Friday, June 20, 2014

Remember This (A Romantic Comedy) - Shae Buggs


Lucy, a hard working shenanigan queen, finds evidence that her husband, Mason, cheated on her. In a heated moment, she throws a wine bottle at his head leaving him unable to remember anything from his past. Since she is responsible for her husband’s amnesia, it is her responsibility to get his memory back. Motivated by revenge, Lucy plans a way to get Mason back to normal while having a little fun in the process. This story unveils her comical attempts to sabotage him and how he tries to win her back.

Clumsy and hardworking Lucy Harper has lately found herself growing apart from her husband Mason.  However, one day she finds compelling evidence that he has cheated on her, and in a moment of passion chucks a wine bottle at his head, inducing a case of amnesia.  Now, she needs to get his memory back so they can finally get to divorcing.  However, Lucy soon finds herself falling for this amnesiac Mason, like the first time around.

My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I like a good romcom as much as the next romantic chick.  The whole 'boy meets girl' or vice versa, the banter, the flirting, the endgame romance; it's all fun, and I'm certainly not expecting something that defies all romcom cliches.  However, with this story... I go back and forth on this story.  There are aspects of it that I enjoy, and others that I don't.
Well, as a starter, I disliked the protagonist, which is probably not a good sign.  She seemed quite petty and unsympathetic; I mean, she sees a bra, hanging up, away from the bedroom in a very peculiar place and doesn't give her husband any time to defend himself - which is understandable, to an extent - and chucks a wine bottle at him. a full wine bottle, at that.  I don't drink, but I've held a wine bottle; it's pretty heavy.  Whether or not she is drunk doesn't excuse her throwing something that, given a good or bad throw (depending on how you look at it), could probably kill someone or at least cause massive injury.  What's more is that it broke upon impact, and I know bottles of alcohol have thick glass, indicating that the force with which it was thrown was certainly enough to kill.  Mason was probably lucky to only suffer temporary amnesia.  And after that, she doesn't seem too guilty about it, choosing to complain about having to be in proximity to Mason for longer instead of showing remorse for almost killing her husband.
On the other hand, I did like the gradual shift in opinion towards Eli, who had so many red flags up during the beginning I read going 'No, no, no, you cannot be seriously considering him as an option.  Please, no.'  This being, he has a girlfriend, but is attempting to pursue a relationship with Lucy at the same time.  I've nothing against polyamorous relationships, given that they're healthy and maintained with lots of honesty; alas, this is the same old story of 'I can't get rid of the girlfriend I no longer love' and leaving the other woman hanging as he plays his cheating game.  But then, amazingly enough, Eli was acknowledged as the sleazy dude I pegged him for, and got a pretty satisfying end, if I may say.
I did like the small twist, as I had guessed at it for a while before (though it's not as if the author doesn't foreshadow it about three or four times prior to the reveal).
There is a sex scene (or two) in the book but they're not much to read.  A pet peeve of mine is when female genitals are referred to as 'umm, down there' or 'there', which is of course exactly how the protag calls her genitals while they have sex.  It's okay, authors everywhere.  It's called a vagina.  You might be referring to the clitoris if you're talking about stimulation.  I understand we have grown up to fear our anatomy and the thought of using clit or vag seems dirty or what have you, but actually referring to the body part instead of 'down there' just reads so much better, as well as defying the constant neglect of saying anything about the female anatomy.*
The humor was mostly of the slapstick or bathroom variety; which is funny at times, no joke, but it can grow a little old and immature.  There are only so many times one can read a fart joke before seriously reconsidering whether this is actually a book intended for adults and not preteen boys.  There was also a throwaway line that seemed kind of transmisogynistic, used as a punchline, which was of pretty bad taste.
I know I criticize the hell out of these books, but I swear they're better than I make them out to be - otherwise it's unlikely I would bother to finish them.  Still, this one was stale, the romance unable to reach its potential, the comedy juvenile, and to top it off, a good number of typos and grammatical errors.  Overall? I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
*when I say female anatomy I mean the sex female - gender and sex are different things and I understand that men and people who don't fit under the gender binary can have vaginas.

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