Addicted to Love

- by Lori Wilde -

Third in the "Wedding Veil Wishes" series. I loved the first one in this series, but the subsequent books have mostly been a gigantic "meh".

The thing that bugged most about "Addicted to Love" is the use of what each protaganist had been through in the past - Racheal getting screwed around by love, Brody going through various traumas related to being in the Twin Towers, losing a leg in Iraq, to pit them against each other in a weird way. Like Racheal talking about being hurt by love, only to have Brody's internal monologue telling us that she is getting upset about little things - he has been through "real" tragedy.

First of all, I hate the use of 9/11 and Iraq service in this way - it doesn't work for me in terms of making his emotional turmoil seem believable or real - it's like lip service is paid to the trauma he has been through, but it's never really explored in depth - obviously romance novels aren't really a genre where you would expect it to be, but I still feel like it could have come into play in the story in a more organic way.

And I really, REALLY, hate the compare/contrast of their various traumas. Obviously ditched at the altar and war are completely different in terms of the scope and nature of what they went through. But just because they are not on the same spectrum of pain doesn't make it okay for him to say, or think, that her fears and concerns are silly or irrelevant, or to devalue her legitimate pain because it's not as painful as what he might have been through.

Overall, I guess the emotional journey was too simplistic and so it just wasn't that interesting to me.

I'll probably still read the fourth book in the series when it comes out later in the year though. My inner OCD freak apparently can't deal with not finishing the series once I've started.