78 Followers
48 Following
TinaNoir

Tina's Reading Books

Genre fiction lover:  Romance, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Urban Fantasy

Spitfire Sucker Punch

Spitfire Suckerpunch (House of Pain Book 2) - Lavender Parker

Hmm... this was a rare misfire for this author for me.  I have liked everything she's done so far, so I was surprised with how much I didn't enjoy this.

I think my biggest issue starts and ends with Shay, the heroine.  I have to like the heroine in a romance and if I can't, it can pretty much sour my experience on the whole story.  Which is pretty much the case here.

Try as I might I could not warm up to Shay.  As a character I think she is well conceived on one level.  She is a young woman who has a charming criminal for a father and grew up very aware of this as she lived and ran around the neighborhoods of Harlem.  She doesn't trust the cops.  She is person who is smart and has a lot of potential but she doesn't capitalize on it.  Her loyalty to her criminal father ultimately lands her in jail with a six year prison sentence.

But on another level I think she was ultimately a static character.  Shay comes out of prison feeling very little changed from when she went in.  She is older but she doesn't feel wiser.  I would expect her to be more thoughtful about what she is going to do or be now.  Or more determined or something  Instead she comes out and, catching a glimpse of Tate on her aunt's street, pouts that Tate (the hero) should not be in her 'hood.  Because it is hers.  There follows a series actions that feel very, well,  high-schoolish including an act of unprovoked spite against a woman Tate is dating.

Her stint in prison seems to have had no affect on her.  She doesn't seem to worry or struggle with assimilating back into society.  She doesn't wonder about job prospects or a future.  And worst of all, she doesn't allow it to affect her loyalty to her father who allowed her to take the fall for him and then abandoned her the entire time she was in prison.

And there is one of my biggest frustrations with the character.  I think I am supposed to understand, approve or maybe feel that it is a credit to her that she still has such love and loyalty for her father.  But I could not bring myself to care or endorse that, mainly because he is presented as such a user.  And to me a woman fresh from a six year prison sentence because of that parent should feel more bitter or angry or betrayed or used or something more than Shay is presented.

But beyond all that she just seemed to be leeched of any joy.  She really was a closed off, fairly unhappy person.  I found her misery exhausting frankly.

Tate was a lot more sympathetic but he also exasperated me.  Have you ever met a couple IRL and you know that one partner is 10x more in love than the other one?  For me, that was Tate in this book.  Late in the book Tate is thinking to himself:


"You can hurt me everyday, he wanted to say, just don't leave me."

That was their relationship in a nutshell.  He felt almost too much in love with her and she didn't feel as if she was in love enough with him.

So Yeah, not a win for me.