Romance Review: The Baby Project

The Baby Project
By Linda Susan Meier

score: meh

I recently attended a Linguistics conference where my co-presenter discussed repetition in arabic, especially the Quaran, the the helpfulness in teaching language and culture when repetition occurs in a language.  He did note, however, that repetition in the English language is less common.  I don't say "my mom said x" over and over, i would typically switch to "she said" assuming listeners/readers were following my train of thought.  in general terms, its seen as rude to not assume the reader/listeners are paying attention, and to keep repeating the subjects instead of pronouns.

Unfortunately Ms Meier was not aware of this when she wrote the baby project.  overall the story is interesting, heartbroken female lead who suffered a ridiculous tragedy, abandoned male lead who is forced into fatherhood after never having a father in his life.  he quickly forces joint living, attraction is everywhere, baby is adorable, hearts are mended and we work toward HEA.  fairly basic set up.  HOWEVER, the tragedy that broke our dear heroine's heart is AWFUL, just awful.  to make matters worse, Ms Meier tells us the tragedy over and over and over again.  i was never sure if she assumed we readers had already forgotten the horrific tragedy after 5 pages, or she was trying to make us really really sad so we would identify with the humanness that our heroine presented.  either way, the repetition became tedious and was more distracting than an actual reminder of events in the plot line.  unlike the linguistic practices of languages like arabic, english speakers find it annoying to be repeatedly told the same thing, it feels like you're assuming we're not paying attention.  if you're worried we're not following your story, telling us a horrific plot device will not fix the overall problem. 

so, overall, fairly predictable plot line.  adorable baby that is underplayed.  lots and lots of repetition to be sure you don't forget the backstory of our dear female lead.  making the story meh.