The Rebel’s Redemption by Kira Sinclair: Get Out of My Personal Space! Boundaries!

I was excited to read this romance. However, upon finishing it, I had two opposite reactions. Because this is friends to lovers, I thought the concept was cool. It’s so cute that they’re getting back together after such a terrible event. This reaction makes sense. I love the friends to lovers trope. It’s adorable.

The other half of me was extremely anxious. I had a visceral reaction to the male love interest. I kept screaming for him to get out of my personal space. I’m pretty sure that’s not a reaction any romance author wants. I’m writing romance and I hope that, when I publish it, I won’t get such a terrible reaction from my readers. I want them to be happy by the end.

Synopsis

Anderson Stone is finally out of prison and is welcomed home by his family. He’s also welcomed home by Piper, his childhood best friend and the woman he loves. The one he went to prison to protect.

Book Information

Genre: Romance
Category: Adult
Explicit violence: No
Explicit sex: Yes
Content warnings I noticed: Discussions of sexual assault, discussions of physical abuse, violation of boundaries, attempted kidnapping, and infantilization
This is part of a series, but can be read as a standalone.

Review

The prose is good. Accessible and easy to read. I’m glad the prose is as good as it is. I didn’t continue reading this romance for the plot.

The story is told in Stone and Piper’s point of views. Both point of views are written in third person past. One of the cons I’ve found about writing in third person past is that there’s a distance between the character and reader. While there’s supposed to be urgency, it doesn’t read that way because of the distance.

In theory, this romance would have made sense to me. It’s friends to lovers. They’ve loved each other for some time and it’s clear on the page that their feelings are reciprocated. However, I can’t not acknowledge the problematic aspects of this romance. I think it’s important to acknowledge these issues for readers who may not want to read romance that contains these problems. I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t read this book. Whatever you read is up to you.

The things I want to talk about involve violation of boundaries, breaking in, infantilization, and attempted kidnapping. Take care of yourselves and skip this section if it might trigger you. I don’t plan to go in depth, but keep this in mind.

With all that said, the first thing we need to talk about is the miscommunication trope. I don’t hate the miscommunication trope. Tropes in general aren’t bad. Their execution can be terrible, but tropes are not.

I’ve talked about how the miscommunication trope can be a very plot convenient way to keep love interests apart. This is especially the case in a friends to lovers romance where it makes no sense. They’re very close friends, so why wouldn’t they be able to communicate about their feelings? It also doesn’t help that the reason given is flimsy at best. This is why it makes sense to me that a lot of readers hate this trope. It’s usually not written in a way that works.

I didn’t think the miscommunication trope could be written in a worse way, but I was wrong. I don’t know why I thought this was the case. I’ve read Twilight. Fifty Shades of Grey. I’ve been exposed to terrible content.

The miscommunication here has horrifying implications. Piper communicates her boundaries from the beginning. What does Stone do? He ignores them and does whatever he wants. He refuses to listen to what she wants and, on page, it’s very clear that he thinks she doesn’t know what’s best for her. That he knows better.

This slowly evolves into him telling her what to do and she agreeing, supposedly because he’s right, something the narrative presents to be the case. He warns her not to speak to a reporter and she does, only for it to blow up in her face. Since she didn’t listen, he breaks into her house when she refuses to open the door for him and attempts to kidnap her. She eventually agrees to go with him because of the reasons he gives, but she’s rightfully angry.

This is so infantilizing. As I said, the way Stone thinks about Piper is like she doesn’t realize what’s best for her. Most of her decisions are presented by the narrative as mistakes. It doesn’t help that the author seems to be trying to give Piper agency. Instead of presenting a confident character, the author constantly infantilizes her through Stone, removing her agency.

Stone makes a terrible love interest because, even when he takes accountability, it feels like it doesn’t matter. He continues to disregard her wishes and can’t seem to understand what he’s doing. He is very irritating. Throughout the story, he does things like grab her wrist and force her to talk to him when she tries to leave a conversation she doesn’t want to be in. When she agrees with him, it reads like he’s slowly breaking her down.

I felt very uncomfortable reading this romance. I thought it would be cute, but it turned into a horrifying nightmare. I finished reading this book because the prose is great and I really wanted to review it.

In the horror, I found something hilarious. I find a lot of writing in romance to be really weird. Descriptions are especially strange. Romance is mainly written by women, so, of course, men are written through the female gaze. Sometimes, it’s so obvious like when, in the man’s point of view, a woman is described looking like “Pure sex.” I don’t know what that means. She’s wearing a short dress and looking great. Why do you have to sexualize her like that?

This is more obvious to me in category romance. I notice it less in fantasy romance, but I’m sure it’s there. Most of the fantasy romance I read involve fae and other magical creatures. In category romance, men specifically are written in a way that presents them like beasts. It reads like a very stereotypical way of presenting men.

With all this said, I don’t know what to think about this line. The line is, “The hot cradle of her sex settled over the hard ridge of his desire for her.” This is one of the things that I can’t stand when I read romance novels. It’s so hard to take it seriously.

This is a very fast-paced romance. Nothing is fully built up. Everything happens so quickly and there’s no time to breathe. This is not always a problem with category romance, but it can be.

There’s one theme that comes up in the story. Unfortunately, it reads like it’s mostly added for shock value. Some of it can be blamed on the writing, but a lot of it can be blamed on the style of category romance.

A content warning for sexual assault and physical abuse. Take care of yourselves and skip to the conclusion if this might trigger you. I don’t plan to discuss this in depth, but keep this in mind.

It’s revealed in the first few chapters that Stone went to prison for killing Piper’s stepbrother. He walked in on him sexually assaulting her. It’s also revealed that her stepbrother was hitting her at random moments.

It’s possible to write romance without exploring difficult subjects. If the sexual assault and physical abuse was mentioned and never touched on again, it would have been fine. It would have been a great romance where they’re trying to move on from what happened. However, it’s not that. The sexual assault is added for shock value. For drama. This is what soap operas tend to do.

This is very insensitive. It takes away from how traumatic the experience actually is. This is horrible. I have a hard time enjoying a romance that does this.

I fully admit that I’ve enjoyed very problematic content. Very insensitive representation of trauma and other things. However, I can acknowledge the problems while still enjoying this content. It’s hard to enjoy something like this in romance because of the way it’s written. This looks like it’s supposed to be a healthy romance, but it tiptoes very close to dark romance. If you’re going to write a dark romance, go for it, but don’t add these unhealthy elements to a healthy romance.

The story also makes it seem as though the assault made her stronger. During the romance’s black moment, Piper thinks, “Before, she’d been a scared, damaged girl who hadn’t known how to fight for what she wanted. Now she was a strong woman, certain about what she wanted and determined enough to do whatever it took to get that.” This feels so mishandled. This reads like she wouldn’t have grown if she wasn’t assaulted.

Unfortunately, this is a common problem in category romance. Category romances are short. Stories are compressed to fit a specific word count, usually 40000 to 60000 words. It doesn’t allow for exploration of difficult themes. When authors attempt to explore difficult themes, it’s rarely executed well in a category romance. Single-title romances are better for this.

The characters aren’t very layered. They’re pieces for the author to move around as the plot requires. I’m more irritated with Stone, but Piper irritates me, too.

Piper is written to have agency. She’s supposed to be very independent, but the author takes away her agency by making her agree with everything Stone suggests. She first puts up a fight, but inevitably agrees. It doesn’t prove she has agency. It proves she’s easily influenced.

I’ve mentioned how badly sexual assault was handled as a whole, but there’s still one more aspect. Instead of making the trauma about something that affected Piper, the author made it affect Stone. In one scene, Piper asks him why he doesn’t want her to reveal the truth to the reporters. He tells her that he needs the last 10 years he spent in prison to matter.

I’m sorry? What the fuck? This isn’t about Stone. This traumatic experience didn’t happen to him.

Yes, situations can be traumatic for multiple people. However, it’s not fair to take someone else’s trauma and make it yours. It’s not. You may have gone through something, but the person who suffers the situation is the one who has to deal with the consequences, not you.

The assault is also used as a tool for Stone’s guilt. He feels guilty that he couldn’t protect Piper, so he cut her out of his life the moment he went to prison. He’s also about to cut her off again by the end.

The black moment is, of course, a misunderstanding that makes it seem like they’re going to break up. I didn’t feel any tension because they’ve had misunderstandings throughout the entire story. The one thing I like about this black moment is that it was resolved immediately. The one thing I hate is that Piper went after Stone and he didn’t apologize for any of the things he did. It’s not even acknowledged.

There’s one more storyline in this book, but it’s barely worth mentioning. It’s a sort of mystery. The reporters get a picture and Piper and Stone are thrust into the spotlight even more than they already were. This story line focuses on finding out who is giving information to the reporters.

I won’t spoil who it is, but it makes no sense. The character’s motivation is not established. Nothing is foreshadowed. It’s stupid by the end.

Conclusion

Overall, this story wasn’t great. It was uncomfortable and not romantic at all. I rate it two stars. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Author’s Note

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