Title: The Seduction Expert
(The Seduction Expert #1)
Author: Saya Lopez Ortega
Genre: Contemporary
Format: eBook
Length: 174 pages
Publisher: VSP Publishing
Publish Date: July 26, 2019
Rating: ★
Recommend: No
Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to VSP Publishing for this free copy.
A lot of the reviews that I briefly read before deciding to read this book compared the main character “The Baroness” to the woman we love to hate (Miranda Priestly) in The Devil Wears Prada. Not to mention, if you look at the cover for this book, and the movie cover for TDWP, they have some similarities.
I would say that the key difference between Miranda and The Baroness is that I actually liked parts of Miranda. The Baroness, not so much. When the main character is absolutely full of themselves and reminds the reader at almost every other thought, it starts to get tiring. However, the faults of The Baroness don’t completely take away from the book, and I do think that some people will definitely like it.
There are moments where The Baroness claims to be a feminist, wanting to be a champion for women in Paris (her headquarters) and possibly spanning her reach across Europe and the United States if the money’s right. However, I feel like her thoughts and her feelings, words, etc. contradict her actions. For example:
“Femen.” Instrument of power, funded by a mysterious oligarchy in order to lessen the respectable image of women. “I hold nothing in common with them.” No need to strip to reign. I do it with class and effectiveness. “Neither do I support their fanciful activities.”
The Baroness on a feminist group in Paris
One of the things about feminism is that fellow feminists aren’t supposed to slut shame, or ridicule other feminists for their methods of whether taking their clothes off or not is the way to go. And yet that’s one of the things she does throughout the novel. As long as her clients are paying her fees, they have no idea what she really thinks about them. Is that a real sisterhood mentality? I don’t think so.
But then again, sometimes a good villain is someone that you just don’t like. A part of me wants to see what happens next, to see if all her hard work is going to pay off and whether or not she can salvage what’s happened to her, and I’d love to see if she can pull it off. I mean, if she’s a good enough villain, I should be impressed.
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 
No… I don’t think these books are for me. I didn’t care much for the Devil Wears Prada either.
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For some reason your comment was hidden as spam, but I found it! Thanks so much for reading. I wouldn’t say this book is for everyone and at least you know not to read it. I personally loved the movie, but I think that was really because of my love for Meryl Strep and Anne Hathaway (and Emily Blunt but she was mean sometimes lol).
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I’ve been hesitant about this book, and your review kind of convinced me not to read it haha. I hate when a character is held up as feminist, and then judges/hates on women who are different from her. I don’t blame the author for this, but I do think the cover’s similarity to the movie cover of The Devil Wears Prada is a cheap way to liken The Baroness to Miranda – when I saw the cover I instantly thought this would surely be related to The Devil Wears Prada. Great review, sad the book didn’t work for you more. 😦
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I was honestly worried to post this because I got the book from the publisher directly, and I hate giving less than stellar reviews on books I get directly from someone, but it’s better than lying about it. I feel like that part really threw me off throughout the whole book, and it’s just seems like she really isn’t in it for women. She’s in it for herself, and the way she thinks about her clients (which she would never say out loud) just really turned me off. It makes me wonder what she would think of me honestly lol.
Yeah! That’s exactly what I was thinking when I saw the cover, and putting the two photos in the same post kind of really brought that similarity to the forefront. Baroness is nothing like Miranda though, although I could see that she was trying to be.
Thanks so much for reading my review! I can’t be lucky to read all 4 or 5 star books, but at least I had a chance to find out for myself.
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This is definitely one of those books that people will either love or hate because Baroness is such a polarizing character. I didn’t get the feeling that Baroness thought she was feminist (maybe she did) because the sheer amount that she makes fun of every other woman that wasn’t her. There were definitely times that I just wished I could just throw my book at her with her atrocious comments. But then when I thought Baroness couldn’t get any worse…boom, enter Mrs. Beaumont. This book was a whole different level of crazy. Love your review and your comparisons! They are spot on.
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I don’t think Baroness was a real feminist, but when I was reading it she would always talk about how what she was doing was to help her fellow women, so that women could take back control in a world that said that men had to be the authority figure. I know this was to the biggest extreme that I could think of, but with a message like that, but then how she treats other women (or at least what they don’t hear her thinking about them) didn’t match with her message. I hope that made sense.
Oh yeah, Mrs. Beaumont made Baroness look like she wasn’t that bad, although they were both pretty terrible. I’m glad I read your review! I feel like you hit on points that I forgot to, so it’s nice to hear others points of views 🙂
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