Katrina Passick Lumsden's Reviews > Love Unscripted

OK, so....I'm sitting here sort of stunned by the exorbitantly high rating this book has received. Truth be told, I'm slightly disgusted. I usually hate not finishing books because I don't feel I can give them a thorough review otherwise, but this book was chock full of so much awful that it's actually drained me of the desire to read. I've slogged through my fair share of bad stories for the sake of comprehensive reviews, but I really don't think I can manage this one. Every time I look at my Kindle, a nearly-irrepressible desire to go do something else overcomes me, and I hear my brain screaming at me to just turn on a video game and try to forget any of this ever happened.

It didn't begin this way. Sure, I recognized from the start the simplistic writing, the stilted dialogue, the tendency to get comma placement wrong, and the author's story-crushing tendency to list everything her protagonist does, but I thought, "Hey, it's no worse than some of the other books I've read." How could I have been so wrong?

First complaint; it's just too damn long. I feel like I spent about three years reading it, and I'm only 25% through. I'm a fast reader, so fast that my seeming inability to make headway on this story is actually confusing to me. When I think of trying to make it all the way to the end, I get that vertigo effect. Then I get scared.


Now, like I said before, it doesn't start off terrible. Mediocre, yes, but not terrible. I was a little wary when I realized that Taryn is apparently the only woman in the entire state of Rhode Island not willing to drop trou for Ryan Christensen, but that wasn't such a big deal. A lot of authors aren't very good at giving their main character a balanced personality. Or any personality at all, come to think of it....

Anyway, it isn't until Taryn and Ryan meet that things go from mildly bad to "oh, my god, stop. Stop now." Once they begin the process of getting to know one another, things go from uncomfortable and awkward for them to uncomfortable and awkward for the reader. Their smarmy flirting is nothing short of nauseating, and the author gets a serious thumbs-down for employing one of the lamest tactics in writing; the completely pointless "let's quote our favorite movies to prove we have things in common" ploy.


The scene is bad enough, but when it's compounded with the author's blatant disregard for all rules of writing, things get even worse. Apparently Ms. Reber missed that all-important lesson Show Don't Tell, because the reader is continually treated to having the obvious pointed out to them. Taryn and Ryan are attempting to distract each other while playing pool. After reading about both of their attempts (which succeeded in making the target lose concentration and thus, miss their shot), I was treated to this:

"I see!" He laughed. "You don't play fair either!"
I grinned and shrugged; we both were busted trying to distract each other.

Then there's this little gem. Ryan takes Taryn to have dinner with a couple of his friends, and these friends have a little girl named Cami. Obviously, this is the part in the book where the author attempts to make her readers swoon over how good Ryan is with children while simultaneously making Ryan more obsessed with Taryn for her obvious knack with children.

"'Come here you!' Ryan scooped her up and kissed her on her cheeks before spinning her around in his arms to tickle her belly. Her giggles were precious."

First, gag me. Second, here's the very next sentence; "They obviously knew each other very well."


You just showed us, don't tell us.

Some of my other favorite awful lines?

"Looking him in the eyes was like taking a shot of truth serum."

"I brushed my teeth to rid my mouth of the nasty taste and washed my body twice to rid my pores of illness."

"Every time I tried to reach for his finger, he'd move his hand away and chuckle. Our little game was fun."

Again, do we really need to be told their "little game was fun"? Is it not enough that we read about them laughing while being flirtatious? Oh, my bad, I thought Taryn wasn't having fun. I thought she was attempting to draw attention to that fact by laughing, smiling, and playing along. How silly of me.

"For some unknown reason, I followed him over to the stage."

Unknown reason? It couldn't have perhaps been the fact that they were conversing while he walked around her bar?

Captain Obvious would love this. Twice, in just the first quarter of the book, Taryn repeated something she said to someone almost in the same paragraph. Imagine a conversation going like this; "I thought we'd take the boat out on the lake, do some fishing?" "You...you fish?" "Sure, that's why I brought you here, I thought we'd take the boat out on the lake."

Or like this: "Hey, I thought I'd hire an extra bartender to help us out. It's just too much for the two of us." "Yeah, that's a good idea, we've been getting slammed lately." "Yeah, just until the movie people are gone. I just think it's too much for just the two of us."



The amount of cliched metaphors are frequent and glaring, but I think my favorite was, "He was like a kid in a candy store, so happy and relaxed."



If you're going to use a metaphor, at least use it correctly. Kids in candy stores aren't generally relaxed, they're excited, hence the reason you would use said metaphor for someone who is excited.

*Sigh*

Oh, but that reminds me! Ryan can't seem to stop exclaiming things! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since any author who carelessly overuses metaphors, similes, and descriptors is a prime candidate for the overuse of the exclamation point, but it adds another awkward layer to this blunder sandwich! Any time Taryn does/says something that Ryan likes, he has a little mini celebration, saying things like, "Nice!" and "Good job!" It's completely condescending and weird! At one point, Taryn is rewarded for a good pool shot with a "Gentle high-five hand slap" a term which, after having read it aloud to my brother, caused him to insist that I finish reading this book, if for nothing else but to glean more gems like that one.



That's not even the worst of it, however. Even more off-putting is his exclamations of otherwise commonplace utterances. More often than not, he responds to Taryn's simple questions and teasing with exclamations. In fact, I think the only times he doesn't is when he's been thrown into one of his "brooding" moods by the paparazzi. When he's not unnecessarily enraged, however, he comes across as so disturbingly exuberant that I couldn't help but picture him as one of those insanely perky people who are always so chipper.

Come to think of it, Ryan just might be a dangerously unbalanced individual. Several times, within the same page, he will go from this:



To this:



Oh, and what the hell is with all the reminders? Every other freakin' page, we're reminded, via Taryn's mind-numbingly monotonous inner monologue, just how insecure and "damaged" she is. Oh, there's no way he wants to be with me, he could have any woman he wants. Besides, he'll just end up a cheating bastard like my ex-fiance, Thomas. (Yes, I already knew who Thomas was, I did not need the full title. I wonder if, "Ex-fiance Thomas" is his full name...) Readers only need to be shown something once, maybe twice. There's a certain wisdom in the old, "Shake it more than twice and you're playing with it" logic, and it can be applied to several different areas in life. In writing a book, if you have to tell your readers something more than twice, this the overall feeling they get:



Either you're this stupid or you think we are.


Now let's talk about how often these dunderheads laugh, chuckle, snicker, giggle, smirk, smile, and grin. Seemingly every sentence uttered ends on a laugh, giggle, or snicker. Ms. Reber couldn't even have the decency to throw in a good "chortle" just to mix things up. But the people in this book laugh so much one can't help wondering if maybe they're high. Or perhaps just simple in the head? At one point, Taryn and Ryan "both smirked and grinned" at each other. I hadn't realized those two things were separate and could be done simultaneously! Who knew?!


Slightly more disquieting than the possibility of synonyms being antonyms was Ryan's ever-present stalker smile. Seriously, the guy never wipes the damn grin off his face, and it's that kind of unconscious antagonism that will end up getting him punched by a girl like me who thinks guys who smile constantly are creepy.

^Point made^

I've forgiven certain authors for a lot of things, not least of which is bad grammar. While Ms. Reber isn't as bad as some, her understanding of certain technicalities is lacking. There are commas where there shouldn't be commas, open spaces where there should be commas, sentence structure is lackluster at best, there are some spelling errors, and the pace is awful. As I've already stated, the overuse of similes and metaphors is astounding; Taryn's mouth hangs open "like a fish out of water", she "gazes lovingly at Ryan", Ryan "kisses her passionately". Enough with the descriptors already! Just stop!

There's an absurd amount of "whispering" from certain characters, the characters themselves are cliche's, thus highly predictable, and being subjected to Taryn's thought processes regarding her doubts is akin to Chinese water torture. They should use this book at Gitmo...


As for any humor Ms. Reber attempted,while I'm sure there are some who are absolutely astounded by her wit, I was...well, this about sums it up:







My husband claims I have to finish reading it in order to completely justify my review. I both agree and disagree, citing my intense dislike after only ingesting 25% of it as evidence that I will feel no differently once I've managed to wade through the rest of its shlocky nonsense. But I may get up the energy to finish it. I know I'd have more ammunition material if I read the whole thing, but how long can I reasonably make this review? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Edit: I've managed to make it to 41%. How? I'm not sure. Extreme boredom, I guess. Which, sadly, this book is helping to alleviate purely by means of completely pissing me off. A note, Ms. Reber, the phrase is "Every once in a while," not "every once and a while." If you fancy yourself a writer, you should probably at least attempt to have common English phrases under control.

I'm not going to read any more of this book. It's bringing out entirely too much rage, and the temptation to add even more gifs to this review is nearly overpowering...and I think it's long enough. I can't resist one more, though. Why would anyone read this book? Oh, right...