Bad Romance

by Heather Demetrios

Grace wants out. Out of her house, where her stepfather wields fear like a weapon and her mother makes her scrub imaginary dirt off the floors. Out of her California town, too small to contain her big-city dreams. Out of her life, and into the role of Parisian artist, New York director - anything but scared and alone.

Enter Gavin: charming, talented, adored. Controlling. Dangerous. When Grace and Gavin fall in love, Grace is sure it's too good to be true. She has no idea their relationship will become a prison she's unable to escape.

Deeply affecting and unflinchingly honest, this is a story about spiraling into darkness - and emerging into the light again.

• ISBN10: 125015877X
• ISBN13: 9781250158772
• Publish Date: 1 July 2018 (first published 13 June 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 5 April 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Stephanie]

This review was originally posted on Once Upon a Chapter

I rolled a prompt in my TBR Monopoly "to buy a book from your wish list". I decided to pick Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios because I loved I'll Meet You There. I hadn't gotten around to reading any more of her books and I thought it was time to correct that.



I gave this book 4 stars because I KNEW what was happening and I KNEW from Grace's opening pages that nothing good was going to come of it....and yet Demetrios had me feeling like Grace (i.e. most domestic abuse victims). "He'll get better; Today is just a bad day." If you've ever questioned why domestic abuse victims don't leave, Bad Romance might be a place to start.



Bad Romance was not easy to read. I struggled with tagging it because it is a romance just not one with a good or happy ending. To be clear, Grace believes that she is in a romantic relationship. It becomes clear that she is not. I decided against using any romance tags because I didn't want to get it mixed in with the others. I do have to say that I don't think I could have ignored the GIANT red flag that was what Grace had to go through just to go to a dance with Gavin.



I felt for Grace. She went from crappy relationship to crappy relationship to really crappy relationship. Her father wasn't capable of having a healthy relationship with her due to his mental health issues. Her mother wasn't much better. Grace learned a little about what she didn't want in men thanks to her mother's choice in her husband.



Grace's mother set her up so badly for life by letting Grace believe that she was worthless. This probably stemmed from her mother's own self-esteem issues but it was devastating to see the ripple effects.



Gavin doesn't really deserve any more attention. I think I'm shying away from talking about him because I'm still not okay with thinking about him. It just goes to show that Demetrios did a great job. I stupidly kept thinking surely he's done the worst only to realize that no, he hadn't reached the bottom of the barrel yet. Gavin was so charming and so abusive. It was astonishing really.



Grace's friends Nat and Lys really saved this book for me. Truthfully they saved Grace too. I don't think she would have been able to stay gone if it hadn't been for them. I loved them so much. Without them, this book would have been too much.



In the end I can't say that I enjoyed this book. I felt like I needed a shower after reading it. I think that was kind of the point. I didn't get as much from it as I did from I'll Meet You There but I don't know that they are really comparable.

[Bianca]

Something in me is dimming, something that I already know I can’t get back. But you’re worth it. You are. I will tell myself this for several more months. And when I realize you aren’t worth it, it’ll be too late.
— A raw and gritty book about a “perfect” relationship spiraling into a toxic, abusive, and manipulative relationship. What a book. This seriously gave me the chills!

[whisperingchapters]

This book... Right now, I have no words. Like, this was just so raw and hurtful and maddening and heartbreaking... Just, wow. I have tears in my eyes right now. I highly recommend this book. It honestly left me breathless with how the story is told and how descriptive and vivid the "bad romance" is.

The reality is, there are guys like Gavin, who are so manipulative but at the same time, they don't know they're doing it. They really aren't mentally unstable and that's also sad. But what guys like him put women through? That fear... I felt Grace's fear so deep inside me. This book helped me see why women stay in these relationships. Sometimes, they really don't know how to get out of it. And seeing that desperation in Grace broke me.

I had a bad romance, but not like Grace's. Still, it was extremely toxic and my reason for not leaving was thinking I would never find someone to love me or care for me, even though this guy didn't know how to do that. Every one of us have different reasons for staying in these relationships. It's sad, but it's the truth.

Full review to come soon.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

If you're surprised to see me reviewing a contemporary YA novel, you're not the only one - I can't believe I read it! The cover was what caught my eye at first, but then reading the synopsis hooked me. I have some personal experience with bad romance and I also know a couple people who have more in depth experience in toxic relationships than I do. I thought that if any contemporary was for me, it was this one. But while Bad Romance started out strong, it didn't end up being as good as I'd hoped.

Grace is the protagonist of this story. She is already a victim when this book begins. Her mother has married an abusive man who takes out his anger on his family and treats Grace like his own personal slave, and her mother does nothing to stop it. Grace's home life is rough and she has plans to escape as soon as high school is over. Before that can happen though, she meets Gavin, the high school's resident broody musician. Gavin is charming and gorgeous and talented. Gavin has also recently attempted suicide over a breakup and Grace (obviously) thinks this is oh-so-sweet. For whatever reason, Grace writes him a letter which begins their extremely unhealthy relationship.

Demetrios does a fantastic job of creating a relationship that's believable. It's easy to see why Grace falls for Gavin and it's just as easy to understand how their relationship devolved into such a toxic one. This is something that a lot of people don't understand - why women don't just leave when their significant others turn into abusive jerks. It isn't always that simple for a victim to leave an abusive situation and that's something the author makes about as clear as possible. Unfortunately, that's about as far as the positives go for Bad Romance.

I have several complaints about this book and the first is the choice in writing style. For some reason, it's written like a letter to Gavin, except it really isn't. Bad Romance pretends to be a letter, but instead it's written like any other book but with a jarring "you" thrown in every now and then where you'd expect to see "he." This writing style might work for some other books, but I didn't feel that it added a single thing to be addressed as the abuser in this particular narrative.

Like I said earlier, the story is believable in the way it shows abuse victims staying in relationships, it isn't very enjoyable to read. A huge part of this book is repetition. Grace goes to work, Gavin plays some music, Gavin gets mad, Grace gets upset, Grace's friends worry, Gavin says sorry, rinse and repeat. I know that this is the way a real life situation might play out but it made for a super tedious and boring reading experience.

Finally, I never felt that Grace really saved herself. While I can appreciate that sometimes it can take the interference of friends or meeting a guy who doesn't treat you like crap, it would've been so much more satisfying for Grace to pull herself out of this situation. I also wish the book hadn't started with the ending. It's so much less impactful to know how everything ends up before you even get to the actual story.

I expected Bad Romance to be a great book if not one I particularly enjoyed reading because of the subject matter. It had all of the makings of a good read, but it was executed oddly and the story really dragged on. That being said, I do think it's an important book, especially for the YA audience! I really hope more books on this topic will follow (and hopefully I'll like them more).

[Leah]

Bad Romance by Lady Gaga is probably my favourite Lady Gaga song, although I love Telephone and A Million Reasons (and others, duh) and it’s apt that Bad Romance is basically the theme tune to this book. It’s the kind of book you’re read and hope it isn’t going to be all bad, but then Grace says right at the start that this isn’t a good relationship, that this will not end well and it kinda blows all of your feelings out the water, like you’re waiting for a car crash to happen so you can stand and watch and see it all go to absolute shit. Normally I wouldn’t use a swear word in a review, but there is literally no other way to describe what happens in this book. The worst part is the knowing. If you go into a book and it goes bad, maybe it’s a surprise, but somehow it’s worse knowing it right from the off. However I also think it’s quite clever, because this book could be triggering to some people.

While reading this book - it took me a week to complete it, I had to keep putting it down after a few chapters, because it was so hard to read Grace’s perspective. She has a pretty poor life - her mom and step-dad make her do chores constantly and they scream at her for no reason and have all these crazy rules and ground her on a moment’s notice for little things other parents would brush off, so when Gavin, a guy she’s been admiring for three (!) years, starts to notice her and they start dating, it kinda feels like a release. Like something good has finally come for Grace. You feel hopeful that this is the start of something amazing, that these two are destined to be together forever and you really feel it. Or I did. I believed in Gavin and Grace, not as long as Grace did, but for a really long time, and it was like a gut punch every time something happened. Every time Gavin did an about-turn and his mood just changed abruptly before doing a 180 again and he was the sweet, kind Gavin. It make me feel physically sick, because I knew where the book was going, I knew what kind of bad romance this was, and it just hurt me for Grace because she just goes through so much and it just really, really wound me up.

The absolute worst thing is that I understood exactly why Grace was attracted to Gavin, why she would excuses because it got her away from her home life and to think that that really happens for girls makes me incredibly sad. All of my notes while reading this book were sad thoughts. The way Gavin could manipulate Grace hurt me. Because I wanted more for her, I wanted her to see Gavin for who he really was, and each time it seemed like she saw the truth, she’d make more excuses and it was too much. This was such an unsettling read. You feel like a voyeur reading the book, you know it’s going to go wrong and yet it’s so compelling you can’t stop reading. But it did affect me, I did have to put the book down multiple times. I would say to myself I was going to finish the book that evening (something I can easily do with books) and yet I would read five or six chapters and just have to do something else, anything else.

Heather Demetrios writes at the end that she’s had personal experience of what Grace goes through with Gavin and you can tell, is that a stupid thing to say? I don’t think so, but I mean it’s all on point, I was terrified for Grace so much of the time and I also got annoyed at her for not just breaking up with him but then I understood why she didn’t and I know from what I read on the news and magazines that when you’re in a relationship like that, it’s so hard to get away. I couldn’t write a book like this, because I haven’t been through anything like that, no amount of research can make a book so utterly believable, the emotions so real. Bad Romance was just an incredible read on all levels. It’s unsettling, and please be aware of the triggers before you read this book, I don’t see myself as having triggers whilst reading or watching TV, but it affected me, too. It’s an important read, though. If you can read Bad Romance you should. It’s good to see that in YA it isn’t all sweetness and light (I *love* sweetness and light, but it’s important to show both sides of relationships, that it isn’t all being in love forever at that young age, that it can be a bad relationship).