Undying Love by Nelle L'Amour

​CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

Publication date:12/05/2013
Kindle Unlimited: No
Cliffhanger: No

What’s the first thing you do when you notice the milk smells funny? You shove it under someone else’s nose and ask them if they think it stinks, too, right? It’s human nature. We all do it. So, when one of my Facebook friends said she wanted my opinion on this book because she’d been in the unpopular opinion crew when she didn’t like it, I dove right in. She asked me to smell the milk, and boy did I ever get a nose full of thick, chunky, WAY past it’s date milk. Blech.

Let me just list out all the crap that didn’t work for me here…

POV
The entire story is told from Ryan’s (the hero’s) point of view. This would be fine if the hero was super interesting. I mean, Emma Chase and Lauren Blakely have written some AWESOME books from the male POV. But sadly, I’ve had dishwater in my sink that was more interesting than Ryan. He’s a typical rich white dude. He’s not a jerk, but he’s been pampered his whole life, and he comes complete with rich-drunk-mommy and horrible-cheating-daddy-who-never-really-loved me daddy issues. Ryan’s entire backstory is like a checklist for every rich white dude you’ve ever read about or seen on TV. Boooooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnggggg…

Allee
Allee, the heroine, is (I think) supposed to be “refreshingly blunt” and spunky. What she is, in actuality, is a bossy biotch. She first meets the hero when he approaches her as a museum visitor. She’s a tour guide. So, she’s at work, and when he asks her a polite, professional question, she insults his job, his employer, and makes fun of him for obviously having money. Then she spends the rest of the book smirking, bossing him around, jerking him around, and keeping secrets from him. What a gal.        

Cartoonish secondary characters
From Ryan’s parents, to Ryan’s ex, Charlotte, to the best-friend-who-thinks-with-his-dick sidekick, Duffy, the secondary characters in this book are so one-dimensional and cliche that they’re cartoonish. Not that Ryan and Allee are much better, but still, good secondary characters can elevate a good book to a great book. The secondary characters here took this book from crappy to crappier (in my opinion).

The ending
I won’t give away the ending. I will tell you that this is NOT a romance. Romances can be counted on for HEA endings. This ending is NOT that. It’s not even a HFN. (It’s not a cliffhanger, either, if that’s what you’re thinking) I wasn’t particularly invested in the story by the end because I hated both lead characters, but if I’d been enjoying the story up until that point, I would have been PISSED at that ending. Don’t call your book a romance if you can’t promise a HEA or a HFN ending. You’re lying to yourself (and your readers) if you think your book is a romance and there’s no happy ending. To the author I would suggest re-classifying the book as Women’s Fiction.  

Odds and ends   

1. The hero’s last name is Madewell. If you’re going to be that obvious with the name, why not just name him Studly McGiantCock and be done with it?  
2. Ryan is a wimp. Not a beta hero, mind you, because I don’t mind beta heroes vs. alphas at all. Ryan is the kind wimp who lets a woman he wants to break up with insult the woman he actually wants to be with, then lets her lead him away by the ear. Then, as if that wasn’t emasculating enough, he stands idly by and watches while she cuts up his clothes and throws things at his head. Sensitive heroes are fine, but I have no tolerance for wimps. He doesn’t even take charge in the bedroom. Allee calls all the shots there.  
3. Ryan and Allee meet once, see each other the next day, and she offers to go with him to his apartment to give him a massage. I’m side-eyeing Allee pretty hard at this point. Does she have no concern for her personal safety? What if Ryan was a sicko serial killer who wanted to lock her in his basement pit? A single gal’s gotta think about those kinds of things these days.
4. On date one, in plain view (with an old lady watching), Allee gives Ryan a blowjob under the table in a restaurant. But afterwards, Ryan thinks it’d be “rushing things” to invite her home with him. Really? So, public blowjobs are appropriate date 1 behavior, but having her sleep over would just be taking it too far? If this is how the young people are operating these days, I’m glad I’m an old married lady.
5. I won’t give too much of the plot away, but Allee is keeping several secrets from Ryan. One such secret SHOULD have made her insist on practicing safe sex. She was perfectly willing to go without a condom because he “couldn’t get her pregnant.” Well, what about STDs, sister? Those are still an issue for both of you.
6. Weird language. Ryan’s mother drools a line of dialogue at one point in the story. Ryan “pummels” into Allee during a sex scene. And after the pummeling, Allee berates Ryan because she’d told him to f*uck her, not make love to her. Yeah, because pummeling is just so, so romantic.  
7. The plot “twists” are visible from space, just like the Great Wall of China.
8. At one point, Allee gets a dream opportunity to study in Paris. Ryan’s first words to her? “What about me?” Way to be supportive, dude. Then, so that she doesn’t get away and achieve her dreams, he slaps the matrimonial leg shackles on her. That’d be a great story to tell the grandkids. “Well, you see kids, daddy was afraid mommy would get away and leave daddy by himself, so daddy proposed.” Yuck.    

Overall, this one missed the mark on so many levels that I struggled to even give it one star. But because offering a 0 star or 0.5 star rating isn’t an option on Goodreads, I gave it a full 1. What can I say? I’m lazy like that.  

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
This book is the overlord of Stigma City. There’s no amount of rehab that can fix this. I’m offended on behalf of all ACTUAL romance books.  

Other reading suggestions
For great stories told from the male POV, try Tangled by Emma Chase and Mister O by Lauren Blakely. ​

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