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Title: The Ideal Wife
ISBN: 0440244625
Author:
Mary Balogh
Publicate Date: 2008-06-24
Publish: 2008-06-24
List Price: $6.99
Average Customer Rating: 3.0
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $0.75
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.09
Amazon Merchant Price: $6.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Balogh's Worst -- A real disappointment
I have every book by Mary Balogh. I wasn't interested in reading this book and it stayed on the tbr shelf for a while. I should have left it there. It was a huge disappointment. I couldn't even finish reading it. The characters have no substance. The plot was a sleeper. Balogh just didn't write it believable. The heroine talks so much (and during the love scenes too) that it becomes overwhelming. I just kept thinking "okay I understand that she is talkative, let's move on."
Also the hero is supposed to be a great lover? It didn't read that way. The first couple of love scenes are all about him taking his pleasure and the heroine (like I said earlier) TALKING.
The way that this book develops is just to fast paced. The conflict in the book is sloppy. He wants an ideal wife, she seems to be. Wait, No shes not, but I don't care. This all happens in the first 100 pages. It is like everything is pushed.
I always look forward to my favorite authors new releases. This book just made me frustrated because I wanted it to be better. Unfortunately NOT.
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2: not such a great idea...
This came in a glossy new cover, and I ordered it from the library, but half way through I checked the publication date and saw that my suspicions were correct - it was originally written in 1991. I now also realize it's been padded because the original book was far shorter.
I found both the characters and the situation very irritating. The Earl of Severn, all because he cannot say no to his mother, proposes to a woman who he has just met, having totally mistaken her character. And the annoying Abigail, normally chatty and silly, stays quiet and sensible because she hates poverty and wants security. Well, who can blame her.
But Miles is not hero material - what sort of man of 30 would find himself managed into a marriage he didn't want all because he could not say know to his mother. And he's crap in bed, and he's condescending. I imagine that eventually Abigail tells him that she's never come and the sex gets better but I couldn't be bothered to stay with it and find out, and gave myself permission to put it down.
I am sounding snarky, aren't I?! But I wouldn't want to befriend either character and didn't find them or their situation at all interesting. It felt like a very early novel, Mary Balogh has written far, far better books than this. I hate it when they sneak in old novels like this, because you expect a certain level of sophistication in the writing, and that's unfair for a 17 year old romance, but you don't know it's 17 years old initially - sounds like the big confusion you get in romances, which stop the lovers from acknowledging that they love each other. If the publishers stopped trying to fool me, I might love their reprints better!
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3: Not Sure I would read More
The writing is good. I liked Abby and Miles except in the bedroom. There I was very disturbed. Ok, we've all been there--I totally get the reality of it taking a little while for her to overcome her inhibitions and be able to find fullfillment. The part that really bothered me was that her husband, who was falling under her spell, didn't seem to notice or care that she was left unfullfilled 2x a night for the first week of their marriage. He didn't try to talk to her, question her or draw her out or even care that she lay under him like a board as long as he got what he wanted. The worst was the night they had an argument and he decided to skip the preliminaries and get the deed done quickly so he wouldn't keep her awake. She felt nothing while he did he business. I would kill my husband if he ever tried! Not my idea of romance! If you ignore the bedroom scenes the book was great. Unfortunately I like the whole package for my romance.
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4: Characters who have extremely irritating personalities
The lead characters were very irritating to me.
Abigal is an incessant talker, one of those who people who seem to have absolutely no idea when people are tired of hearing them ramble on. I have never had a character in a book drive me insane the way this character did.
Miles, though described in the book as an atheletic handsome man reminded me of small geeky Niles Crane from the television show Frazier. I could not get the image of Niles Crane chasing around behind Daphne Moon's skirts saying yes dear, anything you want dear, out of my head. Even his wardrobe, which was described several times in the book seemed to scream the fact that he was a little on the feminine side.
Not a good book and I would not recommend it unless your definition of romance is a feminine man who lacks a backbone and a bossy, blabering women.
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5: Not up to her usual standards AT ALL.
Mary Balogh is one of my favorite authors. So even though I expected this book to be dull, I had to read it BECAUSE it was Mary Balogh.
However, Mary Balogh completely disregarded her characters' feeling the whole way through. The initial personalities were ignored, and the personalties were altered so much sop that I feel she wasn't even paying attention when she wrote this. It is a dull, nondescript, clone of her usual perfection.
Do not read this if you have never read her before. Some of her most amazing novels are More Than a Mistress, Slightly Wicked, and Slightly Married.
I do not recommend this book at all. Sorry, Mary. :]
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