estherjoybelle's review
2.0
I'm going to start by saying I didn't hate this book (and I've loved other books from the author), but I had a lot of issues with it. I'm giving this two stars rather than one because a lot of it is really well-written, and it certainly took me on an emotional journey, even though it wasn't the journey the author probably intended.
Selah was one of my favourite characters in Geoducks Are For Lovers, and I was really into the first part of this book, where it's Selah being Selah (buying vibrators, fantasising about guys she might pick up - part of me probably wants to be like Selah, tbh). Then she admits to herself she's not really being herself while she's remembering the handsome Gerhard whom she left behind in Amsterdam (without fucking him), so I wasn't really annoyed at her then because she's self-aware about it. And the mistaken identity for Gerhard was flagged early on, so it wasn't a huge shock when he revealed that wasn't his true name. But from around that point on, this guy started to drive me completely mad, and then Selah did too.
2. Gerhard/Kai shows up in Ghana completely out of the blue, tracks down Selah, then surprises her at a museum? Where she's waiting to meet up with some other guy? I did not experience this as romantic at all, if it was intended to be - it was stalkerish and cocky and ugh. He doesn't really make his intentions clear, either - he says he's there for a conference, but he's clearly there for her. (And I never bought his reasons for finding Selah so compelling. Was it just that she wasn't a gold-digger? Oh, no wait, it's because she's independent - something she completely ceases to be when in a relationship with him.) From around about this point onwards, I don't trust him at all. Even when he's clearly a good guy.
3. Speaking of which, talk about a Mary Sue character! Gerhard/Kai is rich - no, omg, he's millionaire rich! (How the fuck did you not realise this Selah, in fact, how the fuck have you not Googled him around the time you found out his real name? Come on, even Bella Swan can Google.) He's handsome (oh so handsome) with an amazing swimmer's body (I'm sorry, competitive swimming at Harvard? Yes it gives him the almighty V but it seemed a tad overboard). He's an amazing lover with exceptional stamina (well, that's a given for these books). He's smart. He knows everything there is to know about Ghana, so he can give Selah all these amazing unique experiences. He's good at business - and apparently so well regarded in his company he manages to rearrange his work schedule to spend three months in Ghana for a personal whim. Oh, but no, don't think he's just some corporate suit who tramples the little guy to become obscenely wealthy - he's changed! He's now into corporate ethical responsibility and micro finance and giving back to the world! He even became an ashram-attending long-haired hippie for a while to prove it! (Fortunately that's not right now, otherwise he wouldn't look so good in a suit! WINK.) But don't worry - he didn't have that epiphany too early in life, because then he wouldn't have been able to make all this money! This is the best of both worlds! He's wealthy and reformed! WIN! And even though he's got baggage, he still manages to be adored by his ex-wife and teenage daughter! Excuse me while I vomit.
4. He starts acting all possessive when she's around other guys, even before they're really together. He apologises, but it's still really shitty.
5. He doesn't consult Selah about staying in Ghana for the extra few months. Even though it's pretty obvious she's not a long-term kinda gal, he arranges things so he can stick around, take her on exotic dates, and continue having mind-blowing sex with her, until she has feelings as strong for him as he has for her. Love grows through familiarity, and Selah was not asked if she wanted that option. Furthermore, he announces his additional stay to everyone at the dinner table rather than telling her privately first! The fuck.
6. Terms of endearment. He starts calling Selah "sweetheart" and "love" very early on, long before they ever say they love each other. She never reciprocates. It's just so ugh.
7. Sex instead of talking. Come the fuck on, guys! Selah, aren't you feeling just a little bit uneasy about where things are going, enough to think another round of sex might make things worse rather than better? Okay, maybe she's not emotionally available enough for that, but even when Kai wants to talk and Selah doesn't, he'll still fuck her first. Like, at some point, don't ya just gotta keep it in your pants to deal with those emotions you've got hanging around? And the fact you've got big decisions to make?
8. Towards the end of his stay in Ghana, and when he first leaves, Selah is exceptionally vulnerable - she's in her first real, committed, in-love relationship. Yet he is soooo patronising to her about her fears that he might die. Why is she not allowed to get upset over that? Why is he not doing everything he can think of to reassure her? How can he go so many fucking days without calling her when he's back in Nairobi? Not to mention her fears about falling in love with him in the first place, given that they don't live in the same place and their lives seem really incompatible. That never gets sorted before he leaves, either. He just keeps saying "Always" to her until I want to vomit all over again.
9. I bawled through chapter 23 when Selah broke up with him, because I was feeling her fear and anger so intensely by that point that I was glad she broke it off. Oh, yeah, I knew he had to come back and they'd end up together later, but I was glad Selah did what she needed to do to protect herself. Because, on one hand, yes vulnerability and the fear of losing someone are part of being in love, and usually life is richer for having that kind of love in it anyway. But on the other hand, no one has an obligation to be with someone just because they're in love; sometimes people fall in love because of familiarity rather than compatibility, and people fall out of love too, and life goes on. So I wanted Selah to learn more about herself and life and love and to grow as a person, but I also didn't want her to be with Kai just because she was in love with him, given that I was alternating between thinking him a controlling, patronising fuckwit and thinking him an impossibly perfect Mary Sue (or whatever the male version of that is).
10. Here's something good I will say: when Selah got sick, I was so relieved it was malaria and not pregnancy. (Reasons: pregnancy being overused as a plot device; Selah never wanting kids; her age making the odds of an accidental pregnancy pretty miniscule; terrible reason for them to end up together again.)
11. WHITEKNIGHTING. Oh my god. (Part of me wishes I didn't know what whiteknighting was, but now that I know I can't un-know it.) It is SO LUCKY that when Selah got deathly sick in Ghana, there was an AMAZING MAN who loved her just waiting to come to her rescue, even though she'd broken it off with him and ended all contact, and SO LUCKY that he was SO WEALTHY that he could arrange a private medical clinic and her trip home, and then blow off work and family commitments to take care of her.
12. Good for you, Selah, giving Kai death stares and being fucking pissed off at him for showing up at the airport. She did dump him, after all, and yes he tried to contact her further, but she ignored him, and why is that an excuse to conspire with her friends to surprise her again? Enough with the surprises, mate. It just seems like an emotional manipulation so that Selah would give him another chance. Which she does, because he paid for all her medical care and travel expenses, and he's here and oh so dreamy, and she's not so sick so now she can be horny again and have sex instead of talking again and THIS IS NOT A GOOD WAY TO RECONCILE A RELATIONSHIP. Then when they do actually talk, SHE apologises for not responding to his calls and text messages, and HE barely pays attention at all to the way he screwed her around. And he buys a satellite phone which will make it all better? And then, simply by him being around again, and being familiar again, and them having lots of hot sex again, she's taking him back. Selah, I barely recognised you at this point. (Except the lust, of course.)
13. WHY did they decide to get married in the Epilogue? Surely this would be a couple who don't have to do traditional marriage? Normally I hate when books don't give enough emotional payoff at the end (North and South is a classic example), but this feels like too much emotional payoff to the point of being out of character.
Soooo. Not sure why I felt so strongly about that one. As I said above, I was probably projecting quite a bit, and some of my reactions might be more indicative of where I'm at emotionally than the plot or characters themselves. But. I found that I couldn't move on emotionally from my frustration with this book until I ranted about it. Hopefully this now gives me sweet relief.
Selah was one of my favourite characters in Geoducks Are For Lovers, and I was really into the first part of this book, where it's Selah being Selah (buying vibrators, fantasising about guys she might pick up - part of me probably wants to be like Selah, tbh). Then she admits to herself she's not really being herself while she's remembering the handsome Gerhard whom she left behind in Amsterdam (without fucking him), so I wasn't really annoyed at her then because she's self-aware about it. And the mistaken identity for Gerhard was flagged early on, so it wasn't a huge shock when he revealed that wasn't his true name. But from around that point on, this guy started to drive me completely mad, and then Selah did too.
Spoiler
1. Gerhard went from being an enigmatic Dutchman in a well-cut suit to ... Kai? I'm sorry, what the actual fuck? Kai? What kind of name is that for a wealthy privileged Dutch/American man? Even as a nickname! Kai Hendricks? I could never take his name seriously. It just didn't fit. It was the worst. He stopped looking like blonde Dutch Gerhard in my head when he became Kai, so I couldn't picture him from that point on. He was just faceless. He even had an American accent in my head at that point, because he's lost all remnants of being somewhat Dutch when he got THAT FUCKING TERRIBLE NAME.2. Gerhard/Kai shows up in Ghana completely out of the blue, tracks down Selah, then surprises her at a museum? Where she's waiting to meet up with some other guy? I did not experience this as romantic at all, if it was intended to be - it was stalkerish and cocky and ugh. He doesn't really make his intentions clear, either - he says he's there for a conference, but he's clearly there for her. (And I never bought his reasons for finding Selah so compelling. Was it just that she wasn't a gold-digger? Oh, no wait, it's because she's independent - something she completely ceases to be when in a relationship with him.) From around about this point onwards, I don't trust him at all. Even when he's clearly a good guy.
3. Speaking of which, talk about a Mary Sue character! Gerhard/Kai is rich - no, omg, he's millionaire rich! (How the fuck did you not realise this Selah, in fact, how the fuck have you not Googled him around the time you found out his real name? Come on, even Bella Swan can Google.) He's handsome (oh so handsome) with an amazing swimmer's body (I'm sorry, competitive swimming at Harvard? Yes it gives him the almighty V but it seemed a tad overboard). He's an amazing lover with exceptional stamina (well, that's a given for these books). He's smart. He knows everything there is to know about Ghana, so he can give Selah all these amazing unique experiences. He's good at business - and apparently so well regarded in his company he manages to rearrange his work schedule to spend three months in Ghana for a personal whim. Oh, but no, don't think he's just some corporate suit who tramples the little guy to become obscenely wealthy - he's changed! He's now into corporate ethical responsibility and micro finance and giving back to the world! He even became an ashram-attending long-haired hippie for a while to prove it! (Fortunately that's not right now, otherwise he wouldn't look so good in a suit! WINK.) But don't worry - he didn't have that epiphany too early in life, because then he wouldn't have been able to make all this money! This is the best of both worlds! He's wealthy and reformed! WIN! And even though he's got baggage, he still manages to be adored by his ex-wife and teenage daughter! Excuse me while I vomit.
4. He starts acting all possessive when she's around other guys, even before they're really together. He apologises, but it's still really shitty.
5. He doesn't consult Selah about staying in Ghana for the extra few months. Even though it's pretty obvious she's not a long-term kinda gal, he arranges things so he can stick around, take her on exotic dates, and continue having mind-blowing sex with her, until she has feelings as strong for him as he has for her. Love grows through familiarity, and Selah was not asked if she wanted that option. Furthermore, he announces his additional stay to everyone at the dinner table rather than telling her privately first! The fuck.
6. Terms of endearment. He starts calling Selah "sweetheart" and "love" very early on, long before they ever say they love each other. She never reciprocates. It's just so ugh.
7. Sex instead of talking. Come the fuck on, guys! Selah, aren't you feeling just a little bit uneasy about where things are going, enough to think another round of sex might make things worse rather than better? Okay, maybe she's not emotionally available enough for that, but even when Kai wants to talk and Selah doesn't, he'll still fuck her first. Like, at some point, don't ya just gotta keep it in your pants to deal with those emotions you've got hanging around? And the fact you've got big decisions to make?
8. Towards the end of his stay in Ghana, and when he first leaves, Selah is exceptionally vulnerable - she's in her first real, committed, in-love relationship. Yet he is soooo patronising to her about her fears that he might die. Why is she not allowed to get upset over that? Why is he not doing everything he can think of to reassure her? How can he go so many fucking days without calling her when he's back in Nairobi? Not to mention her fears about falling in love with him in the first place, given that they don't live in the same place and their lives seem really incompatible. That never gets sorted before he leaves, either. He just keeps saying "Always" to her until I want to vomit all over again.
9. I bawled through chapter 23 when Selah broke up with him, because I was feeling her fear and anger so intensely by that point that I was glad she broke it off. Oh, yeah, I knew he had to come back and they'd end up together later, but I was glad Selah did what she needed to do to protect herself. Because, on one hand, yes vulnerability and the fear of losing someone are part of being in love, and usually life is richer for having that kind of love in it anyway. But on the other hand, no one has an obligation to be with someone just because they're in love; sometimes people fall in love because of familiarity rather than compatibility, and people fall out of love too, and life goes on. So I wanted Selah to learn more about herself and life and love and to grow as a person, but I also didn't want her to be with Kai just because she was in love with him, given that I was alternating between thinking him a controlling, patronising fuckwit and thinking him an impossibly perfect Mary Sue (or whatever the male version of that is).
10. Here's something good I will say: when Selah got sick, I was so relieved it was malaria and not pregnancy. (Reasons: pregnancy being overused as a plot device; Selah never wanting kids; her age making the odds of an accidental pregnancy pretty miniscule; terrible reason for them to end up together again.)
11. WHITEKNIGHTING. Oh my god. (Part of me wishes I didn't know what whiteknighting was, but now that I know I can't un-know it.) It is SO LUCKY that when Selah got deathly sick in Ghana, there was an AMAZING MAN who loved her just waiting to come to her rescue, even though she'd broken it off with him and ended all contact, and SO LUCKY that he was SO WEALTHY that he could arrange a private medical clinic and her trip home, and then blow off work and family commitments to take care of her.
12. Good for you, Selah, giving Kai death stares and being fucking pissed off at him for showing up at the airport. She did dump him, after all, and yes he tried to contact her further, but she ignored him, and why is that an excuse to conspire with her friends to surprise her again? Enough with the surprises, mate. It just seems like an emotional manipulation so that Selah would give him another chance. Which she does, because he paid for all her medical care and travel expenses, and he's here and oh so dreamy, and she's not so sick so now she can be horny again and have sex instead of talking again and THIS IS NOT A GOOD WAY TO RECONCILE A RELATIONSHIP. Then when they do actually talk, SHE apologises for not responding to his calls and text messages, and HE barely pays attention at all to the way he screwed her around. And he buys a satellite phone which will make it all better? And then, simply by him being around again, and being familiar again, and them having lots of hot sex again, she's taking him back. Selah, I barely recognised you at this point. (Except the lust, of course.)
13. WHY did they decide to get married in the Epilogue? Surely this would be a couple who don't have to do traditional marriage? Normally I hate when books don't give enough emotional payoff at the end (North and South is a classic example), but this feels like too much emotional payoff to the point of being out of character.
Soooo. Not sure why I felt so strongly about that one. As I said above, I was probably projecting quite a bit, and some of my reactions might be more indicative of where I'm at emotionally than the plot or characters themselves. But. I found that I couldn't move on emotionally from my frustration with this book until I ranted about it. Hopefully this now gives me sweet relief.
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