Title: Bad Romance
Author: Heather Demetrios
Rating: ★★★★

I wish all teenage and adult women would read this book (and some YA authors as well). This was immaculately written and I hope it becomes super popular because it is so important.

• Manipulating the other person is not fucking romantic. It is abusive.
• Possessive, controlling behavior is not fucking romantic. It is abusive.
• Love does not involve disregarding the other person’s wishes/feelings, forcing them into doing things they are clearly uncomfortable with, or humiliating them.
• Emotional abuse is still abuse.

This is tough book to read. If you’re like me, you will feel super uncomfortable at times, because you’ll pick up on the red flags while the main character, Grace, ignores them or brushes them off as cute and signs that he loves her. The narration is written in past tense, second person as Grace addresses Gavin after she has already experienced everything and is looking back in retrospect. I usually am not a fan of a second person narrator, but Heather Demetrios makes it work so well for this book. As I said earlier, I highly recommend this book and it’s message is super important, especially with all the crap we see in YA books (one particular author/fandom is particular but I digress) these days being portrayed as romantic.