Book: Lemonade by Nina Pennacchi
Reviewed by plotdrunk
Rating: 3.5/5
I started this book after seeing that it had a reputation for being incredibly dark, but I found it pretty tame on the whole. There is no question that Christopher does some utterly horrific things, but it all felt pretty one-note after a while. Once the dynamic between Christopher and Anna was established, we got the same conflict replayed again and again rather than continuing to escalate or forcing their relationship to evolve. I don’t need darkness just for the sake of being shocking, but I do want it to have consequences. Christopher rapes Anna and then forces her to marry him, which should alter everything about the characters and their relationship, but instead the story eventually settled into a predictable rhythm where he does something cruel or manipulative, she hates him vehemently (as she should!), and then she softens and almost forgives him. When I got to the HEA at the very end, it felt like I was being asked to set aside everything that came before rather than really make the characters reckon with what had happened. Talk about whiplash.
All of that aside, there were pieces I did like. The book was well written, and Christopher is definitely a complicated character. There were parts of his psychology that I found genuinely compelling, especially the way his obsession with Anna tangled itself up with his need for control. However, their relationship ultimately didn’t develop in a way that made the darker parts of the story feel meaningful to me, and I think that’s ultimately why it didn’t have the impact I expected (or hoped for). The premise is dark, but the story itself never felt like it got darker, bigger, or more emotionally complicated. I kept waiting for the consequences of what happened between them to push the characters somewhere I couldn't/wouldn't anticipate, but it never really came.
It’s definitely an unconventional historical romance, and I can see why the central relationship has caused such mixed feelings. For me, the HEA completely undermined most of what made the book interesting in the first place. If you’re going to take a relationship somewhere that ugly, I want the scars to show when we reach the ending.