Undertow by Elizabeth O'Roark

​NEW ADULT ROMANCE

Publication date: 11/25/2013
Cliffhanger: No

Fair warning: an old lady, “get off my lawn” style, “what’s wrong with these kids today” kind of rant follows…

Another read that proves I’m officially too old for 90% of new adult reads on the market. When will I learn? Not today, apparently. Not today.

Here are all the areas this one fell down on the job as far as I’m concerned:

The heroine,  Maura  
Holy hell did I hate Maura. What a spineless twatwaffle she was. I don’t even think I can put all my reasons for hating her in paragraph form, so here’s a list:

1. Teenage Maura has a stupid misunderstanding with boyfriend, Nate, and a) doesn’t try and fight for him, save making a single phone call, and b) doesn’t believe in his innocence, even though she’s known what a great guy he is her entire life, and c) doesn’t even consider for a second that someone in her family might have been doing anything to keep her and Nate apart. Like I said, twatwaffle.
2. Adult Maura starts seriously dating a guy, Ethan, who is merely “comfortable.” At one point, she even has to start thinking about Nate while she’s having sex with Ethan so that she can come. Why does she stay with him? Well, gosh, her family sure would be disappointed if they broke up. Besides, he’s comfortable. Why rock the boat? And, of course, there’s her completely wrong assumption that Nate is a manwhore to consider.  (*cough*twatwaffle*cough*)
3. Maura cheats on her boyfriend. I can’t tolerate cheaters.
4. Maura can’t manage to stand up to her parents until the very end of the book, and only then because Nate basically has his hand up her ass for support. (Not really, but that’s how I visualized it in my mind: Maura as an empty ventriloquist's dummy, perched on Nate’s knee while he makes her talk like a real, live, grown-up girl.
5. I never really liked Ethan, but he didn’t deserve what Maura did to him at the wedding in front of 300 people. It really made Maura look like a...well, a twatwaffle.  

The golden vagina trope
You know in romance how sometimes there’s a heroine who, totally inexplicably, all the guys want and adore? I call it the golden vagina trope. Maura must have had a golden vagina, because every dude in the story wants her. (As I said, completely inexplicably) I HATE the golden vagina trope.

Cliche city
All the rich people in the story are horrible, completely unlikeable douchenozzles with zero redeeming qualities. Why can’t we ever have stories where the rich people aren’t awful? I’m sure there are nice rich people out there somewhere.

Attempted rape and assault is apparently OK?
At one point in the story, Maura is assaulted. (Because, you know, she has that magical golden vagina, after all. How can the poor guys be expected to resist? Gag.) Does she run to the police and file charges so that the asshat who hurt her can’t hurt another woman? Nope. She decides to let it go. The reason? Well, her parents are friends/business associates with the asshat’s parents, and she wouldn’t want to hurt their relationship. (I’m not even making that up.) She does call and confirm that with her parents, though, and they indeed don’t want her to report the crime, as it makes her “sound loose”. (Again with the horrible rich people cliches)

And since nothing ever came of this assault and the character involved is never heard from again, what exactly was the point of this entire thing? To make me hate Maura even more than I already did? If so, well, it worked.

Nate, the hero
Nate, for the most part, is a decent guy, but he does a couple of things that irk the bejesus out of me. Number one, he doesn’t fight for Maura at all. He loves her, has always loved her, but simply sits around and waits for the airhead to come to the conclusion that they belong together. In my opinion, Nate can do way better, but if he really wanted Maura (inexplicably, in my opinion), he should’ve put a little effort forth. And secondly, having sex with women because they look a little like the ex you’re still in love with is gross. That is all.

Long-story-short: I wanted to drag the heroine into a bathroom by the hair and flush her head in a toilet. Repeatedly. And this might be the most times I’ve used the word “twatwaffle” in a review. Like, ever. I’m not sure I should be proud of that.         

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It’s lousy with stigma. Stigma clings to it like a bad smell.   

Other reading suggestions
Like I said, I might’ve aged out of the new adult romance category, but there have been a few I really liked that are worth a read. ​

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