Ownership

"Tall, dark and muscled like a god, Beau Barnett is great with an axe. Every woman in Rockhead Point wants a taste of the mountain man. Including me. Except he doesn’t even know my name. I’m just the girl behind the counter filling his coffee, while he grunts and grumbles, barely making eye contact. Then a newcomer with a charming smile and a fancy suit shows up in Rockhead Point, and refuses to take no for an answer when he asks me to dinner. That’s when I find out Mr. Mountain Man not only knows my name… he thinks I’m his property."

After reading the above description, plus the fact I could read it for free on the Kindle app with Prime Reading, I downloaded and started reading Property of The Mountain Man by Gemma Weir. I was expecting a deliciously sexy romance novel with a few explicit scenes that I hope would stir something within me. My very first "romance" novel was Granite Man by Elizabeth Lowell when I was a teen and the description of this new protagonist was similar to my beloved granite man that, to this day, still stirs something within, so it should have been a score for the mountain man.

Unfortunately, there were just so many things about the book, the story, the characters, that I found so appalling, and all I could think about was me and my ex; my abusive ex. Quite frankly, this was a toxic, super unhealthy relationship - if you could even call it that - and all I wanted was for her to run away from the mountain man.

First of, I'd just like to say that romance novels have taken it to a whole other level. ...Mountain Man has 22 chapters and it's only the first 2 1/2 chapters that don't contain explicit scenes. In 16 chapters, Granite Man has a total of 3 1/2 explicit scenes (the 1/2 is only because he references taking her in the pool, but we don't actually "experience" it like the others). For the amount of explicit scenes in ...Mountain Man, I used to have to read books actually designated as "erotica." Look, I'm no prude. I am a sexual person. I enjoy erotica. I enjoy porn. I have a very active imagination. This is not a knock on this book, I just wasn't expecting it. But considering the circumstances, I think it was excessive.

Issue #1

The age difference. She's 21 and he's 43. I personally, as a 43 year old woman, cannot see myself with a 21 year old; not even as a fling. Heck, it's icky for me to think about anyone near my brother's age...yuck! I could have probably gotten past the age difference here if it hadn't been for the fact that the female protagonist admits she's had a crush on him since she first laid eyes on him when she was 13 years old. T-H-I-R-T-E-E-N years old! So he was already 35! And she's been fantasizing about him this entire time.

I was a teenage girl once and teenage girls are stupid and we think we know everything when we really know nothing. I speak from experience. The summer before I turned 15, my mom had opened a second bakery in a relatively quiet neighborhood, not far from two of my uncles' homes, and I spent the break before school working there, by myself. My uncles would drop by when they got home from work and I would usually hang out at one of their houses after closing up waiting for my mom to pick me up, but for the most part, I spent the entire day there, on my own; a fourteen year old completely alone. Next door was a karate studio and I thought one of the instructors was so cute. I would stand at the counter looking out the large panel windows, waiting to see his car turn the corner and come into the plaza parking area. I was still relatively innocent then, so all I really fantasized about was him kissing me, and I would swoon. He must have been at least 30 years old and me, a 14 year old, was daydreaming about making out with him. Teenage girls are stupid. I don't want to think about what could have happened if I hadn't been as innocent as I was, or if he hadn't known better.

Not only did she have a crush on a grown man as a teenager, he even tells her that he basically waited for her to turn 21 (she hasn't been 21 for very long). He had been "stalking" her for a year and it's not until now that he realizes why; he'd been waiting for her and she was too young before.

Issue #2

Well she's still too friggin' young! He is a very experienced man, very experienced. Not only was she a virgin, she had absolutely no experience with men - no dating, no boyfriends - and he pretty much pounces on her. He doesn't court her. He doesn't take her out. He sees her harmlessly flirting with an out-of-towner and it drives him insane and that's when he realizes he wants her. When he does realize it, it's not, "oh, I like her, I'd like to take her out and get to know her." No, it's, "SHE'S MINE!" She belongs to him and no one else can have her.

He immediately sets about claiming her, marking his territory. They don't even go out. She doesn't even get a say in it. He's decided that she's his and that's that. Immediately he takes her to his home and basically uses sex to manipulate her and to try control her.

Issue #3

This all takes place within a week. He says she belongs to him, finds out she's a virgin, basically makes her sleep at his house every night, fucks her the second night, and by the end of the week, she says yes to marrying her.

Issue #4

Don't get me started on her dad and brother. Well, at least her brother, who is the same age as the mountain man, tries to intervene and tell her she shouldn't be involved with a man old enough to be her father, but they have such a distant relationship that she tells him he has no right to tell her how to live her life. Her dad, basically lets him just cart her away to his house saying they have to work it out. Ugh.

This all set off so many warnings inside me. The mountain man was F claiming me for himself. I mean, the mountain man doesn't even let her have a girls night with her friend; he shows up and hides in a booth until a guy tries to dance with her and then he flips out and throws the guy across the room. F never let me go out. It got to the point where even going out with family wasn't allowed.

I don't know why I kept reading. I told myself to stop, but I kept going. I kept hoping that either he would change in a way that F never did, or that she'd get away from him somehow. That never happened and I just kept thinking, "no, no, no."

"...This book contains an over the top, jealous, unreasonable, possessive asshole.

If you consider unapologetic alphaholes unacceptable, or feel their behavior is in someway abusive, then this isn't the book for you.

If, however, like me you love a guy who is so obsessively in love with his girl that he will snarl, demand, punish, and fuck her until she gives herself to him completely, then read on and welcome to the world of my Montana Mountain Men."

As I scrolled back on my Kindle for reference, I saw the above warning printed before the first chapter. I hadn't seen it before. Maybe that warning should have been in the book description.

The behavior is not "someway abusive." It is abusive. I don't have a problem with alpha males or sexually dominant & submissive roles. You can have those in a story without it being abusive. In thinking back to the explicit scenes, if the alpha male wasn't written the way he was, I would have enjoyed those scenes because I am sexually submissive.

I remember the shock in my cousin's eyes when I said I was sexually submissive. She said she could never be weak. But I don't look at it as being weak. Being sexually submissive to F came with a lot of power. I felt powerful with every touch I gave him. I was doing that to him. I was making his body react that way. I drove him crazy and unleashed him. But reading these scenes didn't bring pleasure, just fear, and all I could think about was F.

F wanted to control me outside of the bedroom too; take ownership of me completely. He was claiming me for himself and no one else. I could never be with anyone else; I would always be his. I have the tattoo as a constant reminder of his ownership; it's a shame I live with every day. And if I hadn't been strong enough to say no, I would be a single mom right now because he saw knocking me up as the ultimate form of ownership.

I lived this story and it doesn't end well. I wanted her to run. I didn't want her to stay like I did for so long and end up like me. I live in fear of not being able to refuse him and falling back into him. The sex was that good. And just like the mountain man, F used sex as a weapon; to manipulate and punish me. I lost myself and as much as I've tried to put myself back together, I just feel like I'm damaged, broken.

Maybe that's why "The Spanish Love Deception" resonated so much with me. Now there's an alpha male that wants to protect and take care of his woman; that can sweep in, but knows she can also take care of herself; that wants her to be his just as much as he wants to be hers; and can still be sexually dominant and thoughtful, putting her needs before his. It gives me hope, just a bit of hope that I might be able to put the pieces back together.

The Hunger Games

Every now and then a book comes along that digs deep into your soul and becomes a part of you. The characters and their world live vividly in your mind and heart. You can see them as clearly as if they were standing in front of you and feel everything they feel. Their world is yours and your world is theirs. For me, those books have included Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb...and now, The Hunger Games trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins.

There's no point denying I had no interest whatsoever in reading these books. I tend to by anti-hype. I've never read or watched the Harry Potter books or movies (except for one and that's only because my co-worker begged me to go with her on opening day since no one wanted to go with her). And I'm not about to read the Twilight books. Unfortunately, I've had to sit through the movies because of friends or my niece. (How can I say no to my niece? I can't.) None of it has been able to pull me in.

And for me, The Hunger Games was just another teen book series surrounded by too much hype and I wasn't going to touch it. That is, until the thing I've always wanted happened.

I've always wanted to do a book club. I had joined one on meetup.com, but the discussion meetings were always inconvenient for me. I only ever made it to one discussion for The Lovely Bones. So when MG asked if I wanted to participate in the book club she and some other friends were forming, I said yes. Then she told me the first book was The Hunger Games and as if she already knew what I would say or do, she handed me her copy because she had also downloaded it on her Kindle. Ugh, great, I thought.

After a day, I gave in and figured I might as well get it over with. Plus, I figured it could help with work since I had to promote the movie on my company's FB page and I had already found myself Google-ing little things here and there for related posts. At first, I was only reading it while on the bus. It held my attention; it was an easy read, but then it made me cry. And I knew then I was a goner. I was three-quarters through the book when I knew I had to read the second book.

It hadn't pulled me completely in yet, though. Yes, I wanted to know what happened next, but it was still three days after finishing the first one that I finally gave in and bought Catching Fire at Barnes & Noble. I should have bought the 3rd book too.

Catching Fire engulfed me completely. I stayed up all night reading it. I finished it at 5:30am and only slept for 2 hours before I got up and went to work. I don't know how I survived work that day. I never thought I would finish that quickly. I knew I shouldn't go buy the last book even though all day at work I was consumed with knowing what happens. I questioned my co-worker, but he was reluctant to tell me, wanting me to find out for myself, but warning me against getting the 3rd book that night since I hadn't slept the night before.

But MG text me and said she'd pick me up from work and we could go get the last book, so I started reading Mockingjay at 7pm Thursday night and finished it at 2:30am.

And Friday night I started re-reading them again. First, going back and re-reading favorite chapters and passages. Sitting in the living room or laying on my bed crying as I re-read them. And then I picked up the first book and started reading again from the beginning. Slowly this time. Taking my time and re-living every word. The exhaustion from the previous nights took over though and I went to bed at a reasonable hour.

So, for the last two weeks my life has been consumed by The Hunger Games. My co-worker shakes his head at my obsession.

I can't explain it, but these books have affected me in such a way. And not because of MG's observation that their world is eerily possible. I've re-read them and particular passages have been re-read numerous times, but even so, there's a familiarity to them. The first time I read them, I felt like I knew those words, the images brought to life in my mind were not new to me. Almost like deja vu, but deeper. The characters, the story; I could see them in a past dream. I can see them so vividly. They've been with me a long time. Maybe I read these books in a past life...I don't know the answer.

All I know is that it's the first time in a very long time that I've been affected this way. It's made me reflect on my life and past loves.

Heed my warning, buy all three books at once and be ready to be consumed. They may not affect you the same way, but you won't be able to put them down.

Thursday, March 22, 2012
P.S. Catching Fire is my favorite of the series. I can read it over and over again.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

It took me two weeks to read Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence. A week and half of that was the first 50-75 pages. Boring. Very wordy. Or as my co-worker said, "verbose." He read three books, including Lady Chatterley's Lover, in the time I read the one book.

Once the affair started, well, that's when it got good. ;)

As much as I enjoyed reading all the sexual parts, what I didn't care for was Lawrence's ultimate portrayal of women. In the beginning, she's independent, intelligent; her own woman. Once she sexually connects with her lover and thus really falls in love, she becomes clingy and whiny. She constantly asks him to kiss her, to tell her he loves her. She clings to him and doesn't want him to leave her.

In the book, he's been hurt in the past and has closed himself off to women; doesn't want anything to do with them. Yet, there's something about Lady Chatterley that draws him in. And even though he starts to withdraw from her when she gets clingy and whiny, ultimately their sexual connection is too strong for him to fight against and he succumbs to her. He continues to remain distant, though, aloof almost, and you don't really believe he loves her until the end when he writes to her when they're apart.

Like Ginnifer Goodwin's character, Gigi, in "He's Just Not That Into You," says at the beginning of the movie, females are trained from an early age to fall for the jerks, the ones that pull your hair and call you names on the playground. We're told they do that because they "like" us. So we spend our entire lives going after the wrong guys; we fall for the jerks.

And Lady Chatterley's Lover even reinforces that sentiment, to a degree. He's distant, emotionally closed off, seems to mock her in their first meetings and as I mentioned, you don't really believe he loves her. The only difference is their sexual connection. Within it, they achieve true intimacy. Her total submission to him and enjoyment draws him into her. He desires her. He loves her.

And while I detest that she becomes clingy and whiny, the female I fear deep down inside of becoming, I love that he depicts how important sex is to truly connect with someone and how through that connection, you really live.