Heaven, Texas

- Susan Elizabeth Phillips -

Instead of reviewing, I am just going to write a list of the tropes, characteristics and plot elements that I hate with a fiery passion in romance stories, all of which appears in the first twenty pages:

- Over the top alpha male who is a "character", as evidenced by descriptions of colorful, outrageous outfits and insistence on wearing cowboy boots and stetson at all times, even when at a hot tub.

- Socially awkward female who has reached the age of thirty without learning even basic life skills, as evidenced by inability to dress, fix her fair, interact with people normally. Being shy and not caring about your appearance is one thing - Gracie, as presented in the first few chapters, is completely over the top. Equally as over the top in one direction as Bobby Tom is in the other, I suppose, but they do not cancel and/or balance each other out.

- Misogynistic male characters who treat women like disposable morons (ie: dude not letting Gracie get a word in edgewise to say she is not a stripper, Bobby Tom and his football quizzes.)

- Women, however shy they may be, apparently completely incapable of standing up for themselves in even the most basic way or in the most ludicrous circumstances (ie when one has been mistaken for a stripper and is being forcibly undressed).

- The implication that a man can tell a woman how to dress, think, talk etc and boom! True love. Ugh.


So basically in the first pages Gracie was socially awkward, spineless and desperate for a man to find her attractive, Bobby Tom was condescending, rude and misogynistic. Reviews on Amazon would have me believe that they both go through a journey/reveal layers in the course of the book, but I was honestly so put off by the setup and the awful, awful themes that seemed to be playing out, that I have zero interest in finding out.

This instinct feels fairly justified given that I flipped to the end and found Bobby Tom administering his future wife football quiz to Gracie and gamely going along with her wrong answers as a sign of his TWU WUV (you know, instead of realizing that such arbitrary and useless tests should probably not be applied to anyone, let alone one's future wife).

I say again: UGH.

I really enjoyed other books by SEP - "Lady Be Good" particularly - and also 'It Had To Be You' which is the first in a series of which "Heaven, Texas" is second. Now that I am thinking about those books, they featured similar themes, ie: ugly ducklings/overtly alpha men, but I think the characters felt more real instead of cariactures, and the were more discernible motivations and reasons for the power imbalances (ie: Phoebe in "It Had to Be You" was sexually assaulted as a teenager, hence her lack of subsequent sexual experiences, Molly in "Lady Be Good" was inexperienced. but had back bone to spare and no problem expressing and standing up for herself).

The complete lack of realism and subtlety in the first few chapters just irritated me too much to keep reading.