1 out of 4 stars
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Heartaches 3 witnesses the closing of The Bad Boy Vibes Series by H.M. Irving. Based in romantic fiction, it follows the lives of two survivors of abuse who lend each other the strength and immortality of love to fight the shackles of their history and finally attain their revenge.
Anna Simmons and Rafael Brown have had their share of pain. With the threat of their enemies looming on the horizon and the safety of their loved ones at stake, both must make themselves vulnerable to their abusers to avenge themselves. When a shadow from Anna’s past returns, buried secrets are resurrected and the lovers’ trust in each other is tested. Events abound that shed light on the role of one of her abusers, and with tempers rising high and questions unending, their story promises an adventurous ride.
The dramatically unstable plot led me to believe certain events were introduced only for their shock factor, with no real background to top it off. One of these events included Anna getting up close and personal with one of her rapists, voluntarily, in order to enact a dubious parody of revenge. The desire to see one’s abusers suffer is not uncommon, and I understood this need and the reasons behind it, but felt the plan deserved some work. Not only did I find the plan incredible and insane but the events following it seemed, for lack of a better expression, out of whack.
The dominant figure of speech used was the rhetoric and while helpful, had a slightly negative impact. The contemplative aura it attempts to evoke in readers was present to an extent, but throughout the novel there was a barrage of questions that made the novel seem more like a suicide note prelude than a romantic fictional novel. If Anna hasn’t, in more than three complete sentences, questioned her love for Rafe, Rafe’s love for her or the Theory of Everything, it was almost surely another book.
An idea put forth in chapter 6 of Heartaches 3 doesn’t necessarily ring true for me. We have Pat experiencing a momentous occasion in his life, and Irving states that due to his homosexuality, there’d been an increase in the number of advances from the other male students. It is suggested that they were ‘targeting his gay inclinations’, as if the attraction was solely centred around Pat being gay. I think this could have been reviewed, and instead attributed to his off-the-market status, with highlights of the theory of the lure of the forbidden with respects to anything rather than sexual orientation.
I had hoped for an improvement in the grammatical correctness of the novel as compared to the prequel, Heartaches 2. Both boasted rather vivid and remarkable writing styles, yet lacked a foundation in thorough editing. There was a constant mix-up of pronouns, incorrect spelling, overuse and misuse of ellipses, word misplacement and so on. I experienced some level of disappointment, as I was expecting, because of the prequel’s suspenseful ending, a more interesting read.
I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I would not advise readers who have not read the prequels of this series to read this book, as the plot is hard to follow without a deeper understanding of the characters’ histories. I would also not recommend the novel to anyone in the search for an imaginative read or works that are properly edited.
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Heartaches 3
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