What Not To Bare

What Not To Bare
by Megan Frampton
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
This was a sexy, quick-witted historical with lots of fun dialogue. It had a similar feel to some of Suzanne Enoch and Elizabeth Boyle's older historicals. The characters were happy and fun and didn't take themselves too seriously. There wasn't any terrible, suspenseful angst – it was more of a fun, lighthearted read. I enjoyed Charlotte and David's banter and their confidence.

Charlotte dresses the way she wants, speaks her mind always, and is confident that she'll never marry. She admits to herself that she dresses outrageously because it keeps the men from looking at her as a meal ticket instead of seeing the person underneath. When she decides to seduce David, there's no question in her mind of if she's making the right decision. She knows what she wants and goes after it. I could really respect that she wasn't wishy-washy and even with the virginal heroine trope, she really goes out on a limb to do what she wants. Some parts of her felt very mature, while other parts including most of her vocabulary made her seem extremely young.

David is newly back from India and trying to stay out of scandal so he can go back there as soon as possible. His boss (Charlotte's uncle) gives him the assignment to pay attention to Charlotte to help her marriage prospects. Because David is insanely attractive. He's known as Mr. Gorgeous. Him paying attention to this plain nobody with make Charlotte more attractive to other men. He really wants to be seen as more than just a pretty face, but goes along with his assignment in order to get back to India. David is a hot, sexy character, but he's very passive and doesn't really seem to care about much. He is intrigued by Charlotte, but wouldn't pay attention to her if not for his assignment.

Charlotte full-throttle goes after David and has this innocent seduction thing going for quite a while before David puts any effort in of his own volition. It was fun to see Charlotte's unrestrained self, but sort-of sad when a hero can't really find nice things to say about the heroine. In the first part of the book, the best David could offer was “you're not ugly”.

While the main characters were very large in the book, the secondary characters felt pretty flat. Each of them is only there when needed to carry some plot point. Charlotte's parents are seemingly nice, loving and indulgent, but as soon as the plot needs a kick to it's backside, Charlotte's mom turns the screws and acts shrewish and authoritarian. At the beginning of the book, it's implied that Charlotte is just meeting this girl, Anne, and has some hope that she's spunky enough to be friends, but later in the book they're besties who's moms have been friends for years. The villains of the books had a couple nasty lines to say and that was about it.

The story itself flowed pretty well, but my biggest complain with this book is the lack of angst or real conflict kept the characters simply spinning their wheels for a long time. They had lots of fun banter but they never really went anywhere. I felt like I read for ages and I was only through 25% of the book. At 50%, I couldn't really see why they just didn't marry and be done with it. Once I finally got through 75% of the book and they still hadn't actually had sex, I started to think they were going to leave things old-school and keep the sexual tension high through the very end. They did end up having sex, with some of the more provocative language, so don't be surprised when you finally get to it.

I felt like this wasn't a hugely informative historical. The language didn't feel like it had that older style – it felt like it was simple contemporary wording. With the length, I had trouble keeping myself from noting the feeling of inconsistency for a historical. Like how Charlotte kept going on about people controlling everything about her life, but through the whole book she wears whatever outrageous thing she chooses. She's been through three seasons and her mom wants her married, but we're never told why her mom just lets her wear whatever she wants and just rolls her eyes about it. We have no idea how Charlotte can just “sneak out” of her house in broad daylight, in her outrageous clothing, with her maid, and go to David's house without anyone finding out. We don't get any background about how Charlotte is actually Lady Charlotte, but her parents are totally fine marrying her off to any Mister that needs the money from Charlotte's trust fund. Most historicals have at least some desire for the daughters to marry in a similar station, but this one doesn't mention it at all.

I enjoyed reading this book and I was glad that I didn't felt like I missed out on any of the jokes and banter, but it felt like it just kept going on and on without getting anywhere. There's so much witty dialogue that we miss out on having more background about the world these two characters live in. When you're looking to just sit back and read and not think too hard, this is a great book to relax with. If you're looking for a quick read, this isn't it. If you're looking for a rich historical English world, this isn't it either.

I received a complementary ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.