Ranty Mini-Reviews: Take Me and Make Me

I've been "in-between" books for a couple of days now and feeling out of sorts since I'm not entirely sure what I'm in the mood for, so I went with two recent, short Dirty Bits by Tracy Wolff.  I've read Wolff before, and liked those books to varying degrees, and I figured reading short was a decent stop-gap in light of my wishy-washy-ness.  As they say, I chose poorly.

Take Me is the first book in a steamy shorts series centered around artists.  In this one the jackhole "hero" hires the heroine to pose for him.  He's some hot-shot iron sculptor, and she just lost her art school scholarship and needs the money.

I had to DNF this one at 28% (yes, I'm aware it's a 100 page novella...) because the hero made me feel murderous. In the first frickin' chapter, after the heroine walks into his studio, our "hero" muses to himself:

I don't have to have anything in common with the women I stick my dick in...but it doesn't hurt.

The fact that I didn't hurl my Kindle across the room just goes to show you my incredible act of restraint.  Not only that, I somehow kept reading. Why?  I don't know. I'm blaming it on the cold medicine I'm currently dosing myself with because I have a gnarly head cold.

Then we get the heroine's point of view in a following chapter and that's when a power differential comes into play that I really cannot get past:

In the end, I don't say anything - partly because I need this job and partly because there's nothing to say. Not really.  Not yet, when all I know about him is what I've read.

Yeah, no.  This sets off all sorts of warning bells for me.  But it's not the final nail in the coffin.  No, that comes when we're back to the hero's cesspool point-of-view:

It makes me want to punch that wall and keep punching it until the pain knocks out everything else - including the fact that I'm sitting here mooning after her like a little bitch right now.  Or a gigantic fucking wuss.

Conclusion: I don't think she's safe with him and he's a douchecanoe.  Excuse me while I go burn everything down.

Final Grade = DNF

Make Me is the second short in the series and I did manage to finish this one.  Oh, it's still terrible, but hey, I did finish it.

The heroine is the assistant curator at a gallery and the hero is her most favoritest photographer ever. He wants to tie her up (shibari: Japanese rope bondage) and photograph her.  She has to work in the business, so no.

The hero does fall hard and fast for the heroine, I'll give him that. But he doesn't take no for an answer which is so not cool that I want reach through my Kindle and throat punch him into next Tuesday.

"I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. If you don't want to pose for me, then I won't ask you to. If you don't want me to tie you up -"
"You won't tie me up?"
"I won't. But on that, I won't stop asking either."

Run gurl, you're in danger.

But, of course, she relents. BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE DOES.

"Okay. I won't take any photos of you," I tell her, though it kills me to say it. So much so that I have to quantify it. "Unless you want me to."
"I won't," she assures me.
We'll see about that. But I don't say that.

So yeah.  You know when all us "precious snowflakes" talk about consent in romance and how FRICKIN' IMPORTANT IT IS!  Yeah, this is NOT consent.  This is the hero thinking that he's eventually going to get the heroine to cave and do what he wants - which, OF COURSE, she eventually does do in the final chapter of the story.  But hey, it's OK because she has a rock hard orgasm so I'm what? Just supposed to ignore the fact that HE DOESN'T LISTEN TO HER?!?!?!  I can just picture this jackhole in between chapters wheedling her incessantly until she finally just throws up her hands and caves in, just so she can get a moment's peace.

You know what's sexy?  When men actually listen to women.

I just can't with domineering heroes right now. Unless they have the page count to repent or the heroine cuts him off at the knees - and that's not going to happen in a line as short as Carina's Dirty Bits.  I still don't know what I'm in the mood to read but sure as shootin' it isn't this.

Final Grade = D