13 April 2013

Troubling issues in NA Romances



I’ve gotten into reading NA (New Adult) love stories and love the issues being addressed.  Everything from child abuse (The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorensen) to anal rape (Wait for You by J. Lynn) and various topics in between are explored.  Both of those books, by the way, are excellent. 

However, I recently finished two books that left me feeling very let down.  I won’t name names (that wouldn’t be fair) but what both of these books had in common were drugs and cheating.  Now, I totally get a book where either issue is brought into play but that’s not what I’m really bitching about.  My trouble is how the heroine of the story deals with it.  In both books, the heroine is the one who cheats on her boyfriend with the hero.  And in both books the “hero” is drawn back into the world of drugs. 

I get that dealing with either issue is one a lot of us have gone through (myself included) so using that as point of contention is realistic.  But the choices the heroine makes when confronted with either problem will either make or break my emotional investment into her character.  Co-dependency or immature tantrums are a turn off for me.  It’s a very fine line to walk and balancing those conflicts can be very difficult. 

Filling space to make the book longer, dragging out the insecurity in a way that’s unbelievable, only to have everything wrapped up with a HEA in the last couple of pages in a book is a cop-out, in my humble opinion.  Emotional growth, facing fears and coming face to face with whatever it is holding back the HEA is paramount in the satisfying development to a fantastic ending.

My two top picks for a wonderful, well rounded novels dealing with cheating issues are:

Beautifully Damaged by L.A. Fiore

Just for Now by Abbi Glines

I’m always looking for recommendations so if you have one please leave a comment!  I’m going to start doing book reviews and would love to have ideas!

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