Book Review Raindrops on Roses

Book Review

Raindrops on Roses by Millenia Black

A Summary:  Pricilla, granddaughter of famous actress and owner of a world-renowned hotel train is mourning her grandmother’s death surrounded by celebrities and paparazzi. Michael Frost son of Larry Frost attends the funeral to ensure that the Bauer family will continue being a loyal client. Larry warns Michael away from talking to her, but he’s so enraptured with Priscilla that he can’t help but talk to her. Many drinks lead to a “tipsy” Priscilla who leads Michael to her room where they do the do. Priscilla is not aware of the fact that Michael is in a relationship. Michael and Amber are high school sweethearts and Amber will do anything to ensure they stay together. Will this one night stand lead to more or will Amber secure her man?

THE REVIEW:  This novel does nothing that we haven’t seen before from this genre, it takes the clichés and does them worse than its contemporaries (Fifty Shades of Grey). Raindrops on Roses comes across as tone-deaf and is devoid of any characters with dimension. One of the first things to happen in the book is Michael having sex(rape) with a drunk Priscilla and I’m supposed to like him after this? Because we learn nothing about Michael beside the fact that he’s a cheater, it becomes impossible to hope for this relationship to succeed. Amber was the stereotypical vindictive ex-girlfriend the reader, should despise Amber but she’s mostly reasonable. I can’t be upset with Amber for telling Priscilla that Michael is a cheater because he is a cheater! I thought I’d be able to read the sequel to this book, but I can’t stand to read about characters that I hardly got to know after reading 181 pages.

< The pace of the book

                     Characters 

v Michael is a terrible person

Ø Michael has sex (*cough cough rape*) with Pricilla when she is drunk. The author attempts to justify Michaels actions by having he think Priscilla is, “A girl who's also just a little drunk,”. When I was reading this, I felt like this was the author trying to justify Michael’s immoral actions (the fact that this happens in the very beginning of the books doesn’t help either). I know things like this come up in erotica but it’s my review so I can be subjective and personally I don’t appreciate it (-10)  

Ø So, Michael has a girlfriend and I don’t take issue with the fact that he has a partner being that it is one of the major conflicts in the book; he’s a jerk for two-timing mais c’est la vie. The thing I take issue with is Michael’s complete disregard for Amber’s feelings, how am I meant to root for this character who is hurting two women. At the end of the book, Priscilla fins out that Michael was dating Amber when he started a relationship with Pricilla, so Priscilla flies off to Paris. The reader wants to see them get back together, but I can’t do that because of how Michael acts throughout the novel. (-10)

    Writing

v Priscilla and Michael fall in love in two days they don’t know each other’s age anything.

Ø Because they fall in love quickly it is hard to get invested in a relationship that moves so rapidly(-5) ( an efficient way to deal with this would have been focusing on Priscilla trying to fill the void her grandmother left with someone else but the author doesn’t do that so ☹)

Ø Because the book moves so fast, we get no character development until page 134. (-5)

·       There is no character development so, boldness from Priscilla feels out of place because we know nothing about her

·       Chances for character development are skipped in favor of focusing on the melodrama surrounding Michael and Amber’s relationship. Specifically, I’m referring to the interviews that Priscilla and her brother Douglas do in chapter 15; this would have been a perfect time to see Priscilla act without Michael and without thinking about him, but we don’t get that.

Ø  We’re just told how characters are feeling (-10)

·       For example, at the funeral we’re just told that Michael is disgusted by the paparazzi; a proper way to show this would have been him avoiding paparazzi or showing some emotion.

Ø The book would have been better if it was first person with alternating point of view (-5)

·       The fact that the book was in third person made it a lot harder to get to know the characters and often the narration rubbed me the wrong way. The narrator was conveying Priscilla’s thoughts, but the narrator is also talking to the reader, but it’s not handled accordingly.

Ø Melodrama (-10)

·       Priscilla says, “But this just proves that I don't know you, Michael.”  This is meant to be a dramatic moment, but it is impossible to become invested in a relationship that was formed in less than a week. We’re supposed to feel sympathy for Priscilla here but it’s also her fault she doesn’t know him so      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Raindrops on Roses

Grade: 45/100 F

Thoughts: 5/10 This book wasn’t good but I’m willing to give one of the author’s other series a try.