“I don’t have to sleep with him on our Honeymoon,” Lauren says. “They actually encourage you to just spend the night, like, kissing. Talking about vulnerable stuff you wouldn’t want to discuss on-camera.”
“Right. And there’s a lot of vulnerable stuff you need to tell him,” Damian says. “For instance, you need to tell him you don’t like guys.”
― Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang, Here for the Wrong ReasonsShe didn’t see rampant homophobia so much as she never saw a happy gay future represented. And Krystin had always relied on a very clear definition of happiness, characterized by what she knew. She always saw the perfect life as being the one that her parents shared.
― Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang, Here for the Wrong Reasons
CBR16 Bingo: Horses (2 bingos – Diagonal from Liberate to Detente, and horizontal from Dun Dun to Tech).
At the ancient age of twenty-three, Krystin is done waiting for love to find her and decides to take a huge risk and go on a ‘The Bachelor’ style dating show called ‘Hopeless Romantic’. At the end of each season, the ‘Romantic’ proposes to his true love, the last remaining ‘Devotee.’
Krystin is Montana’s official rodeo queen. She loves her family and, although she dated in college, she’s never been in love or been in any sort of serious relationship. Her parents are her model for happiness, and she wants to get to that state of contentment and surety as soon as possible.
Lauren is a content creator/influencer from New Jersey. She is gorgeous and cynical. She goes on the show for the fame, the name recognition, and to get some fashion or cosmetic partnerships afterward. She watched every season of the show and knows what it takes to remain on the show as well as the best time to be cut. Also, she will not marry the ‘Romantic’ because she is strictly interested in women. At twenty-five, she is solidly in the closet. The only person who knows she is queer is her best friend and ex-boyfriend, Damian. She relies on him to keep her secret and, as a result, he has to remain firmly in the closet to help her maintain her heterosexual image.
Against her better judgment, Lauren is attracted to Krystin. Krystin is sweet, earnest, sheltered, honest, noble, and gorgeous. Lauren wants to corrupt her. However, the more time she spends with Krystin, the harder she falls for her.
This book sucked me in. I haven’t watched a reality dating show like this in years, but the authors really did their homework. Although Krystin came across as too innocent and vulnerable and Lauren too scheming and cutthroat, I still enjoyed how their relationship developed.
Damian and the other contestants provided the comic relief. I wish we’d gotten more Damian and less play-by-play of how the contestants spent their time sitting by the pool and lying around gossiping at their shared chateau. This book could have been one hundred pages shorter. I could have watched an entire season of the actual show in the time it took me to read the book. The same as in the actual show, it stretched out longer than necessary in order to extract the greatest amount of drama.
For this year’s CBR16 Book Bingo Reading Challenge I’m choosing albums from the 1970s that helped raise me. When I think of Horses, I think of….well, I don’t really think much because I don’t think about horses in general. However, this book has horses in it and there is a romantic rescue while on horseback. Because this book is about a reality TV show and how the bachelor has to methodically eliminate his devotees, I am going with Heartbreaker, the single off of Pat Benatar’s 1979 album, In the Heat of the Night.
