Is this the Perfect Book?

"Dreaming of You" by Lisa Kleypas has been described as a Perfect Book. And that might very well be true. It is certainly one of my favorite books. In the genre, yes, it is my favorite romance that I have ever read. But maybe also one of my top five books of all time. I have read it three times now. I never tire of it. And to me, it really is one of those perfect love stories of all time. 



*There Will Be Spoilers*

Derek Craven... will there ever be a better hero? He's so flawed. He has done bad things, he's sold his soul.  He's dark and moody and bawdy. He does not know integrity. But when he meets Sara, he is helplessly addicted to her. He wants to save her from himself. He wants to let her go and be the bigger person. But Derek also denies to himself that he has grown into a man who tries to do the right things sometimes, for the right reasons. 

But Sara is not an angel. Sara is innocent, but she is not doe-eyed. She is drawn the gritty parts of life, and wants to understand them. Her life has been sheltered and pristine, and she craves to know the underbelly. Because she sees the humanity there. She knows the prostitutes and the thugs. And sees through their thick skin and tough veneer, down into a real person with real feelings and thoughts and heart.

So Sara is the perfect mate for Derek. He thinks he is unlovable. And she loves him. He needs and craves her love, and is at times repulsed by it. It is a war, waged between them and from them, out into the world.

I really appreciate what Kleypas explores in this book: the lower classes, prostitution, gambling. And she takes some real risks like having the heroine get engaged to her childhood sweetheart, featuring an ex of Derek's that is now a crazed stalker, and our hero sleeping with a prostitute to try to get over Sara. None of this is easy. It turns some readers off. But every time I read the book, I realize that all of these things have to happen. The backdrop of this book is a casino. The stakes have to be high. There has to be hard choices, and chance, and drama.

*OKAY, like, SPOILERS*

And I think it was very wise for Lady Ashby to be the one to set the club on fire and kidnap Sara. Again, this has to happen. She is a metaphor for the life Derek has left behind, whether he realizes it or not. From the very beginning, he is trying to break it off with her, and she has his face slashed. She keeps coming back and he keeps rebuking her. She is his old life, soaked in gin, whoring, stealing, and violence. Ashby is the real evil in this book, not Derek. Sara is the perfect foil. Sara literally steps in a saves him from Lady Ashby in the first chapter. When Lady Ashby tries to have Sara raped, Derek stops it, but this spurs on their own engagement. As Ashby escalates, it pushes Derek more and more toward Sara, toward goodness and light. And in the end, Ashby tries to destroy all of it. The club and Sara. And Sara triumphs, not Derek. Sara saves herself, and in doing so, saves Derek too. And Ashby, with all of her insanity and dark energy and Derek's past, is locked up and the key is thrown away. 

And so it was for Derek Craven, our perfect hero. He learns to be loved. He learns about goodness and light. And Sara gets to stand in her own truth, which is not so much about purity and innocence, but rather about goodness and honesty. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Can't Get Over: The Rakess

Image
Y'all. Please. Have a seat. We need to talk about Scarlett Peckham's masterpiece, The Rakess. This book might be my favorite book of 2020. It wrecked me, in the best way possible. It was not particularly uplifting read, but I found the storyline so heart-wrenching and real. I loved it. We meet Sera, a feminist writer, no stranger to romantic trysts, who is working on a new piece to expose the high-society men who ruined her along the way. While working on her new book in her childhood home, she encounters Adam, a widowed father and architect. The two start an amorous affair on a deadline, but they find themselves more and more attached to one another. This book has a lot in it. A lot of the past, pain, and misunderstanding. But it also says a lot about the nature of true love and what HEA looks like for the hurt, brokenhearted, and world-weary. It looks at true love between equals. This book made me think and feel differently than other romances that I've read recently! I h...
Read more

Whoops, I Did It for a Duke

Image
I just finished “What I Did for a Duke,” and WHEW. First, this is a beautiful book. The dialogue, the detail, the POV… Julie Ann Long really mastered it. I cannot wait to read more of her work.  The Heroine: I really felt for Genevieve, the sweet, innocent, good sister that quietly harbors wit, intelligence, and passion.  She's so good and people think she's predictable. But she's not. She's in love with her best friend until Lord Moncrieffe arrives and turns her world on its head.  The Hero: God, what IS is about sarcastic bad boys with a painful past that I just cannot get enough of? PUT IT IN MY VEINS. Lord Moncrieffe is broody, good a gambling, and rumors fly that he killed his wife. He's clever and, in time, sees something in Genevieve that she didn't even see in herself. And, in turn, she recognizes qualities in him that people have long-ago decided he could not possess. I found all the characters endearing, and the plot of this book was just so smart. Tha...
Read more