Return of the Jerk by Andrea Simonne

​CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

Publication date: 09/17/2015
Cliffhanger: No

Man oh man, do I have some problems with THIS one. Hang in there, folks. This one’s gonna get ranty.

First of all, I don’t normally do this, but let me sum up the plot of this one for you.
A woman who has been in love with her best friend’s brother since childhood takes advantage of said friend's brother when he’s drunk and vulnerable, marries him after their one night together (because he felt obligated to propose), then the dude abandons his new wife almost immediately and doesn’t return for 5 years. When he does return, he doesn’t necessarily want his wife back because he never really loved her, but he does force his way back into her life with little to no regard for her feelings or personal space. They fall into a lazy sexual relationship that turns into a totally unbelievable HEA. The end.

Ugh! Blech! Ew! Any one of those words accurately describes my feelings for this book. But to be a little more specific, here’s what totally didn’t work for me:

Nathan “Road” Church, the hero
I use the term “hero” super loosely when I’m talking about Road. In actuality, he’s a jizz stain on the silk blouse of life—an unrepentant douchenozzle who I wished plague, pestilence, and erectile dysfunction upon the entire time I was reading this book. I hated Road more passionately than I’ve hated any romance hero in a long, long time. I hated him for NEVER ONCE apologizing for abandoning Blair with no explanation. (I don’t count his “I can’t do this anymore, please take care of my car” note. That’s not a proper explanation.) I hated him for waltzing back into her life, bullying his way into her apartment and bed even though he didn’t love her and never really wanted to be married to her. But more than anything, I hated him for having the nerve to question her about her sex life while they were separated as if it was any of his business, then having this little bit of conversation with her:

“Really? Are you going to tell me you've been faithful to this marriage for the past years?"
Road smirks. "Let's not get crazy."       

The correct response to this statement, I believe, is a swift nut punch. But that’s not what happened, sadly. So, really, Road faced absolutely ZERO consequences for abandoning his wife, then popping up 5 years later to demand that she, a) let him invade her apartment and sleep in her bed, b) give up the car she painstakingly and lovingly refurbished over the years, and c) not invade his privacy. Yep, you read that last one right. He got pissy with her for looking through his stuff. You know, the stuff HE LEFT IN HER HOUSE WHEN HE BULLIED HIS WAY BACK INTO HER LIFE AND REFUSED TO LEAVE! I think he should’ve been grateful Blair didn’t burn his stuff on the front lawn.

Blair, the heroine
While I didn’t despise Blair as much as I despised Road (may he develop a flaming case of genital warts), she wasn’t without her fair share of faults. Why didn’t she divorce Road’s loser ass as soon as he left? Why didn’t she call the cops and have them drag his sorry ass out of her house when he reappeared? Why didn’t she go to court and fight for her rights to the car? Why did she think she was still in love with him after he abandoned her? These are all things I wanted to know. None of these questions were answered to my satisfaction. Blair was a doormat. And worse than that, she was a confused doormat, because she never really seemed to understand that Road was, in fact, a stranger. Sure, she had a silly school girl crush on him, and he eventually married her out of a sense of obligation. But she never really knew him, so she couldn’t have been in love with him—not in the past, or the present. The fact that she confused a silly school girl infatuation with love pissed me off. I wanted her to be strong and stand up for herself, but she never did. Not once.

Weird writing style
This was written in 3rd person, present tense, which I just found weird. Everything I’ve read before is either 1st person present, or 3rd person, past tense. 3rd person present was just way too...out there for me. I couldn’t get into it. It was jarring.

So, long-story-short, I wanted the hero to get hit by a bus, and I wanted the heroine to either develop a backbone, or throw herself in front of the same bus that runs Road over. Either way would’ve been fine. It earned it’s 1 star only because I didn’t DNF it. I feel SUPER generous for giving it that 1 star.   

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It’s Stigma McStigma, the Mayor of Stigmatown. Gross.

Other reading suggestions
Literally anything else. I mean it. Anything. Else. Pick something out of our 5-star reads section and have fun. ​

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