Love Out of Bounds by Ellie Spark

Rating: WARTY!

Way to go with a self-limiting title! "From the very first moment they meet, Sophie knows Charli is the woman for her. But Charli is hiding a secret life" Of course she is, otherwise it would be out out in the open and not secret. I'm sorry but Ellie doesn't spark for me. She never has.

Love Under Fire by Ellie Spark

Rating: WARTY!

I guess this is the first and last novel by this author I'll be reading. With a name like the author's, I expected much more, rightly or wrongly, but Ell if it Sparked with me. It just was not authentic, and nothing burns me more than reading highly-improbable stuff in a novel that's not even pretending to be a comedy or a satire. This is unapologetic lesbian chick-lit and while that in itself isn't a disaster, I'm honestly not sure who the audience is for this style of writing. I assume there is one, because I've seen a lot of books like this on offer. The few I've read seem to be poorly done for the most part, though.

The book is mercifully short (129pps), but even then I failed to make it to the halfway point. In this world there are no venereal diseases and no one talks about safe sex - and it's all about sex, not about forming a relationship. At least three couples, two lesbians and one hetero are getting it on without knowing shit about their partner's history. Two of them leap into bed the first night they meet and the main characters are not far behind them. Both main characters are whiny about previously failed relationships, yet they still make the same mistakes all over again in this one, failing utterly to pace themselves, take it slowly vet the potential partner with a few dates before foolishly rushing-in where STI-free people dare not to tread. That tells me they're dumb, and short-sighted.

In one case the lesbian couple are so clueless that they desert the dessert in the middle of a cooking class, and sneak off to make out in an adjoining room in a public building. I can't get with that kind of irresponsible and inauthentic writing. These are not teenagers. They're supposed to be mature professional women and that in itself is one of the problems with this kind of a novel...novella...whatever. Have you noticed these books are never about working class people? It's always about well-off, even spoiled individuals who drink wine and buy clothes even when they really don't need to, and eat out a lot? They're always at restaurants; never in pubs.

About the sex! I get that no one wants to read a romance novel wherein people are filling out questionnaires about sexual health prior to getting it on! The thing is though, that there are ways of writing intelligently about such things - assuming you're not a lousy writer - to make these things a natural part of the progression of the relationship.

It does no good to try and argue that these are lesbians, so there are no problematic diseased penises involved because that's not how STIs work, and in any case, a lesbian could be in a relationship with someone who is bi, or who themselves have had a relationship with someone who's bi! It's not about the current relationship; it's about the history and I sure wouldn't trust someone who'd jump into bed on a first date. It makes one wonder how many other people they've been so casual with and what their sexual histories are. Maybe that's just me, but somehow I doubt that. OTOH, maybe this isn't chick lit, but pure fantasy? Either way it fails.

According to a study on the National Institutes of Health website, "Viral STD rates were significantly higher among bisexual women" (than in the lesbian community itself) and lesbians can transmit STIs just as easily as hetero couples. Like I said, no one wants to a romance to be larded with that, but how romantic is HPV or syphilis pray tell? Tossing in a mention here and there of safe practices isn't going to harm, and it lends verisimilitude to relationships. The author has them ask, "Is this okay" even when simply holding hands and later when kissing, but no questions at all are asked when having sex? That's just plain weird.

The writing in general was pretty much boilerplate, so there was nothing truly bad, but neither was there anything inspiring or engaging. Perfunctory I believe is the word. The only actual error I caught was where I read, “She wondered what Kristin was doing?" There's no question mark required in that sentence, but that's not a story killer. We all goof-up here and there. Writing which doesn't feel real and which in some cases makes the characters look stupid or clueless is, however, a killer, and it killed this story for me.

There's one point where an altercation leads to one of the characters getting in trouble with her employer. One of the other main characters has recorded some of the exchange on her phone, but no one thinks about this until several days later. That just tells me the main characters are stupid. I don't want to read books about stupid women - not unless the story is that she starts out dumb, but quickly wises up. Or maybe where she actually is stupid, but the guys are more stupid and she triumphs! This didn't appear to be such a story hence my abandoning it. Life's too short for stories that don't enthrall. I can't commend this as a worthy read.