JR Rogue, $2.99, ISBN 978-1005729806
Contemporary Romance, 2019
Usually, I’m not a fan of super short, often one-sentenced paragraphs encompassing whole stories, but I can be won over when the writing is solid. In JR Rogue’s case, Teach Me boasts some lovely, even poetic phraseology that makes it a lovely read. The other work I’ve read by the author came off as pretentious emo-gazing twaddle, but here, the author gets it right where I’m concerned.
This one is about Sophie Bordeau, professional walking mess, coming back to town only to have to deal with some degree of resentment from her sisters, who had to carry the can while Sophie ran off to do whatever when she was younger. Now, she spends all her time wallowing in self-pity and melodramatic self-flagellation, until she meets Sloane Callahan, a younger man doing his best to be a responsible guy to his own family.
That’s basically the story. This is all about the main characters talking about themselves, using the now so-clichéd alternating first person point of view device, so I get to see far more into the respective navels of these characters than I’d have preferred to.
In fact, a part of me thinks that the author’s narrative actually carries the whole thing to the finish line. This is because while I enjoy reading this thing, I don’t care for the main characters at all. A big part of my not caring is because the romance feels so… selfish, for the want of the better word.
Sophie, especially, seems to love Sloane because of how much she can lean on him and get him to validate all her insecurities and what not. It’s all about what she can get from him, what he can do for her, so I can only wonder what happens when she wakes up one day and realizes that she may not need him as much anymore.
Sloane is a more steady, reliable fellow, which is good considering what a mess Sophie is, but again, I wonder whether he loves her because she needs him, and therefore, he gets to play the hero and that makes him feel good. So, what happens when he wakes up one day and realizes that she doesn’t need him to be the log for her to play the barnacle on?
This relationship seems like it can only remain strong as long as the people involved remain codependent, and I don’t know how I feel about that.
At any rate, Teach Me is a pretty nice read, but I like it more for the author’s technique than the story itself.
