Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“When you're a stupid girl in love, it's almost impossible to see the red flags. It's so easy to pretend they're not there, to pretend everything is perfect.”- Bad Romance, Heather Demetrios

Grace wants out. Out of her house, where her stepfather wields fear like a weapon and her mother makes her scrub imaginary dirt off the floors. Out of her California town, too small to contain her big city dreams. Out of her life, and into the role of Parisian artist, New York director—anything but scared and alone.

Enter Gavin: charming, talented, adored. Controlling. Dangerous. When Grace and Gavin fall in love, Grace is sure it's too good to be true. She has no idea their relationship will become a prison she's unable to escape. 

Deeply affecting and unflinchingly honest, this is a story about spiraling into darkness—and emerging into the light again.

Jesus, it's been a long time. Actually, I was on vacation from the 29th of July to... just yesterday, actually. So I haven't been able to keep this blog updated, but I did read a ton. I have four more July book reviews to write, and then I need to get my wrap-up put up. So don't be surprised if you see two book reviews up in one day. With that being said, let's get on with the review!

This isn't actually my first Heather Demetrios. I attempted to read I'll Meet You There last year, but quickly lost interest in it. I don't really know what compelled me to pick up Bad Romance, expect maybe it reminded me of Alex Flinn's Breathing Underwater. I loved Breathing Underwater. It was a unique idea- portraying an abusive relationship from the abuser's perspective- and one that took talent to pull off. Few people would even dare to undertake the idea, and despite the fact it's been a few years since I read it, the book stuck with me surprisingly well.

And this book... well, it didn't. I mean, it's been about a week since I've read it and already it's begun to slip from memory. However, the negatives have, as they always do, stuck around.

To start, I found the language alienating. Demetrios wrote in this obnoxious teenager slang way that, like it did in Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, made cringe. She is trying so desperately hard. It's like when there was nothing else on the TV in my hotel room so I had to watch E! News and spent the whole time feeling desperately sorry for the anchors. I'm sure Demetrios prides herself on how in touch she is with the kids these days, but it just did not work for me. 

Also, on another, more technical note, I felt often confused about when this book was written, what was taking place when, etc. Demetrios took the letter writing approach, calling to mind books such as Why We Broke Up. This seemed cliched and cheap for reasons I can't quite articulate. In this book's case, I think a straightforward narrative would have greatly benefitted it. Instead, Grace would repeatedly point out all the emotionally abusive behaviors Gavin would use on her like she understood what he was doing now, but then, often in the same paragraph, she would say something in present tense like "why would anyone want to break up with you" or "whenever you kiss me I see fireworks".  This made the book feel jumbled and in need of an editor. I also found many of the times the book explicitly points out the abusive behavior to be badly done, especially when I can pick it out myself. I suppose that Demetrios did it so no one would bitch at her for romanticizing abuse, but the book's called Bad Romance ferchristssake. A straightforward narrative would also be far more effective, in my opinion, especially because then we could feel her falling in love with him and then watch her slowly get turned by him, instead of it all being the aftermath when she's significantly more self aware.

The side characters were done particularly badly. I think she attempted to create two fleshed out side characters as her friends, by giving them traits like "socialist lesbian" and "Evangelical Christian" but in the end, they were interchangeable and had lives basically revolving around Grace. Sure, they had their own romances, but I had a hard time figuring out how they figured into the plot. Same with her older sister and younger half-brother. What was the point of them, exactly? Especially her younger brother. While her sister's usefulness was arguable, her brother's definitely was not.

I wasn't too crazy about Grace. Half the time, her "vintage-quirky" fashion sense made me roll me eyes. Light pick Doc Martens with a 1960s mod dress? Oh honey no. I'd wear a 60s babydoll with one of the three options- go go boots, mary-janes, kitten heels. Maybe saddle shoes, but that depends on what kind of dress it is. She was your typical YA intelligent, quirky, different heroine. Ironically, these characters have become so cliched, that I can't find anything different about them at all.

And Gideon, her secondary love interest? Ugh. A nerdy, John Greenish, too-good-to-be-true boy who happens to like her as much as she likes him? Gag me. Also, if any guy ever tells me that "we are all made of stardust" I wouldn't give him a chance. Do people realize how indie kid cliche that is? There's a million other beautiful and romantic things a boy could tell a girl he loves, so why do they always default to that one? How about "you are the music where the music lasts"? Or "the curve of your lips rewrite history"? If stardust is ever going to even enter the conversation, it should be in the context of "And the rest was rust and stardust". 

Alright, good things, good things. Well, Demetrios' writing style wasn't that bad. In fact, if she just dropped the teenspeak, it could have been something really wonderful.

I didn't hate the book. I spent most of it feeling vaguely neutral. It was your typical abusive relationship book, no groundbreaking material like Breathing Underwater. It didn't really have anything to truly tip the book any which way. I suppose some people would give points to the book for being about an abusive relationship, but that's not how we work at Bookworm Basics. There's something so dishonest about that in my opinion, especially when there's a million better books written on the situation. 

6 out of 10