2 out of 4 stars
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CURVE COUTURE is a romantic novel by H M Irwing about a plus size model named Claire who started as a modelling agent to her younger sister Janice. She wasn’t particularly close with Janice but when she slept with her fiancé, the guilt she felt drove her to resign as her agent and look for someone else to take her place, however, the person she had in mind; Erin did not want to take her sister as a model, instead he offered to sign her as a plus size model in his own agency. What followed later was a twisted romance between Erin and Claire. Loving each other while still battling their own personal problems mostly influenced by their family members.
I had high hopes when I began reading this book but somewhere along the way, the zeal went down. For a romance novel, I expected the love to flow from simple little things at first and graduate into wanting to always be in each other’s company. To me it felt like this “love” was forced by the writer, there was hardly any chemistry between Erin and Claire. Erin’s definition of love was mostly control while Claire who was only too happy to submit to him, never saw a problem with being controlled or blamed for things she had no control over.
I have mixed feelings for this book, mostly because I feel it could have been better. There were parts in this book that I had a hard time understanding and could not really tell what was going on.
Claire being a plus size model in a world that was not fully accepting of plus sized girls was a strong woman. She had gone through what I would term as epic humiliations even before Erin’s brother when she stripped without being aware of his presence. There were many occurrences where her figure served to her demise; being humiliated even by her stylist. The fact that she went through all this and still went on ahead as a plus size model is encouraging to other plus sized girls though to some extent I expected her to stand up for herself and not allow them to treat her in such a way.
The approach Erin used to “court” Claire felt degrading. He sexualized her in a “whorish manner”. It seemed like all he wanted was to have intercourse with her and “taste” her size. I expected more from him but sadly I could not connect with him at all.
I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars because, for one, the cover page does not depict Claire as a plus size woman, two, there were parts I really had a hard time understanding; the fears both Claire and Erin had and the conversations they had were unclear to me, lastly, I felt like this relationship was not nurtured or developed rather it was "forced" to exist with hardly any connection between Erin and Claire.
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Curve Couture
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