Avon, $5.99, ISBN 0-380-81960-0
Contemporary Romance, 2002
Take Me, I’m Yours seems more like a pathetic plea for mercy rather than a sexual invitation. I didn’t smile even once in this ridiculous story, instead half the time I’m tilting my head here and there so that my eyeballs can get unstuck from being lodged up there in my sockets.
Early in the story, the hero Keaton Hamilton Danning III is impressed by the “wit and intelligence” in heroine Ruby Ranyon’s eyes. Two pages later Ruby is babbling ineptly, stumbling, spilling champagne on Keaton, falling flat with her face on Keaton’s crotch, and ripping his clothes while he’s still wearing them – and it’s an accident, mind you, not a sexual come-on.
Well, so much for “wit and intelligence”. Ms Bevarly sure doesn’t waste any time, does she?
Ruby wants to be an actress. Yes, this inept, can’t lie, can’t play a role, clumsy as hell nitwit wants to be an actress and win an Oscar. Well, with her jugs, she may have a chance if she plays the casting couch, but we all know romance heroines don’t do that. So it’s braindead hee-hee-hee time. Oh well, let me get my nose pinchers ready and we’re all set.
Ruby runs from her married, mob-dude boyfriend and stumbles onto a party on a yacht. This yacht belongs to a spoiled, debauched, and recently dethroned and exiled prince, and the prince’s advisor is Keaton. Keaton spends the first 5 pages in this story telling me again and again and again how Reynaldo is useless, blah blah blah. Uhm, Ms Bevarly, please focus, and don’t repeat yourself so often, thanks. You don’t need three pages to tell me five times that Ruby wants to be an actress too. I think I really, really get that part after the third time. Yes, really. I’m sure.
Ruby’s appearance stops Keat from his perpetual whining about his life. I mean, ah yes, what a horrible life, living on a luxurious yacht, wearing expensive clothes, consorting with nubile bikini-clad babes, and eat German gourmet food. I tell you, I’m so full of empathy for Keat. Keat, come over here and I will happily lace your tea with cyanide. That will be my weekly charity work, how’s that?
Keat is impressed by Ruby’s hooters, but so taken aback by Ruby’s inept lies about her identity (“I’m Euphemia Philippa Wemberly-Stokes. Well, ah, everyone calls me, um, Babs. Rita. Rita, ah… Mareno. I actually go by Rita Q. Mareno.”) – remember, she’s an “actress” – that he immediately assumes that – ready? – she is a… gasp!… tabloid journalist!
Hee hee hee. Ho ho ho. Ha ha ha. Seriously, a tabloid journalist? Bwahahaha. Heh heh heh. Boy, I tell you, this is like a day at the Funny Farm. I mean, come on, Ruby a conniving journalist? Oh my, Keat has asswipe for brains or what? Hee hee hee.
After my hysterical outburst of hilarity, though, that’s when the pain starts.
No self-esteem, no intelligence, no coherence – this book has it all. Ms Bevarly has crafted some scenes I recognize as funny, but at the same time, I also understand that these scenes are crafted in a way that the funnies come from the heroine being mentally as well as physically inferior to the hero. The most irritating thing is, the heroine is happy and content to be placed three rungs below the hero when it comes to brainpower and capabilities. I don’t know if this is inept writing or subversive propaganda. Ruby’s entire personality is revolved around her lousy past (after all, we all know only white trash girlies grow up with dreams of superstardom, because we conservative readers know that all women who act on TV and big screens are whores) and her ineptness around a perpetually bemused or befuddled Keat. Heck, this story is just that.
Do I find it funny? Obviously, no. Maybe I’m just an old dog who is seeing too much in what is supposed to be a harmless, fluffy, and forgettable read. Maybe I’m just picky. Whatever.
And there’s a secondary romance, don’t forget that. And the author has to do the story of the second most boring nitwit on the yacht, the ex-prince’s girlie who, also, finds happiness in the lower rung in life’s little echelon.
Ah yes, isn’t it fun? Women stumbling and gasping and shrieking because they cannot control their faculties? I can go on and on, but I’ll probably end up like Camile Paglia’s mutant sister and scare everybody away. So I’ll just say I’m the wrong target audience for this book. Because I sincerely believe that the only reason a woman should kneel before a man is because she wants to, er, you know. That thing. Yeah, that thing. And that’s it.
I’m so not a romance heroine, I tell you.
Oh, and the circular, repetitious prose, where the same points are hammered again and again? So not cool too. Time to stay focused, lady. Tai-chi can help, or so I’m told. Whatever the reason, the rambling prose only elevates the snore factor of this story.
Take Me, I’m Yours, huh? Uh, no thanks. This is one time where I wouldn’t hesitate to lie and say I have herpes. Now get away from me.
