/didnt love, WTF?! ? find a new career or side hustle ASAP ?

This book was really really really slow. <br /><br />I also didn't think it showed enough depth to his why he cheated. Didn't show his remorse. Even if he believed it was the norm to fuck other girls and keep the girlfriend on the side, why, in such a new relationship, was he attracted enough to do it? There was just something lacking in the whole excuse/remorse/growth thing. <br /><br />The whole thing was just meh.

His reasons for cheating were pretty thin, I would have rather it just be left at “I was an idiotic college boy ten years ago” and it would have been 100% believable. However, I felt the groveling was great and I believed that he had grown up. Loved the single dad aspect too.

<strong>Wonderfully sweet and perfectly paced</strong><br /><br />I adored this book. These two characters felt like real people who I could easily relate to and understand their motives. The push and pull was perfect, as was the pacing. Great characters, great story. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

Sounds just terrible. WTF is with the Madonna/Whore complex. Its disgusting. Especially when we are supposed to cheer for this cheating man whore to get the girl. A hard pass on this so called romance book. Thanks for the heads up!