Review With a Capital "EW"

Slow Hands by Leslie Kelly
Review by Diva


The Story:

Icy lonelyhearts rich girl Maddy goes to a charity bachelor auction to keep her new stepmom from cuckolding dad by paying money for some hunky humping. She outbids Stepmommy on Bachelor #19, the "gorgeous, muscular, friendly" Jake the paramedic. He likes Maddy. She is disgusted that he was in a charity bachelor auction and makes the hip-breakingly wild cognitive leap that because he auctioned off a date to a ball game with himself he must be a high priced man-ho. She does him anyway. He doesn't tell her he isn't a gigolo because she has walls around her heart (I imagine them being cute lego brick walls) and needs to control the relationship by paying him or something. It's like Pretty Woman--all the cynicism without the fun shopping. Then they develop Feelings-with-a-capital-wtF and drama follows involving her sister's upcoming loveless-match wedding, her dad's fourth marriage, and a bypass surgery.
 
 
What Worked:

Convenience-- I was sick and needed something to read, ergo it was the obvious choice. 
Frugality--it was free. I feel dirty now.
 
What Didn't Work:

Characterization--the Diva had to refer back to the book twice to confirm the names of the main characters despite third person narration and the fact I had read the names hundreds of times. No one has a personality. I was compelled to call them Uppity Hot Girl and Washboard Abs. It is also a challenge to believe that Uppity is truly as icy as her adjectives declare when she yanks up her tank top and commences dry humping outside the bar on the first date (excuse me, non-date they are just friends---I have friends, we NEVER do stuff like that)
 
Motivation--Dear Washboard (May I call you by your first name?): She thinks you are a whore. She gives you a check for 30K to be "exclusive" and service her for one month. Explain to me why you would do this. 'Because she is Uppity Hot Girl' is not an acceptable answer.  Love, Diva
 
Names--in addition to Uppity and Washboard, we have characters named Tabby and Bitsy. 

Talking about the Relationship--if Diva had to talk about her feelings and relationships half this much she would be single 4evah. I don't even think I *have* that many feelings. The angsty angst of being a rich woman with  "large luscious breasts and a tiny, tiny waist" who is for some reason paying for it made me giggle a lot until i realized that the only person who should have to listen to her many many thoughts on trust and the impossibility of romantic love would be a trained therapist.

A WTF? Special

In the shadowy corner of every reader's history is the hall of shame, the books we finished and wish we hadn't or the one's we cast aside in disgust.

Here are a few to consider giving as gifts to people you hate, in the spirit of the holiday season.

Books I Wish I'd Never Seen.

1.  Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
I adore Trigiani. Her Lucia, Lucia is one of my favorites and my grandma's as well. Her real-woman voice is formidably true and wry. I await the third volume of her Valentine trilogy. However, I have a copy of Big Stone Gap in a box in my garage. I can't keep it in the house because I'll try to reread it and my Normally Patient Husband said if I attempted it he'd set it on fire.
It's beautifully written and the narrator, Ave Maria, is relatable in the extreme. She runs the small town pharmacy in the titular village and dwells on the agonizing breast cancer death of her beloved mother and the oppressive abuse of her stepfather before his death. It hit a little too close to home and the mother's death left me in shreds. I cried so hard I gave myself a sinus infection. I sobbed intermittently for three days just from remembering things in this book.

2.  Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll
The king of all WTF books, this one is like Baz Luhrmann on crack. You know, Baz Luhrmann, gifted director of opulent flicks like Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge--so clever, sumptuous and over the top that eventually one wants to smack him because he went two steps too far in his surrealist buzz. Well, Carroll is just as talented but about a hundred times more wacko. To call it speculative fiction would be to sully the good name of the genre.
It's about Walker, a modern day guy infatuated with Mavis. The first couple of chapters are gorgeously written and made me think I'd love the edgy romance.
In a past life, Walker was an assassin. He reminisces about stabbing women just beneath the ear. Then there's a talking potbellied pig. And then (spoiler) Walker's dad is Rumplestiltskin. Yes, THAT Rumplestilskin--he keeps resurrecting Walker to see if he can "get it right" but he always chases after some girl and dad gets pissed and KILLS him and has to bring him back as a baby again to keep trying. So to stop Rumplestiltskin from killing Mavis (after he has caused a gory miscarriage already), Walker has to remember his dad's real name. It's Breath. There, I've ruined it for you. Save yourself the pain.

3.  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
I was so excited to read this, which was reputed to be the next Jane Eyre, I bought it in hardback. The writing was bewitching. I was fascinated.
Then there was the incest. The sadism. The brother running around raping girls. The dad yanking hair out of his daughter's head and dying of septicemia from the hair wrapped around his finger.
I quit.
Ew.

4.  Straight Talking by Jane Green
She wrote Mr. Maybe--my favorite trashy chick lit book. I've read several of hers with varying degrees of enjoyment but I actually threw this one away. Frankly if they are having that much graphic sex in the first two pages, there isn't going to be a plot. I tried to find one. I think she's after her best guy friend. It was too frustrating trying to puzzle together a story with all that pointless nakedness.

So which books have made you vow Never Again?