Review of squicky, incest-y modern romance Dishonestly Yours by Krista and Becca Ritchie

 

 

Dishonestly Yours, cowritten by identical twins Krista and Becca Ritchie, has an okay story about the adult children of two scammer families who are more or less trying to go straight.  Led by Phoebe, the daughter of one of the families, and her best friend Hailey, the daughter of the other family, they flee to a magical small town in Connecticut where college kids interact daily with the country club set and everybody knows each other and there are constant festivals celebrating the seasons, kind of like a combination of Stars Hollow and Hartford as imagined in Gilmore Girls.  

The problem with this book is that the children in the two families grew up together, so much so that the six kids really formed one very close family.  The love story between Phoebe and Rocky, Hailey's brother, is incest by every definition except blood.  The book reminded me of V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic.  Just like the siblings/lovers in those books, Phoebe and Rocky have been forced together in inescapable closeness since childhood -- not by being locked in an attic but by traveling the country helping their parents with scams.  And like those kids, the forced proximity and exclusion of non-family made them fall in love with each when they were very young.  Now that they are in their mid-20s and moving on from their parents (about ten years later than they realistically should have), they really, really need to move on from each other.  Instead, they lean in (in every sense of the phrase). 

Ignoring this giant grossness (which is not really possible), their love story is less a plot than: we are in love with each other!  But we can't be together because our parents want us to be together!  But we love each other!  And you're so hot!  Rinse and repeat.  

I recommend skipping this book and heading straight for V.C. Andrews, who at least knew what she was writing. 

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