Exile Publishing, $1.99, ISBN 978-1912305049
Contemporary Romance, 2018

Evie Snow’s Head Over Heels really doesn’t like any woman that fits even loosely the definition of “hot”. The first few pages see both the heroine Madeline Evans and the hero Cal Greyson giving all kinds of juvenile nicknames to these women and, on the heroine’s part, wishing death by man-eating sharks on them.

The last part is supposed to be her joking, I think, but given the tone of this story, I’m not entirely certain that she is.

Anyway, this is a short and simple story of the heroine being such a rude and unreasonable wretch that has no kind thoughts to anyone.

She and her gang of third-hand embarrassment generators of a “family” stumble upon the hero, a failing actor with anger issues, and they all start sniping and being rude at one another. That’s how I know it’s love… I think.

Okay, I supposed I can be charitable and say that maybe the heroine’s personality is a self-defense mechanism for her to push people away before they can do the same to her first, but the author’s treatment of the heroine makes Madeline come off as just unnecessarily rude and abrasive. Worse, she also behaves like a bratty thirteen-year old all the time. 

After she realizes that she has a chance with Cal, she gets less abrasive, but this only sees the author ramping up Madeline’s exaggerated overreaction to anything and everything in the name of “comedy”. 

Then, her mother is the usual loud and indiscreet type, and then there’s another wretch that says raunchy things, and all in all, this story may be short, but it is jam packed with devastating cringe-generating caricatures of female characters in gory technicolor.

As for Cal, he’s not exactly a charmer, but he’s fortunate in that he’s surrounded by far worse loudly-screeching characters that make him look good in comparison.

I think I’m supposed to laugh, but my muscles are all halfway to rigor mortis from all my grimacing and shuddering to the entire story.