Bad Romance

Jen McLaughlin

N/A

4 Stars

Seven years in the army will change a guy. But after a shoulder wound ends his career as a sniper, Jackson Worthington finds himself back home, fighting a battle that’s all too familiar: keeping his hands off Lily Hastings. She’s still her rich daddy’s little angel, innocent, impossibly lovely, as squeaky-clean as Jackson is dirty. And she’s still his stepsister—forbidden but not forgotten, not after the soul-melting kiss that got him kicked out of the house at eighteen. He couldn’t resist her then. How the hell can he resist her now?Lily is about to marry a man she doesn’t love, and commit to a high-stress job she hates, all to please the father who controls every waking moment of her life. On top of everything, her teenage crush is back, with a sleek, chiseled body and a trace of the rebellious boy whose lips sealed her fate. Jackson’s timing couldn’t be worse . . . or better. Because Lily’s all grown up, too. She’s aching for another taste. And for the first time, she’s ready to be a bad girl.

When you read as much as we do it is a rare case to find a book that is totally different than all others that you read before. Normally all the books you find follow a similar set of genre rules. “Bad Romance: A Stepbrother Novel” by Jen McLaughlin is no different. It completely follows the rules of a “Stepbrother” novel. Which makes it a good story for this genre. The writing is fluent – The pace is good and the characters are well developed

But again when you read this much you also tend to have a model to which you compare those books that fit those genre rules. My personal Model for Stepbrother Novels is “Stepbrother Dearest” by Penelope Ward. And even though “Bad Romance” is a good book I could not connect to the protagonists of the story.

It is hard to describe, but usually I say “If I the story was so said it should make you cry – but you didn’t” then something is amiss and this book was one of the cases. I read about Jackson and Lily’s emotions and feelings but I could not feel them , so the second this became clear to me – A 5 Star review became almost impossible. And It was a few pages before the end (when something Lily said to Jackson concerning a bedroom –mysterious comment to avoid spoilers- ) that I knew for sure it would be 4 not 5 stars.

Please do not misunderstand me – the book is a really enjoyable story if you can accept the reasoning Lily has for her choices – it is just that for such a novel I personally expect to feel more when reading it.

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