Goodbye Girl

Oh my gosh. This may have been one of the worst books written ever. Ripped off from Safe Haven, cliché, not well edited, ridiculous dialogue, and zero character development.

This review is going to be harsh. I am a romance lover, but I think romance novels have to be well written, well edited, and well developed to be considered good. You cannot rate a romance novel simply on the sex scenes. Anyone with experience, a decent vocabulary, and an active imagination can write a sex scene.

****Warning: This post will contain adult content****

I was not kidding about being ripped off from Nicholas Sparks’ Safe Haven, it is, almost down to the ‘T’, only cowboy style. Girl runs away from abusive ex-boyfriend. Finds really peaceful place to start over, peaceful place comes with a really sexy dude who has a lovely family. Girl fits in and falls in love. Ex-boyfriend comes for her to take her away again. *face palm*

This tight-knit family refers to each other by relationship tags: ‘big brother’ and ‘little brother’. I have two brothers of my own, neither one of them calls me ‘big sis’. One calls me ‘brah’, but I maintain that every time he refers to me as such I will call him ‘sis’, so the ‘brah’s tend to be few and far between. We call each other by name, like normal people do.

Scarlett Metal has no idea what her cowboys do for a living. Seriously I think the extent of what she knows about ranching can be rolled into cowboy boots, country music, and tractors. During the book she would talk about how they were cattle ranching, and then would say “on my way out to the fields”. So he is a rancher and a farmer? Then later she mentions, “the animals mostly wander free”. So they have cattle, and other animals, and fields?! On a small ranch only run by two men and two women? O.o Do you know how much work it is to run a ranch? I’ve spent some time on a ranch. There were not only four people there, that I can tell you.

“His erection was flush against my body and I tried to picture it in my mind; from what I could feel, he was probably larger than any man I’d ever been with. That didn’t surprise me though; he was such a man’s man.” Newsflash, penis size isn’t dependent on how manly you are…

There was zero relationship development. Immediate attraction, yes, but there was no development other than the “we are meant to be together” feeling they each got. The fact that this book ended with a marriage proposal and a baby on the way drove me nuts. There was no development! How can you be in love!? You don’t know each other!

Also the baby. She is on the pill and has been on the ranch for what seems like a week tops. Apparently she is there for three months, but the amount of days we see is more like five. There is no indication that she has missed her period, or that she is worried about being pregnant. She just randomly asks Mary (the mom) to get her a pregnancy test. Oh and guess what? Magic! She is pregnant. You know, that 1% chance that the pill won’t work, that happened. Awful.

Then there was the scene where her ex-boyfriend explains how he found her, “'In addition to checking your phone closely and having you followed most of the time, I had GPS put on your car.’ I opened my mouth and gasped.” She guessed this earlier, and told Clint that she thought her ex might have done that. So why is she gasping in shock now? Poor editing. Also, what strung out junkie, drug dealing, abusive ex says ‘in addition’?

I am absolutely flummoxed that this book has received five and four star ratings on Goodreads. It is awful and does not deserve the distinction of two stars. Poorly edited, predictable, ridiculous, and clearly ripped off from a very popular book and movie, I choose to give it zero stars.