Maid to Match

19Oct11

I read this Christian romance because it was free on the kindle. I see a lot of this in my future. I just get through books a lot faster when I am holding them all day, versus competing with tv at night. I should start reading real books this way (ones I am interested in, not just something that is free), but until then…

Maid to Match. Here is my three word review: Christian what now? This was a new genre for me, and I don’t get it. It’s a G rated romance where people pray sometimes. Like a Lifetime movie, but one of those Christmas ones where two people with stable jobs and normal personalities fall in love. In other words, boring but pleasant. I don’t see the appeal, since pleasant is pretty easy to find, and you can usually get pleasant and interesting or even pleasant and exciting.

And yet! Some very upsetting things happened. It was kind of tawdry! There were orphans being sold into brothels, for example. I guess getting to second base is more scandalous?

I had a weird problem where I could not remember that the protagonists were white. There were many reasons for this: it’s set in Asheville, which I thought was in Tennessee or maybe North Carolina? The names led me astray: Tillie, Mack, Ora Lou (Ora Lou!!). So I expected the servants in the South in the 18whatever’s to be black. Turns out that it’s set in New York. So sue me! And the lady of the manor wanted to hire Mack because he had a twin, which she thought would look cool – that seemed like something a racist southern 18whatever’s lady would definitely do. And there was a whole part about how white his teeth where, and how big he was, etc, which was again some serious racist stuff. Very very confusing. All of a sudden someone would mention the guy being blond and I was like, WAIT, WHAT?

Anyway that was very disorienting. I kept thinking, “wow, this is some fierce commentary on racism in the Old South.” But it wasn’t, at all.

Verdict: perfect for plump middle-aged ladies with a plane ride coming up.