Gentle reader, We’re baaaack… At the request of reader/commentator Alexis, we’re going to talk about Lover Eternal, the second book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward.
Note: For some reason my gifs are not working. ARGH. For maximum viewing pleasure, click on them and they should open in a new tab. Some ARE just memes, though.
Patty: Rhage (get it? Rage but with an “H”, so like, RHAGE. It’s Vampire for rage. SO MANY LEVELS), or Hollywood – a nickname his vampire buddies gave him on account of his movie star looks – has a personality quirk. Well, not so much as a quirk as this thing where he shape-shifts into a GIANT FREAKING DRAGON whenever he loses his cool. Turns out he royally pissed off the Scribe Virgin once and she cursed him to spend 200 years transmogrifying into an angry reptile as punishment.
Katie: Where the hell are Peter, Paul and Mary when you need them? This bitch could have seriously used some of their product…
Patty: I KNOW. I’m all for using consequence as a disciplinary tactic but having someone’s rational mind taken hostage by a violent creature in order to curtail their impulse control issues seems counter-intuitive. It’s the same reason I don’t let my children play with knives and cigarette lighters anymore.
Katie: Maybe it’s like that time when you were five and your mom was completely patient the first 999 times you asked “what time is it?” while riding in the back of a dark silver 1983 Chevy Malibu station wagon between New Orleans and Fort Lauderdale and then lost it at the 1000th as the Mississippi state line was passed.
Patty: [Flashback – how am I in your flashback? And why is she screaming at me? This is messed up.] ANYWAY, whenever he needs to blow off some steam, Rhage hits the bars and has the steam blown off him, unleashing his little beast in order to keep his big Beast at bay. I mean, sure, some people might – I don’t know, take a yoga class or a bubble bath – but not our Rhage! No, he serial bangs strange women in club bathrooms in order to release any pent-up dragon juju.
Katie: As we mentioned in our earlier review, the Lessers are the main enemy of the Vampires for reasons. Rhage is called away from one of his bathroom hookups to fight them before finding relief. As a result, his inner beast comes out to play and tears up some shit. After the fight when he’s back to normal, he’s incoherent and in pain from his shape shifting. They take him back to their compound to recover. It’s there that he meets Mary, a human visitor. Lemme backtrack for a moment.
John Matthew is deaf mute and working as a busboy/dishwasher at a pizza joint. He is tiny and has troublesome stomach. What he doesn’t know is that he’s a pre-transition vampire – he was found as an infant in a bus station bathroom. (Patty says his vampire name is obviously going to Shhh.) After being bullied his whole life, he calls a suicide hotline and gets Mary. Even though he can’t speak to respond, she doesn’t hang up on him. He keeps calling, she keeps talking to the silence and a bond is formed. Through a rather exceptional series of coincidences, Mary winds up translating sign language for John at the compound. It’s while she’s there that she runs into Rhage. Literally. Even though Rhage is out of his head with pain and residual confusion from his transformation, he smells her (EW!) and is instantly obsessed.
Patty: HE SENSES HER INNER BEING, KATIE. It’s like, a whole otherworldly connection of soulmatingness. We need to work on your whole cynic thing, girl. Think Dream Fulfilment. Think Special Cupcake of Worth. Validation is what keeps Capitalism alive and allows us to read and review THE RHAGE. I’m still unclear regarding how this installment ended up being somewhat of a faith validator but I’m also somewhat inebriated, so at this point I can hear voices of truth, man.
Katie: Truth. Rhage is actually a very chivalrous guy. He’s just got ISSUES.
Patty: Oh, and Mary is amazing and I don’t care if you mock me. I could not do how she does. Trust me: her whole deal is one even I won’t make jokes about regardless of the fact that it’s fiction. Nope.
HOWEVER… the Boy with the Dragon Tattoo is fair game.
Patty: I bow to you, meme queen.
Katie: For reals about Mary. That girl is a WARRIOR. Or maybe I should say woman? Whatever, she is more than a match for Dragon Boy, and at the same time is one of the kindest souls you’ll ever hope to meet. I wish I was more like her. (And, all this without being overly saccharine…)
Patty: OMG. I think we’re about to have a moment.
Katie: PHATTY. Pull yourself together, cuz we gotta talk about the name Rhage uses when he has someone set them up on a date. It’s a doozy.
Patty: Aaaand just like that, you ruined it. Go ahead: break the spell and BREAK MY HEART… (Hal. E. Wood. WOOD LIKE PENIS, GET IT?)
Katie: I’m only surprised it took you this long to make a dick joke. And what kind of ego must someone have to make a psuedonym for themselves that plays on the word Hollywood? (BTW, Google docs doesn’t like psuedonym. It keeps underlining it to be corrected, mocking me. It’s spelled correctly damn it, and I GOOGLED it to check. Why doesn’t Google Docs know this???)
Patty: I think it’s spelled pseudonym, dork.
(And I command you to totally leave your incorrect spelling and Google tantrum in the review. Also: trouser snake. There! I said it!)
Katie: Oops, she says in a really small voice.
Ahem, moving on…
Patty: Faith, weirdly enough, is a huge underlying theme in this book. And sexy times and grunting and all of that too, don’t fret.
Katie: Don’t worry – the details we’ve given are from like the first 30 pages, so it’s not a terribly spoilery review.
Patty: Katiekins is anti-spoiler. I’m a spoiled bitch, so I’m dying to tell you what happens but I won’t. (THE DRAGON IS REALLY A HAMSTER)
Patty: Bwahahahahaha! So wrong and yet so right. Omg, end the review. I cannot control myself.
Katie: Okay, I think we’re good – anything we need to take out? I know I went nuts with the gifs and memes.
Patty: NO REGRETS!!! Suck it, Cannonballers! (I said “ballers”)
Katie: wait for it…
