Review of “Her Name Was Lola” by Karen Janowky

Score: 86/100 (8.6 out of 10)

Her Name Was Lola is an edgy romance novel by Karen Janowsky. It follows the titular Lola Nelsson, a 22-year-old frequently-daydreaming college student who is trying to find her place in the sun, and Dr. Vance Anderson, the stunningly handsome university professor who is known as “Dr. Casanova” on campus due to his promiscuity.

Lola, who hasn't had much luck with men (and is explicitly stated to be a virgin), fantasizes about finally finding her prince charming like she's heard and read about in fiction. She is surrounded by rather loving and supportive friends like Naomi who want to see her overcome her inhibitions and find her happiness. With that said, they're also keen to talk her out of making poor, self-destructive choices and are always there to pick her up when she's down, which seems to happen more often than not. Lola is quite a hot mess. She's a very sensitive and emotional person. For that reason, we frequently find her sulking or brooding throughout this story.

Vance is a career educator who is on the verge of reaching tenure, another major focus of this story. He seems to have extreme trust issues and insecurities due to his personal life experiences, particularly with his parents and past partners. He is used to people leaving him, using him, and exploiting him. The audience is made aware that he has a reputation: a reputation for sleeping around and never sustaining relationships. He is a one night stand type of guy—void of commitment to anyone or anything other than his career.

Well, both characters find themselves in a big, huge conundrum when they experience an intense, sexual attraction to one another!

We're not kidding or exaggerating, this book features one of the most intense, prolonged, drawn-out, over-the-top sex scenes we've ever read in a book. It's essentially the Goku versus Frieza on Namek of sex scenes. You could make the argument that its the centerpiece of this book, like Let It Go is the centerpiece of Frozen, because of how over-the-top it is and because it serves as the inciting incident which gets the ball rolling for the rest of the plot.

Should a professor be allowed to date or have an intimate relationship with a student? What if they're both consenting adults? Is it right? Is it moral?

A similar story-line was featured in Friends, following Ross's apprehension to have a relationship with a paleontology student who crushes on him.

So, this is one of those will-they/won't they kinda love stories. It's also a story about forbidden love.

Forbidden love stories have a natural attraction and charm for the human imagination. That's partly why Romeo & Juliet and Titanic were so successful—they featured characters from different groups who aren't normally found together, then have them fall in love.

The problem is, for such a story to work, your characters have to actually be likable. These two, from our perspective, were painful to read about. Neither of them is likable. First of all, Lola really is a hot mess. She spends a lot of this book moping and being in a puddle of her own tears. She really is a drama queen, and it can be insufferable at times. In another version of this story, Lola could be a villain. Hear us out. Think about those movies and books about a respected man who has an affair with a strikingly-beautiful bombshell who keeps showing up at his office and tempting him to lighten up and have some fun while he's trying to walk the straight and narrow path, whether it be with his family, his job, or both. Well, Lola is kinda that type of character. She's a bit of a home-wrecker, and part of that comes from that fact that she's immature and lacks enough life experiences to know that what she's doing is destroying this guy's life and career.
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On the other side of this equation is Vance, and Vance is arguably the most unlikable person in this book. He, too, could be considered a bit of a villain. After their intense sex scene, he makes Lola feel like an unwanted, undesirable loser, hides from her like a coward and causes her to leave.

Remember, Vance is a person in authority who is much more financially stable and (should be) more mature than Lola is, yet he hurts her. He hurts her like a petty, immature, heartless moron. And he does this more than once throughout the book. In fact, both characters hurt each other at various times, leading each other on, then pulling away for whatever reason.

So, now we have this emotionally-vulnerable young woman who claims she is struggling to pay for college pining for this damaged, promiscuous college professor (who his probably old enough to be her father). Vice-verse, we have this college professor pining over an emotionally-vulnerable and financially-desperate student.

Vance is not a great guy, in fact he's not even a good guy. Like we said, he acts like a villain. There's one scene in which Lola is having a private conversation with one of her friends about her feelings and what's going on, then Vance just appears behind them and butts in like a stalkerish creep.

The way he thinks is also frustrating and a bit scary. One bit reads: “There were people in his life who were important to him. Why should he purposefully tell her anything about his life? She let herself out of his room. She was no longer needed there.”

No longer needed there?!

Dude, she's not some pillowcase that needs to be washed or replaced. She's not a cup holder on your desk. She's a human being!

It's also frustrating how the two of them defend each other to other people, even when they're both in the wrong a lot of the time. We are even explicitly told, “He'd done the right thing” at one point. Well, that's for the reader to decide, not the narrator.

With all that said, this book does have some bright spots. For one, the premise is compelling. The writing is actually quite good. There are some eloquent lines like “...those thoughts had settled in his empty chest like old dust” and “We were each on a merry-go-round of our own making.”

If you are drawn to books about taboo relationships, you can check this out on Amazon!