Michelle
This is the second book in the SanFranVamp series and I have to say I enjoyed it a little bit more than Bloodsucking Fiends, which I also enjoyed. I think the key to it was Abby Normal, a hysterically funny goth girl. I met Abby first in her brief appearance in A Dirty Job and she provided most of the laugh out loudiest lines here. She is a complete brat and yet is rarely annoying, particularly in how she works toward the goal of doing enough for the homeless. ::Recalls details, shakes head, grins::
All the stuff I like in the first book, I still liked her and so this review is going to be a little short. Christopher Moore's madcap sense of humor and characters who manage to be dim and brilliant all at once are still well represented.
I'm holding off on reading the third in the series and am planning on tackling some earlier works, starting with Practical Demonkeeping My strategy has to do with Moore having cameos from past books – I want to start from the beginning so that I can “Catch” then all. (See, this is one of those references.)
Moore is always a good pick if you want something that's funny and clever and occasionally slips in some deeper topics.
I like Amazon Singles because I like shorter pieces. In a related matter, I love anthologies. This seems to be not particularly the norm and I heard Stephen King say he thinks people are losing the ability to appreciate short stories. Technically, this is an autobiographical work, but I think the principle remains that people don't seem to know what to do with shorter pieces. For those of us who are fans and for writers, I think these Singles are nice.
That said, this is of course a quick read. I enjoyed it and will talk about it a little, and found it to be very professional, with a lot of depth packed into a shorter work, but I know some Kindle owners who would undoubtedly consider it about a dollar too much. (It's a dollar ninety-nine as I write this.) As always, what someone is willing to pay is an individual decision.
I selected this particular one because I associate the author as being entertaining, at least in the role of actor. Hey, it's more than we know about most writers when reading them for the first time. Anyhow, my instant reaction was interest – “yeah, I want to read that!” – and so I purchased. I think others will be drawn to it based on a podcast and some other autobiographical things that I have not seen.
The anecdotes were arranged around the concept of the wild things we do, particularly concerning sex. Mr. Tobolowsky paints himself rather convincingly as a reasonable and even in some ways old-fashioned guy, who has still stumbled into some adventures – at least two of them involving women who allegedly party for pay or are referred to by others with terms assigned to women in that profession. (Or three, my Google search found him telling an anecdote about ping pong balls.) None of those stories goes in the direction you might think.
I found the stories poignant. There was a moment during the second one where he is asked to essentially have a real life adventure that is a favored coming-of-age movie plot, and he doesn't want it. He finds himself upset and in a quandary as to how to back out of it. The set-up sounds b-movie material, but his place in it is as a human being who is not comfortable in that role. Come to think of it, the third story also shows his ambivalence over engaging in something that doesn't feel right. Still, he isn't judgmental and is humorous and self-deprecating in the telling.
Mr. Tobolowsky tells the stories with a little raunchiness and a lot of heart. Simply really good story telling. He points out that all the crazy things we do in our youth, the embarrassing and even shameful stuff, become what shapes us and where we find wisdom and growth – and laughter.
I selected this book because Victoria Dahl is one of my favorite authors, complete with her own folder on my Kindle. I once one a copy of one of her books and still bought a copy for my Kindle. What this means is that I'm going to be more inclined to like her books, because it's clear her voice appeals to me.
This is, however, my first historical. I'd actually started it a few times and got distracted. I knew I loved her contemporaries, but I was worried that, I dunno, I was worried.
Ended up really loving this after the very beginning. I was concerned after the opening scene that the characters were going to be cardboard. Fast forward to the end when I am sleep-deprived and cannot stop reading it!
What I like about Victoria Dahl is she's not afraid to give her heroines libidos and “pasts” to varying degrees. A lot of romance novels make the heroines virgins with never a tingle down below, until he walks in. Victoria Dahl's women are spirited and fun, and that makes a huge difference. For the edification of people who seek out or avoid these things, there are always at least couple scenes of that spirited fun which are funny, explicit-ish, and pretty steamy.
What was great her is the hero looked at Marissa, saw her inner vixen, and accepted it all kit and kaboodle. When someone seeks to blackmail her, using knowledge of a birthmark as collateral, the heroine has a small – but scandalous for the time – list of suspects. The hero takes it in stride, knows she's curious and high-spirited, and hopes to see the birthmark too some day. Oh, there might have been some jealousy, but he never treated her like she was damaged good for what amounted to playing doctor. There is a pivotal scene where Marissa realized that – that all the men she'd been smitten with took whatever she was willing to give, all the while telling her she really shouldn't allow improprieties, or was – in one case – a notorious ladies man. Jude was the guy to encourage her passion and exploration, the person she knew she could try anything and everything with.
Marissa starts the book as very shallow and unkind to Jude, who in a practical sense is doing her a favor and is steadfastly kind and supportive toward her. A trope a lot of people like is a hero or heroine going into a good grovel when they realize how mistaken and stupid they've been and Marissa provides that.
The is always genuine heat in a Victoria Dahl love story, and this is no exception, but what made the book over-the-top good is the heart there. Marissa grew and learned and had to deal with the possibility it was too little, too late. The author did a terrific job of making me fall in love with Jude and then ache for him when Marissa behaved like a mean little girl instead of a woman. Then, I applauded when she pulled her head out of her rear.
I don't know why, but I clicked with this series right away, preferring it to other books with tough magically inclined redheads. Maybe it was Giguhl, the mischief demon and Sabina's minion, maybe it was that Sabina was genuinely tough, maybe it was because I loved the idea of her having grew up as a vampire in an, um, less-than-nurturing atmosphere and now having a chance to explore a new side of who she is. Okay, a lot was the demon, but I think that's a common reaction. :)
Seriously, what I've liked and just gets better is that Sabina retains her core personality, assets and flaws, but she also actually learns some things too. Each book has her closer to the idea that she doesn't have to be a loner – that the world seems to want to give her friends and allies and a team – even a good family. (Um, some of that might turn out to be powers greater than herself pulling strings.) I like that the people we care about she is learning to care about them too and that she can draw on that love as a source of power.
Rachel is half-vampire and half-mage. What we discovered in the second book is she is a natural at tapping into her anger and causing damage. What we find out in this book is something readers probably already know if they came this far – that she has a huge capacity to love that she can also tap into in order to heal and that scene is pretty powerful as are the last few scenes.
She makes romantic headway with Adam. I like Adam, but I'm more glad for Sabina's sake than I am Team Sadam – er, no – um, Team Adina? Well, you know.
Book is set in New Orleans – love that, love it, love it! Some new characters are introduced for Sabina to befriend and not befriend. Hey, is she got along with everyone, who would recognize her?
Oh, weird moment. Sabina and Adam threw around a word that I'd only ever heard a derogatory word for physically disabled people. Tossed it around casually. I had to Google and apparently since Pulp Fiction it has a different meaning. I was so glad to know that Jaye Wells was not going all Mel Gibson and her editor didn't stop her. I was glad it was a matter of my lack of attention to Pulp Fiction.
And, with all the cemeteries in N'awlins, I can't say that there are no zombies. There is also a new villain in the wings and he's a biggie!
You know that preview that you probably read at the end of The Mage in Black? Did not occur in the book. There was a line or two, but the author seemed to switch out the significance of a couple characters and went a slightly different way.
So, I loved this one most of all and I really have, to my surprise, come to adore the mage stuff. I want to read more of that – a lot more. Sabina is comfortable in her vampire skin, confident as an assassin, and I just love seeing her explore the other side.
If you have not read the other two, you should do that first – this is a journey. I actually used my Kindle search to great advantage to remind myself of details of the other books when a term or character was mentioned. I think so much would be lost if you jump in here instead of being fulling invested by now and understanding the history.
At the end of Mage in Black I was so eager to read the next book, this one, that the wait seemed endless. Now I have to wait again and that's hard, but the ending was so intense that I probably need recovery time. AND when I got to the end my Kindle helpfully told me there was a short story for pre-order explaining an incident mentioned but not shown in this book – so I suppose I'll have that to bridge the gap.
No real complaints – there were a couple minor editing errors that may or may not be a Kindle edition thing. Nothing major and all I'm feeling is the love and the eagerness for the short story and the next book and more Giguhl/Mr. Giggles/GiGi. I think he needs his own side adventures or something from his point of view.
“It's not like I came to the City saying, “Oh, I can't wait to find a woman whose only joy in life is sucking out my bodily fluids.' Okay, well maybe I did, but I didn't mean this.”
This is not my first experience with Christopher Moore. I loved A Dirty Job, and wrote up a review on it, but it never posted and I never rewrote it. Loved Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. I read part of Fool as part of a self-designed plan to really understand King Lear from different angles – the play, different performances, the Moore book – then I cleaned and now I can't find anything.
Anyhow...
Moore has a very definite outlook and it's pretty funny. People who read him are always talking about him as a great humor writer, but his strength is writing about how humor battles sadness, copes with tragedy, keeps people going. The moments when the books are just serious are pretty rare, but his topics even in his funniest books are deeper than they seem.
Flood in dealing with his girlfriend being a vampire reads a lot of books, most of them fiction, although he's sure that Stoker or Rice must have known a real vampire or two. The Vampire Lestat is mentioned often and that book and this one don't seem all that similar. However, TVL was largely about loneliness, of losing loved ones and everything falling to ruin around you – at least that's what I got from it when I was sixteen ::grin:: – and this becomes one of Jodie's sources of angst too. She loves Tommy (Flood), but she can't share with him the way the world is for her now, because there are no words for it. Tommy wants to share his world with her too, but there never seems to be time, and there are so many barriers. Only Moore makes you laugh when he's sharing this in a way that Rice never does, at least not intentionally. :)
I read Moore and am torn between laughter and queasiness, because some pretty grim events happen but the quips don't stop. I guess I'd like to see what he'd be like with 30% of the humor dialed back, just out of curiosity, but I think that says something about the way I handle the things Moore tackles with humor. A book as a Rorschach.
Moore's best characters are lovable, er, rear holes. Good people saying weirdly inappropriate things and occasionally being pretty dumb in strangely realistic ways. See Flood's plan to stick Jodie in a freezer and how that all worked out – but it makes a strange bit of dumb sense and anyone spending time around other people or even with an understanding of self can see how most of the crazy choices happen. I think that's one of the author's strengths – the acknowledgment that fairly smart people do crazy things as opposed to intelligent people in books usually benefiting from the calm mind of the author as God. No, Moore's characters are just allowed to make bad decisions or not think things through. I always get the impression Moore likes people – maybe not big crowds of them, but the individual quirks.
Anyhow, all of this is a disjointed way of saying Moore is a writer that readers gush about and recommend for a reason. I've started the sequel, You Suck but one of my preorders showed up and is taking precedence. Besides, good authors are the ones you want to savor. :)
(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews. Please note author states there is a new edition out since the one I read, and that it clears up errors. I cannot vouch for this.)
I obtained The Fashion Police, by Sibel Hodge, as a Review Copy submitted to “Red Adept Reviews.”
Overall: 3 3/4 Stars
Plot/Storyline: 4 Stars
The story followed Amber Fox - gotta love the name - in her work as an investigator at her ex's insurance company. The primary story here concerned her investigation at a fashion house after designer, Umberto Fandango, disappears.
The story flowed nicely and I kept reading along fairly contentedly. It was a light read, but not so light that it floated away. There were some quite funny moments and lines, with Amber at her best when she's interacting with others. (“Is that how you measure your job satisfaction, by the amount of people who want to kill you?”)
There were a couple coincidences that were way too ... coincidental though. One in particular involving Elvis, the other - well, that would be a spoiler. I'm just saying, there are portions best read with a very willing suspension of disbelief. Some of the names are also eye-rollers - I predict you'll know them when you come to them.
What was really nice was both men in Amber's life tended to trust her to navigate through some very dangerous waters without feeling the need to coddle her unless she specifically expressed a need for T.L.C. I always enjoy when a woman in a story with a lot of action doesn't have to contend with a man, who is probably also in a dangerous job, trying to treat her like she's made out of spun glass.
Characters: 4 Stars
Amber came across as a suitable heroine for this type of breezy book. She was intelligent and independent and capable of a good quip now and again. Her personality made the book. I felt like I knew her pretty well, and had a really good sense of her personality. Secondary characters included her ex, Brad and her current boyfriend, Romeo Lopez. Her conversations with Romeo flowed very nicely, and he cooks, so yay. It took me a while for me to warm up to - or even understand Brad - but by the end of the book I enjoyed him too. I liked the way several of the characters interacted.
Writing style: 3 3/4 Stars
There was a passage in which Ms. Hodge tries to pack exposition in dialogue by characters telling each other things they already know. It always comes across artificial and tends to remind the reader that there is an author there pulling the strings. Better to keep these things out of quotation marks - the single AND the double ones. It only stood out because the author was so competent and better elsewhere. It was also easier to forgive for that reason.
Ms. Hodge seems to me to be a natural story-teller and, issues aside, this seems like a genre that she seems fairly skilled in and her writer's voice works well with the mix of chick-lit, mystery, comedy, and romance.
Editing: 3 1/2 Stars
While the book seemed polished for the most part, there was a persistent enough issue with homophones and close-but-no-cigars words to be an undeniable distraction. Just off the top of my head I recall “to” instead of “too,” “site” instead of “sight,” “tick” instead of “tic.”
*******************
Note: The author is clearly very British and some cultural references were unknown to me, such as the Honey Monster and Loyd (misspelled as Lloyd in the book) Grossman. (A cereal mascot and a gentleman who was born in Boston, lives in England, and speaks with both places giving him a unique dialect.) I didn't mind this at all; I felt like it was part of Amber's voice, but this was a recurrent factor that sent me on mini-lessons.
This was also reflected in the choice to use single quotes as opposed to double quotation marks (` rather than “) – this was valid and not an issue, but I wanted to make note of it.
(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)
Overall: 3 stars
Plot/Storyline: 3 1/4 stars
I really liked the idea here. Who hasn't fantasized about what they would do if they hit the lottery? Hasn't discussed it with friends? And it's a great inkblot test about who a person is and what they value. The author did a nice job with that last part - the inkblot test. I can't say though that the story completely fulfilled the promise. For better or worse, the ending - at least to me - felt broadcast not only by the story, but also the description, and the cover. This took away somewhat from my enjoyment. (5/12 – looks like the cover has changed so, yay!)
The details of the story seem to involve the main character winning seventy million and taking the thirty million dollar pay-out, but when he tells of winning he talks of instantly considering what he will do with the thirty million figure he would have yet to been quoted, which lead to one paragraph reading, in part, “When you win thirty million dollars it takes less than a nano-second to start thinking of what you are going to do with the money...” and the next paragraph starting out, “I'd just won over seventy million dollars.” It was jarring.
Characters: 3 3/4 Stars
The main character is the only one fleshed out enough to discuss, but it's a short story and so that's fair. The main character is from the beginning, despite having given large chunks of cash to charity, quite unlikable. Narcissistic. There's evidence it might be intentional, but perhaps he's meant to at least be likable enough to be an antihero. Only the author can say. I feel like even in the small amount of words present that this could have been honed or even, for the sake of plot reasons - is that vague enough? - lessened. Still, the fact that I strongly disliked this man means the author made me care.
The author makes a choice to not have the character reveal a key component of why he makes the choices, one choice in particular, that he makes. He says, essentially, “here's a little, no time to tell you the rest, the perhaps pivotal event in my life.” This can be valid, the concept that sometimes in real life people make choices and people looking in never get that missing puzzle piece, never get to find out that Rosebud is a sled. However, in this case, I do feel this story was a line or two, perhaps a paragraph short, of what was needed for symmetry.
Writing Style: 3 stars
In conjunction with the portion discussed under editing, The Good Life reads as if the author has skill, intelligence, and an idea of what makes for a good story, but perhaps chose not to put his full efforts here. It read a little like a first draft and if it were being judged as a first draft, I'd rate it a 4, but this is the version sent out for purchase, and it doesn't feel ready. This is the version I can see being posted to a blog for fun, or sent out to others to see what they think - beta readers/editors - and enjoyed quite a lot in that context. As a final draft, it's not ready quite yet.
Editing: 2 1/2 stars
Pretty error strewn. The mistakes seem a matter of not having the second careful read through or having someone else look it over rather than not knowing better. The issues came down to typos (for instance, “hansd” instead of “hands”), the almost right words (“every” instead of “ever” at least twice, among others), sentences that didn't make sense (“My was my standard response.”) and assorted odd punctuation. Other portions of the story make clear the author knows how to use a comma, so I attribute this to a lack of editing and not a lack of skill.
I feel a certain frustration here, knowing that most of the things that lessened the story for me were for want of a proper edit and one solid rewrite.
(Please note that the author has stated the errors have been corrected. The review is based on the copy I read and I cannot vouch for the new version.)
(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)
Overall: 3 1/2
Storyline: Simply put, this is Cinderella as told from the point of view of the “evil stepmother” on the eve of her execution. Lady Silvie would object to the evil stepmother description on at least two counts.
Character Development: 3 1/2 I really second guessed myself the whole time I read this, wondering how sympathetic I was meant to be toward Lady Silvie and how unsympathetic I was meant to be toward Elise, the Cinderella character. I wasn't sure if the intention was a Gregory Maguire-esque effort to paint Sylvie as misunderstood and maligned - although I'm sure Silvie would say she's both.
If so, it didn't work for me on that level. Lady Silvie remained incredibly unlikable and Elise still came across as plucky and determined to have a better life, sympathetic, even if Lady Silvie's words were all true. With the exception of Elise being willing to see Silvie dead for being a self-important witch, I remained on her side. Not that that's not a big exception to make.
Elise, depending on how reliable of a narrator Lady Silvie was, might have been a liar and an opportunist, but she also came across as strong and proactive in direct opposition to some of the most well-known versions of the tale.
Writing Style: 3 1/4 I thought some of Lady Silvie's word choices were a little off. The author might have intended, at best, to present her as a well-reared and intelligent woman, and at worst as a pretentious, cold, well, evil stepmother. The language used steered me to the latter explanation.
At various points in the story she calls Elise a scamp and a rapscallion. Both of these words carry the sense of someone mischievous, but in a more fond sense than I think Lady Silvie could have possibly meant it. The oddest word choice was when she remembered at incident when Elise was six and referred to her as a tramp. Really? Unless she means “vagabond” which would still be inaccurate, then I don't see it as apt. Now, the word tramp applied later on would make sense from Silvie's perspective. Applied to a six year old though - and this woman is trying to come across as sympathetic?
I think that sometimes writers when portraying characters in a different time tend to use words that seem old-fashioned, tend to use bigger words, but they still have to be the right words.
There was also a point where Lady Silvie is told that her eldest daughter's dress was ruined “in the wash.” That felt anachronistic to me. Five minutes of crack research - I Googled - indicates the expression “the truth will come out in the wash” dates back to Don Quixote, but the usage here still doesn't sit right with me and sounds too much like the modern sense of a load of wash.
On the other hand, I think several moments were expertly handled. In particular the last line was wonderful and the scene at the ball was also nicely done.
I picked this book because I've enjoyed the author's previous efforts, because the book had gotten a lot of buzz, and because the author said something smart on her blog. Yes, I'm weird like that. Anyhow, I'm glad I did, because Unveiled was a very good book. At one point I did that little, happy “wasn't that a romantic line?” sigh.
The people in this book learned “stuff,” evolved, became better. Ash had to deal with his quest for success and accept that there are repercussions, people who get hurt and don't deserve it. Margaret had to grapple with the concept of loyalty and what it means when the people you sacrifice for will not do the same for you.
What I particularly likes was the hero's reaction to finding out the heroine's secret and the way he treats her the rest of the book. That's romantic and he's totally a hero! He'd spent a lot of time inadvertently hurting her and I love that he realized it almost instantly, since those scenes – where he was being hurtful – were so poignant. Another touching moment was when the hero, who'd done everything for his brothers, felt excluded from their love and friendship. The heroine's reaction was wonderful.
They each in turn told the other that what made them worthy was inherent and had nothing to do with title or rank. Ash told Margaret that early on – along with telling her she had the ability to chose her own path – and it changed her, informed her decisions. Later on, she had the chance to give that back to him. Was nice. :)
Ms. Milan tends to give her heroes undiagnosed illnesses or afflictions. Undiagnosed because that was then, this is now. I actually liked how Ash's affliction affected his perception of self, how revealing it to Margaret was an act of complete trust, and how he'd compensated for it by being a keen judge of character.
I've seen the author's writing called too cerebral and not emotional enough – paraphrasing – and I've understood that. This, for me, had the intelligence, but also had an emotional element. At least I was touched and felt the strong love and connection between the two.
The revelation of our heroine's identity and when Ash finally tells his brother his secret were terrific because it said that sometimes, even though we try to keep sides of ourselves hidden, the people we love and who love us really do know us and a new piece of the puzzle doesn't alter that as much as we think it will.
[Erotic Romance]
I had a surprisingly complex relationship with this book and so I'm giving it a bewildered 4 stars even though I'm going to be expressing confusion a fair amount, This book wanted to be at least three different books, one of them excellent, but story lines and characters were lost during the transition though.
Someone recommended this book to me as part of my quest for a spanking book where the man is not a bully and the relationship comes across as well thought out. It turns out that in many ways and at certain moments, this book is exactly that, but the book had a few genre changes and the heroine had a personality change – not the expected one for a book with spanking – and I don't know what to say.
Let's start there. The first 30ish percent of the book felt like one novel – a really good one. The characters were complex and intelligent, their relationship developed pretty slowly, without the hero dropping the spanking on a virtual stranger for arbitrary reasons, and all the secondary story lines were well done. They worked in an AIDS clinic and the author brought that vividly alive. When there was a medically crisis, it read – to admittedly a non-medical person – realistic and exciting. Too often authors try to fake it through a character's job with all the seeming authenticity of a third graders idea of that job and so I was delighted that all of this felt so real. It was like no book I'd read before that dealt with spanking – so strong across the board. So interesting that I could have liked it as simply a romance or a more grittier story about the clinic. I was a happy reader for reasons I never expected going in.
I also liked, in this first 30%, that the heroine was smart with slight impulse control issues. A character says to her early on, “Don't worry, you'll be back to you usual, competent, unorthodox self.” The line was heavy-handed but accurate to what we saw of the character. She was shown being smart and compassionate, if quirky. She could also stand up to the hero in an argument, even though there was a tendency to become childish. They had friendly competitions to out “vocabulary” the other. Her love for the job was clear. She knew and could use martial arts.
The spanking introduction was also done well and hinted at its own complexity – combining the concepts of erotic spanking and discipline, saying they were separate in the relationship, and it seemed to be something the heroine was suited for and looking for. I felt like, while it had been an interest of his, they were discovery their relationship and that aspect together, with respect and intelligence.
**Perhaps a bit SPOILERY from there on out, but I wouldn't think enough to ruin the book. Still, in discussion the mood/genre shift and dropped plot lines, I do reveal a few specifics. ***
30ish percent, all is right with the world, and then the world changed. The book never stopped holding my interest, but it was a different book – or two – none of them as accomplished as the first one. The competent, if a little rash, heroine began to not be able to go two pages without tantrum or personal injury. The professional who stated she never missed work and who told her friend she loved her job too much to leave it seemed to not be the least bit interested in it after a point and so that great early tone was gone. It can't be a cool insight into an AIDS clinic if the heroine is never there and rarely thinks about being there. Her best friend who she has a mostly non-annoying relationship with – which a lot of authors have trouble handling – all but disappeared other than an occasional reference. Another friendship with an almost boyfriend seemed to be headed somewhere as he dealt with her new relationship, but whoosh.
The nearest explanation I can give is that the book then split off into two other genres – a ghost, maybe even reincarnation novel, and a book that was heavily, obsessively heavily, focused on the spanking and there was no room for that really interesting first book. This was a long work that seemed to evolve into something unrecognizable. There were still good moments, but it was not that really good, consistently good book and not what I'd signed up for based on the description. They writer sold me on a book for spanking was part of a larger relationship and integrated it into a story that appealed on many levels – only to be about, when it was not in ghost mode, her earning spankings due to an bubble-headedness and the grace of an elephant. (This is the martial arts girl.)
At about the point I mentioned, the book abruptly left the clinic and the heroine – who was so competent and able to defend herself – was sort of a mess. The hero hired an assistant at the clinic, which is fortunate because being Lana's keeper became a full time job. Every step she took was another crisis and all impulse control left, so then the spanking that was a nice, intelligent evolution, became a little repetitive and her (Freudian) need for them was a constant until she couldn't remember to buckle her seat belt or – remember she's a nurse – read up on the medication she was taking.
The hero is wealthy and lived in the family home, the heroine starts having vivid dreams/memories of being the hero's great great grandmother who also cannot walk two feet without hurting something or putting herself at risk. This was rather interesting, but jarring next to the first portion of the book. Either she is the reincarnation of the other woman, or the men in this family are genetically prone to a certain type.
We're given to understand the hero's sister is on the crazy side. There is one scene where this is confirmed and there's a feeling this will be dealt with at some point, might even be another source of danger – and that disappears. There is a ton of talk about the Adam's dysfunctional parents and how the heroine will have to deal with it/curb her temper around them – the father has a very brief scene and is atrocious – and it all seems to be working up to a meal that gets canceled repeatedly and never happens.
I read this all through in one long sitting, so there is no denying it kept my interest, even as I was dismayed, or confused as to the tone shift. I definitely wanted to review it and sort out my opinion. I guess I just wish the heroine had kept more of the competence she started the book with, that the clinic didn't get lost. I could have happily also enjoyed the rest of it, but with different characters perhaps, or at least a definitely different book that continued with them. I missed the first story and the skill it took to write it too much to embrace fully what it became. At 30% I was wanting the book not to end, but in some ways that's exactly where it did end.
4 stars for keeping my interest over a fairly long read and for 1 great story and two goodish ones. The first portion of this book is going to be hard for another book to beat, because it was exactly what I wanted and didn't expect to find.
(Review originally appeared at Red Adept Reviews.)
Overall: 3 ?? stars
Plot/Storyline: 3 ?? stars.
Simple Jess is more than a simple, no pun intended, love story. The book is just as much about the community of Marrying Stone, in the Ozarks, as it is a story about the growing love between Althea and Jess. I appreciated that, because unless you believed in this community, it would be difficult to understand how a woman could be forced to pick a husband by Christmas.
I think romance novels can be divided into two kinds. First, you have the kind that has beautiful people occupying beautiful spaces, or at least living on the periphery and lamenting their relative poverty. In these books, the reader is supposed to live vicariously, and find the hero every bit as swoon-worthy as does the heroine. The intimate scenes are supposed to titillate.
The second sort of romance is based on respect for common decency and the dignity of the working man and woman. We aren't meant to so much live vicariously through them, their lives might already mirror ours, as we are supposed to root for them to find happiness. Whether or not we'd pick the hero for our own, or whether or not we find the intimate moments to be sexy, our own sense of decency says that this couple should be together. They don't have to be perfect, or perfect for us - they only need to be perfect for each other.
Do I need to point out that this book is in the latter category?
In some ways, Simple Jess reminded me of a much-loved Lavyrle Spencer book called Morning Glory. Both books feature heroes who are underdogs, widowed heroines with children, and a community that can either be a resource or a detriment. Make no mistake: Morning Glory is the superior book, but “Jess” does share in common with it some key virtues.
Overall, I enjoyed the storyline and Althea's slow realization that Jess was a man and not an oversized child, that he was a good dad to her child - the truly annoyingly named Baby-Paisley - and that he was the right groom for her.
Two other storylines focused on her other perspective husbands. I think these enriched the story, even though I had mixed-feelings about one of these men.
While I have few issues here, my mixed feelings toward the one character, as well as a sense that there could be a scene or two more in the “B” storylines, took something away from my enjoyment. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure other readers would prefer the opposite - a tighter focus on Jess and Althea.
The story clearly implies that what happens involved a little heavenly intervention, but it's not a big focus.
Characters: 3 1/2 stars.
While I liked Jess and Althea - more so Jess - and found myself moved by the scenes in his point of view, I didn't enjoy all the secondary characters. There's a secondary hero named Eben. He is set up to be a suitor to Althea, but it's clear that he is meant for the shop-keeper's daughter. As is not unusual for romance novels, he's a bit of a jerk. Of course, also in the tradition of romance novels, he repents. I still don't like him. Perhaps this is because of the lack of time with him, but he just seems to be schizophrenic. This means that I feel I spent both too much and too little time with him.
Morsi did a terrific job with Jess, showing how his thought processes were slower, but making it clear that he was capable of making his own decisions. I was touched by the greater care her took to not only do things right, but also to do the right thing.
In the words of Baby-Paisley, in a baby-talk free moment, “He's right bout lots of stuff. Just cause he ain't smart, doan mean that he's dumb.”
Writing Style: 3 ?? stars.
I debated whether or not to put the next issue under character or writing style. I'm going with writing style. Althea has a toddler son named Baby-Paisley. I don't actually, when I think of his actions, dislike the character, not even in his brattiest moments. What drives me bonkers is his phonetically rendered baby talk. B-P says “pwease” a lot. A whole lot. He laments not being allowed to dwink coffee. And then he joins with Jess to get his mother a Cwissmas pwesent. (Well, once in a while he slips - or Morsi does - and he actually says present.)
I have absolutely no choice but to reference Dorothy Parker's classic review of The House at Pooh Corner. (Parker referred to herself in reviews as Constant Reader.)
And it is that word `hummy,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
I also found the language to be repetitive on occasion. If a character called a woman “sugartail” once per scene, he seemingly called her it half a dozen times. I wanted the woman in question to bop him on the back of his head to unstick the needle on his phonograph. (See, kids, in the olden days before MP3s...)
However, the author also brought to life a community and a way of life, and that takes genuine and undeniable skill. I felt like I witnessed many of the hardships and charms of living in Marrying Stone.
Formatting: 2 1/4 stars.
This was a disaster, particularly when you see that a traditional publisher - Jove Books - was responsible for this. Simple Jess was originally published in the 1990s, before ebooks were “a thing.” Jove either got a lot of requests for this book to be available in that format, or wanted to make it available because the author's name is well-known. Older books take more care in conversion - and this was pretty much a mess, with weird paragraph breaks, spaces and divisions in words, and wonky alignment. I consider this inexcusable. I think the only reason why I'm rating it so high is that it's a shame that this has to bring down the overall rating for Ms. Morsi's book.
I'll acknowledge that, over the course of the book, I learned to auto-correct the issues and block most of them out on a conscious level, but that should be unnecessary.
There's another Morsi book I was looking to get when it came to Kindle. I see it's now available, but at 11.99 and with this as an example of the lack of care, I'll have to see - and certainly sample.
