Fixing Her by Miranda Elaine

​CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
 
Publication date:06/25/2018
Cliffhanger: No

Look, I’m not unsympathetic to authors. I’m really not. I know what a hard job it is to birth a book, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for authors. So, even when I’m tearing a book down, please know that I still give all you authors out there mad props for having the pluck to sit down and write an entire book from beginning to end, and then go through the huge hassle of publishing it and delivering it to a world full of people like me who might say bad things about your precious book baby. I applaud you all.

And now that THAT’S out of the way…

I’m sorry to say that this book had lots of stuff in it that irked the crap out of me. And I hate to do this, especially since it’s a debut novel, but I value honest reviews, and I’d be a total hypocrite if I soft-peddled this one, so, here it goes:

1. Honestly, even the title irks me. It implies that the heroine needs a big strong man to swoop in and fix her hot mess of a life. (And in this case, the heroine really IS a hot mess and really does need a big strong man to fix her, which is just insulting to feminists everywhere)
2. At some point in the beginning of the book, Temperance (the heroine) is called to the house of her friend, Leigh, because Kade, the guy Temperance had a huge crush on in high school, is there. And because Temperance is a busy single mom and she rushes there, she isn’t looking her best. Leigh takes it upon herself to give Temperance an impromptu 90s makeover. For some reason. The whole thing made no sense to me. It seems like maybe it was thrown in to add a little comedy, but it was so out of place and forced that I would’ve been much happier if the whole scene had been left out entirely.
3. Temperance is a hot mess. She’s pretty much insecure about everything. She seemed to need constant reassurance from Kade that he found her attractive, and she was almost willfully stupid about the fact that he was flirting with her for almost the first half of the book. It got old REAL fast.
4. Kade called her “Tempie,” which is a totally lame nickname (in my opinion). It sounds like something you’d name a rescue dog from Arizona.  
5. Temperance had AMPLE opportunity to tell Kade her secret, and it was really an asshole move to keep it from him as long as she did. And there were other people in Kade’s family who REALLY had a right to know that secret, too. Temperance was a selfish biotch for keeping that info from them, and if I was them, I wouldn’t be terribly inclined to forgive her. Like, ever.    
6. I saw the big “twist” coming a mile away. (But in the author’s defense, I’m super hard to surprise.)
7. Kade toed the line between alpha male and alphahole. Sure, Temperance was wishy-washy AF, but after she backed away and asked for more space SEVERAL times, he really should have gotten a clue and left her alone. He was pretty pushy with her. (In my opinion, he should have dumped her and run for the hills, but if he really wanted her, he could’ve at least given her the space she asked for without pushing her for a bigger commitment)     

But, gripes notwithstanding, the writing itself wasn’t bad at all. In fact, if Leigh ever gets her own story, I’d 1-click the crap out of it. (She was awesome) And fans of angsty contemporary romance and secret baby drama would probably like this one more than I did.  

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It has a faint stench of stigma clinging to it, but I’d say it doesn’t need rehab yet. I’ve definitely read worse.  

Other reading suggestions
For a great single-mom romance, you can’t go wrong with From This Moment by Melanie Harlow or any of the selections in our single mom "best of" list.

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