Book Review: Off the Clock by Roni Loren

I thought I was getting into a sexy book about sex therapists. Instead, Off the Clock turned out to be a sexy book that contains some pretty damaging ideas about mental health. Solid going, Ms. Loren. (Not.)

So, this book is basically about Marin and Donovan’s unresolved sexual tension. They met in college. Marin was an undergrad; Donovan was writing his dissertation. They hooked up over a lab table. Then they don’t see each other for 9 years, until Marin gets hired by the same fancy private practice Donovan works at. As Donovan attempts to train Marin for her first-ever clinical position, he realizes that she blushes at literally everything their clients say about their sex lives. So, he helpfully offers to fuck the blushes straight out of her.

Stay classy, y’all.

Looking back at it, what’s strangest about Off the Clock is how fiercely Roni Loren clings to the “innocent virgin” archetype, even in the context of a book about sex therapy. Marin is a virgin when the book opens—we get a lovely image of the blood on Donovan’s dick. And then the book expects us to believe than in the ensuing 9 years, Marin never did anything remotely sexual or romantic. She didn’t go on dates, she didn’t watch pornography, she didn’t ever see a sex toy. Nada. This is unreasonable for anyone, but especially for someone who’s literally getting her PhD as a sexual psychologist. I promise you, she would have had her “innocence” knocked out of her long before she got the therapist job.

But, you see, for some reason it’s very important to this book that Donovan be Marin’s One True Dick. He’s her one and only sexual partner, and of course this is meant to be coded as “look at Marin, she’s so chaste and deserving of a good orgasm.” Uh, no. If I’m reading a book about sexual therapists, I would really like to see a sexually liberated woman who isn’t locked inside her own shame closet. Alas, Marin is the queen of blushes and deer-in-headlights-look, so we have to deal with that for the entire 400 page novel.

Once I reluctantly accepted that the virginal heroine trope was there to stay, Off the Clock honestly isn’t bad. It’s very sexy, and it’s very well-written. I admit that I was turned off by the scene where Donovan pours red wine over Marin’s vulva and then proceeds to penetrate her with the wine bottle, but I guess in Romancelandia we don’t have to be concerned about UTIs. Other than that, the sex was good—and since this is an erotic romance, the entire book is about sex. Everything was going super well! Until it wasn’t.

Where things really fall apart is the Dark Moment. After Marin and Donovan get caught embracing by their boss, Marin goes back to Donovan’s house while he gets lectured by said boss. She goes looking in his medicine cabinet and finds…medicine! (Who would have thought.) The medicine in question is antidepressants, sleep aids, and antianxiety meds. And then the reader is treated to this gem:

Donovan was depressed? It was hard to wrap her head around. The guy she knew had so much light in him. That smile of his was like a freaking sunrise.

What. The. Fuck.

May I remind everyone that Marin is a psychologist and almost-licensed therapist? She, better than anyone, should know that wildly depressed people tend to look completely “normal” on the outside. This just doesn’t make sense, and I’m really sick of the whole “You’re not sick! You look fine!” mentality that many people have. To see it perpetrated by a character who’s purported to be an expert on mental health? How fucking damaging.

Anyway, and then things get really juicy when Donovan comes home and Marin confronts him about the antidepressants:

The words hit her like a blow to the chest. “Donovan…”

“Yeah. That’s what guy I am. The broken kind. The kind you can’t count on. I told you that from the start.”

Her stomach knotted, her emotions curling in on themselves. Donovan had thought about suicide.

The broken kind. THE. BROKEN. KIND.

“The broken kind” from, again, a trained and extremely well-educated therapist! That’s so ridiculous I don’t even know what to say. A real therapist would fucking know better than to equate depression with being “broken.” Additionally, a real therapist would most likely…be in therapy! To deal with their PTSD and suchlike. Because therapists tend to be very pro-therapy, and don’t let their symptoms go unaddressed for 10 years. What the hell.

Like, I get that Loren needed some kind of emotional conflict that would amp up the Dark Moment, but sacrificing realistic mental health at the altar of convenient plot twists strikes me the wrong way. According to her author bio, Loren was also a mental health practitioner at some point—she should know better. What we need in mainstream media is the normalizing and acceptance of mental health disorders, not the demonizing of them. Off the Clock massively fails in this respect, in just a single scene.

But it didn’t end there! Oh, no. After this emotional conversation with Donovan, Marin returns home. There, she finds her gay little brother, who’s supposedly in a relationship, making out with a woman. When Marin (reasonably) demands to know what’s going on, her brother explodes.

“I’ve gone through the worst breakup of my life, have barely been able to deal with this move, and then I freaking started up something with a girl. I could be bi. I have no clue what to do with that. I don’t want to be that.”

Oh look, casual biphobia for the win. I really wonder what’s so fucking wrong with being bisexual, huh? But obviously, per the portrayal in Off the Clock, bisexuality is not something anyone ever wants to be. It’s more of an affliction that must be suffered through. Mmkay. Gross. Don’t even want to touch that one.

Anyway, so all of this absolute crappy crap happens right before the end. I was so put off by the blatant ableism and confusing biphobia that I just cruise-controlled my way to the HEA. It was nice, and it felt “deserved,” if such a thing can be said. But honestly, the entire thing was cheapened by what I’ve discussed above.

I think we need books that delve into what it’s like to live with depression, PTSD, etc. I think we need books that humanize psychology and make it seem like a friendly, helpful science, rather than a scary, often damaging experiment. What we do not need is to perpetuate harmful myths surrounding mental health and therapists. Off the Clock may be a sexy book, but I honestly fear that it does more harm than good. Since this is coming from an author who claims to have been educated and experienced in this issue, I’m even more disappointed. Roni Loren should have known better.