This is a highly biased book review-slash-rant about a romance novel entitled Perfect Passion, ostensibly written by one Patricia Lake, which has the dubious honor of being the most hideous piece of god-forsaken tripe I have ever come across. I’ve never read any other Harlequin romance novels, so I don’t know if this is typical of the genre, but I do know that this is a terrible, terrible book.

First off, I have to say that I usually start off my rants or analyses by stressing that I actually enjoyed the subject of my nitpicking. Not so with this book; it is possibly the worst thing I have ever read in my entire life, and contains not one iota of redeeming value. If you ever have the misfortune of running across this book, or having it fall into your possession, I sincerely urge you to fling it as far away from you as humanly possible. Such is the utter waste of time, money and energy of this book. It boggles the mind that someone was actually paid to write it or that someone would actively seek it out. I could feel my brain cells dying one after the other, every time I turned a page. I felt dirty even as I was reading it; the only thing urging me on was the idea that I could at least eke out a review, if and when I survived.

You may wonder, after my diatribe against it, why I came to read it in the first place. Heck, even I wondered how it ended up at our house (or rather, in storage in our barn)! Answer: It was my mom’s. She likes to write (I got my literary bug from her), and once upon a time, before she had me and my sister, she thought she could make a living with romance novels. Yes, they’re not highbrow literature, but churning out formulaic novels is fiscally wise; it’s a good way to make a buck. In theory, you can support yourself by writing cheesy novels under a nomme de plume, then write decent stuff under your own name. So she decided to try to get a handle on the genre, and picked up Perfect Passion at random. She abandoned the book not twenty pages in...it was the most boring, badly-written thing she’d ever read, and quickly decided that no matter how much she wanted to write, she would never sink to that level.

I’m currently taking a children’s literature class, and one of the discussions in the textbook involves the difference between good quality books and poor quality books. The marks of the latter include redundancy, condescension, and inaccuracy (plot holes etc). It also states that children may read any series of books without suffering ill reading habits later in life...except for teen romance novels. Once they get stuck in those, it’s a small step towards adult romance novels, which have an addictive quality to them, and the reader can get lost in the sheer quantity of romance novels available. Since said books are generally of poor quality, the reader’s linquistic skills are stunted by the redundancy and poor grammar. It also severely impairs your writing...if all you read is badly-written tripe, you will tend to write badly-written tripe.

Harlequin novels are the epitome of said tripe. I find it wonderously ironic that the series is christened after a clown, because this book is laughably horrid. Or it would be, if I didn’t know that there are potentially millions of starry-eyed young ladies and oppressed housewives who gorge themselves on the books, and somehow scrape up an idolized reality from it. If they were intentionally written to be this bad, it would be highly entertaining, in a B-movie kinda way. As it is, it’s rather sad.

This is a BAD book. It’s literally physically painful to read; I was wincing my way through it. Our erstwhile heroine, Fay Drummond, is recuperating from a bout of pneumonia, and decides to spend the winter at her aunt’s country home in Yorkshire, England. Fay is described in exhaustive detail (although not nearly as exhaustive as her intended, but we shall return to that in a moment). For example, she has green eyes. We know that she has green eyes, because we are reminded of this fact every few pages, although occasionally they morph into “emerald”. She also has red hair (of course), although it is rarely described as such. Her hair is “auburn”, “burnished”, and on one occasion, “fiery”. Her personality wavers from meek, coy, and downright effeminate, to harsh boardering on shrewish. It’s like the author can’t decide whether to make her a nice “good girl” or a tough modern woman, so she alternates between mincing and bitchy, often simutaneously.

The hero of our tale is as stereotypical as the book he finds himself in. Gabriel Winters is tall, dark, and handsome, with--and this is repeatedly expounded on--grey eyes. We are constantly reminded that he has grey eyes. He lifted his grey eyes to her. She met his grey eyes. His grey eyes swept her body with cruel intensity. And so on, ad nauseum. I don’t know what is up with this eyeball fetish of the author’s, but it needs to stop. Moreover, why cruelty should be such an attractive trait is beyond me, yet Gabriel is constantly described as cruel (or, when the author gets a spurt of creativity, “brutally handsome”. Gah.), sometimes in the same paragraph. His very masculinity somehow causes Fay to lose all inhibitions. Forgive me, but I am somewhat dubious about this. You CAN control your physical reaction to people. If that weren’t the case, to put it bluntly, we’d have a lot more people in jail for sexual assault (including a LOT more women...).

Gabriel is not only described as cruel, he lives up to it. He’s really quite an unlikeable bastard. He’s constantly propositioning Fay to the point of what would be considered sexual harrassment (he even attempts to assault her within one hour of her arrival!), and he’s manipulative and callous. Why any sane woman would find him attractive is beyond me, but then again Fay IS recuperating from a harrowing illness, so perhaps we can attribute her misjudgement to her poor little feminine vulnerability. That’s the thing: Gabriel is constantly described as cruel, and Fay is constantly described as vulnerable. To me that sounds like an unstable relationship, and domestic violence waiting to happen, but hey...what do I know about romance?

The entire book plods along like a fourth-rate soap opera, with the characters severely overreacting to events. For example, when Fay and Gabriel first meet, he picks her up from the train station, and drives her over to her aunt’s, during which they have a fairly listless, stilted conversation in the car. That’s it. Yet their meeting is described as “exhilarating”. Th’ hell? All that happens is the first time Fay sets eyes on Gabriel, the very potency of his masculine presence makes her blush and stutter like a schoolgirl (which it’s actually described as in the book!). Neither of these people are admirable characters...Fay is a weak airhead (although she tries her darndest to live up to the fiery independence broadcast by her red hair, she utterly fails), and Gabriel is a condescending asshole who deserves to be punched repeatedly in the mouth.

What really, REALLY pisses me off is the writing style. For some reason the author seems to lack the ability to write a noun or verb without decorating it with an adjective or adverb, sometimes plural and strung together like a bloated sausage. Some examples: “glanced up idly”; “thought absently”; “smiled cooly”; “closed wearily”; “smiled sweetly”; “smiled brightly”, etc...and that’s just on the first page. The rest of the book is worse, launching into dozens of mind-numbing qualifiers hand over fist. At one point Gabriel proceeds to kiss Fay “exploringly”. I literally physically recoiled and dropped the book, because that isn’t even a word! I’d rather read the vast majority of fan fiction than be subjected to this quality of writing on paper, because at least I’d know that the fan fic author isn’t getting paid to churn out this level of sheer plonk.

Then there’s the names. While dramatic, fancy names are an accepted part of romance novels, I don’t know if I can get used to this element. They sound like exaggerated role-playing names selected by overly dramatic fifteen-year olds.

According to this book, love is not about friendship, genuine affection, or comfortableness with a particular person. No, love is dramatic, fiery, frequently unpleasant, and full of doubt and suspicion of your loved one. These people clearly do not like each other, and it’s not just a cute initial dislike a la Han and Leia in Star Wars. These people yell, swear, and curse each other, with Gabriel frequently resorting to physical abuse (grabbing her roughly, shaking her etc), although Fay gets her punches in as well, and slaps him several times. This is quite frankly unpleasant to read. Fay is also very bipolar in her actions. One minute she’s hot for him and eagerly responding, the next yelling at him and accusing him of taking advantage of her, when it’s clearly her jumping him, or at the very least mutual. This accusation is usually not expressed during the moments when he’s genuinely assaulting her, by the way, which makes her look like even more of a cocktease than she would be otherwise.

Another issue I had was with the dialogue. Let me give you a few examples of their conversation: “I’m not yours--I never shall be!” “Are you so sure? I think not, Fay. When I want you, I shall have you, and you will never deny me.”

Allow me a moment while I explode into gales of helpless laughter. People don’t talk like this! Only in the very worst fan fiction have I ever come across this grade Z level of writing. It’s so bad, it reaches the pinnacles of camp. These people never have any kind of motive for their actions; things just happen “suddenly” (a hallmark of bad writing is when things are constantly happening “suddenly” with no explanation, and no reason besides the author couldn’t think of another way to insert the plot) or “for some reason” and are generally inspired by various fluctuations of hormones.

Come to think of it, it never really is explained why Fay would love Gabriel, or vice versa. They have an extremely brief “bonding” moment early on in the book, after which Fay pines for him for seemingly endless chapters. This is described as True Love. Mwehh? He treats her like shit constantly, and whenever he is genuinely nice to her, she gets all suspicious and throws his rude treatment in her face. The only remotely plausible explanation is given in an internal monologue, where she considers that he doesn’t love her, he just wants her body. Now THAT makes sense, in terms of characterization. Granted it completely sucks all the romance out of the book, but there was very little genuine romance to begin with, what with all the constant malicious behaviour on both of their parts (they really are quite vicious to each other...again, these people do not seem to like or even respect each other).

An interesting novelty of the book: Every single character in it smokes. It was published in 1981 (coincidently the year of my birth), and smoking was more socially acceptable back then, so both of our romantic leads smoke like chimneys at the slightest provocation. Smoking is presented in a positive light, and as a natural craving that should be readily fulfilled. It gets to the point where you wonder if this book was pro-smoking propaganda issued by Philip Morris. Probably not, as they can afford higher-quality output than this piece of unmitigated trash.

Another ongoing theme of the book involves coffee. The characters are either making it, serving it, or drinking it, and the actions in doing so are described in loving detail. While not a flaw unto itself, it’s just strange as hell to read every fifteen pages or so. These people live on cigarettes and coffee. No wonder our heroine is so thin.

I’m actually finding it difficult to write this review, because as I read I want to nitpick each and every single sentence. Just the sheer immaturity of the style is grating. It’s written at a fourth-grade reading level, and poorly written at that. Did I mention that I want to hurt this book?

Near the end of the book, numerous superfluous plot threads are unravelled and explained, and the two lovers finally are able to truly Be As One. They have a hurried, vague consummation of their love, after which they declare their affection in halting, juvenile terms, and express the desire to adopt his cliched plot device of an orphaned nephew, and thenafter have children of their own (specifically, Gabriel states, “I want you to bear my child, our child.” Ahh, nothing more romantic than anticipating months of discomfort and pain!). Ex-squeeze me? These people have no business raising children! Neither of them are emotionally stable enough for childrearing, and they are completely incompatible. They have communication problems up the yin-yang, which is a nightmare when it comes to a successful marriage. And it is implied that they do marry-- “Tomorrow, if possible” (nothing more romantic than a shotgun wedding, eh?).

There is also an added squick factor involved. At one point in the story, Fay is sitting in a chair with Gabriel’s nephew on her lap. Gabriel walks in, and we are treated to a detailed description of Fay in a flimsy nightgown, from Gabriel’s perspective. He then initiates extremely provacative behaviour towards Fay, in complete presence of the mercifully sleeping child, after which he coerces her into his room and they proceed to Sort Of Get It On, Although Not Really. The entire scene is just highly, highly creepy. Would they do this with their own kids? While there’s nothing wrong with the parents of children still having sex post-child (it’s a sign of a healthy relationship, after all), this should NOT be demonstrated in potential view of the children!