Avon, $7.99, ISBN 978-0-06-222252-7
Historical Romance, 2015
Brace yourself and hold on to some Kleenex, because you are about to read the tragic past of two people – traumatic, horrifying, soul-shattering experiences that haunted them for the last eight years. Are you ready?
Lady Aurelia has been in love with Max, Viscount Camden, ever since she was nine. Don’t laugh, she is an artist, after all, and she is sensitive. When she was fifteen, she picked flowers and hoped to find Max, to declare her love for him. Alas, she stumbled upon him humping vigorously between the thighs of a house maid, and from their gasped conversations, it was clear that this thing had been going on for a while. Aurelia was shattered, her heart irreparably damaged, and her soul would never recover from this earth-shattering betrayal of her innocence. She immediately went on to sketch a caricature of Max, with him having a tiny pee-pee, and the sketch made the rounds at the party.
On his part, Max was horrified, broken, and practically dismantled by this shocking and cruel betrayal by someone he considered his female BFF. He spent the next few years vigorously shagging every woman in sight as a valiant means to prove to the snickering Ton that he is no “Cockless Camden”. He cavorts in gambling dens, dry humps every woman in sight as his idea of foreplay, and seriously, this is too much. How can any man endure this horrible existence?
Meanwhile, over the years Aurelia has blossomed where it counts – big breasts, child-bearing hips – but she is still reeling for the shocking betrayal of the man she loves with all her pure heart. She now runs wild in town, bumping into Max and reliving the trauma of him heaving and grunting into some… some… thing. Worse, he is triggering her further. As an independent lady, she has the right to run wild and do whatever she wants, even if it endangers her life and ruins her family’s reputation. Unfortunately, that misogynist pig wants to stop her. Horrible!
Are you moved to tears by these two people’s hapless emotional trauma? This is such a gripping epic saga of betrayal and loss of innocence. #1stworldidiotproblems You will be shuddering as you hold back tears each time Aurelia valiantly tries to set up fights with or insults Max only to be humiliated every time. Or that she basically acts like a brainless, self absorbed turd ball on fire practically all the time here. As for Max, his greatest damage is the fact that, once upon a time, people all assumed that he has a tiny penis. Therefore, he has to slut around town and think, feel, and act like women (including Aurelia) are nothing more than walking meat to be mauled and molested. He constantly whines about how horrible his life is – he is rich, he neglects his responsibilities to cavort in gambling dens and such, and he has all the hot chicks he wants, but people assume he has a tiny penis so oh, he hates her and life is just so sucky. These two bicker and argue in a monotonous and repetitive way.
The author could have salvaged things if the two immature douchebags are both humiliated on an equal basis, but no, the hero always gets the upper hand here, so things get boring and predictable after a while. Also, it gets tiring to follow the heroine as she keeps starting fights that she can’t win – it makes her look stupid and it makes me feel even more stupid for reading this book. At the end of the day, I don’t care one bit for these two overgrown brats and their constant bickering gets on my nerves. All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue is a surefire way to ruin the day.
