Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie

So when I read the title of this book, I thought – okay, obviously the couple in this book are going to be ‘crazy for each other’ – and I guess in a way they were but not in the way that I expected.

The book begins with Quinn – an art teacher in her thirties - rescuing another lost puppy, only unlike with the others, she wants to keep this one. The only problem is that her boyfriend Bill – the can do no wrong baseball coach – won’t let her keep it because of some BS that their apartment building doesn’t allow pets. For the first time in forever, Quinn doesn’t do as he says, and keeps the dog. Bill, believing that she won’t miss the mutt and will see it his way, takes him to the pound. She is furious and this begins a great book about change.

Quinn realizes that she’s been with the wrong guy for years and him taking Katie – the dog – back to the pound was the last straw. She tells him its over and moves out. The only problem is that Bill isn’t the type to take no for an answer, he believes that she’ll come back to him, she just needs to cool off. He believes that until she buys a house.

I wish I could convey just how insane Bill is, but I’m afraid my description doesn’t do him justice. Let’s just say that the fact that Quinn buys a house doesn’t deter Bill at all. He breaks into her house, makes a copy of her key, keeps trying to get Katie impounded, and starts not only moving into the house, but loosening screws in things to make her realize how much she needs him.

But Quinn is resilient to his advances. She’s hell bent on changing and on top of moving out, buying a house, and cutting her hair, she also starts to make the moves on her best friend Nick, who for some unknown reason has been fantasizing about her recently. When they do actually sleep together – because Nick just needs to do it once to get it out of his system – he realizes that he still needs her.

I loved this book, but at the same time I kind of hated it too. I loved the fact that Quinn was so strong and in everybody’s face – like the high school principal Bobby – but as for the male characters I really wouldn’t have blamed Quinn and Darla if they had become lesbians. The men were just that infuriating, especially Bill who gave me major major creeps and flashbacks to an old relationship I had. *shudders*

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Why do I keep rating 4 out of 5 stars? The plot was great. The characters were well written and unlike some romances the time line was actually believable. Huh…

Bookshelf worthy? Electronic or get from your local library!

Teardrop by Lauren Kate

Okay, let’s see if I can understand what exactly happened in this book. Eureka is a teenaged girl (16? 17?) who’s never cried. Her mom and dad are divorced, and her mother Diana died a few months ago in a horrible mysterious wave. Eureka was with her, but somehow miraculously survived. She loved her mother very much and couldn’t imagine a world without her and tried to take her own life by swallowing pills. Now, she is sentenced to therapy, even though she hates therapists – and I really can’t blame her this one was intense – and she may or may not have feelings for her best friend Brooks who has started to act weird.

Throw in a mysterious guy named Ander who doesn’t really seem to exist and keeps stalking her, and a mysterious book that her mother left her in her will and things get very interesting for Eureka.

Turns out that Eureka is descended from an Atlanteen named Selene and the reason she’s never cried is because if she does she could bring about a great flood that could bring Atlantis back from the deep.

Did I get everything? I think so…

Okay, so I really loved the character of Eureka. I mean, it’s very rare to come across a main character who’s character flaws are stated right away, usually a reader has to delve through a lot of layers of back story before they figure out what’s wrong with this character. The only thing I didn’t like about her was the fact that she was so passive. I mean, she has her best friend Brooks, he kisses her, and then totally dumps on her right afterward. The killer thing is Eureka just sits there and takes it; if it was me I would have given him a piece of my mind.

Then again, it turns out that it wasn’t one hundred percent his fault because he was taken over by the ‘Plague’ or in reality the former King of Atlantis Atlas. This is going to be really interesting to see how that plays out in the next book.

Final Rating: 3 out of 5 stars. The book was interesting and a great start up for the next two books. I just wish Ander had been more involved and that Eureka didn’t fall for his ‘I love you’ speech. Hello, until that speech you thought he was a stalker!

Bookshelf worthy? Even though I love the artwork, I’m saying electronic or support your local library.

Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

Here’s something that I really like about Jennifer Crusie other than the incredibly witty writing – the titles of these books. Seriously, I like the fact that there is no guessing about what the title means – yes, I’m looking at you City of Ashes – it’s straightforward.

Anyway, Agnes and the Hitman is about what the title suggests – a lady named Agnes and the Hitman her friend Joey calls in to help protect her when a man breaks into her house with a gun to steal her dog. I’ll warn you now, if you aren’t into a lot of dead bodies, than this book probably isn’t for you, because within the first 100 pages or so there are at least two, and all in all there are probably about ten. What did you expect from a book that has the word hitman in the title?

So, Agnes is a cook who has just bought the house from her childhood from her best friend’s mother. With help from her fiancé she was able to put down the down payment, and thanks to Brenda – her best friend’s mother – she is paying her directly for the mortgage. In the contract that she signed, though, she has to host Brenda’s granddaughter’s wedding or else she’ll default on the mortgage and the house goes back to Brenda. Considering that Brenda’s granddaughter – Maria – is Agnes’ goddaughter this shouldn’t be too much of a problem…right?

Ha. Wrong. On top of dealing with bodies because someone is trying to kill her, she also has to deal with a renovating the house for a wedding and she only has five days to do it. It doesn’t help either that Brenda is trying to sabotage the wedding.

Shane – the hitman that Joey brings in and also turns out to be his nephew – comes in to protect Agnes from the multiple hits on her life, and well…as the book progress he gets bring in for so much needed ‘recreational exercise to help diffuse Agnes’ anger.’ Considering the last two books that I’ve read from Crusie where the first sex scene between the main protagonists didn’t really end well, this one was hot.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. I liked the fact that this book didn’t end with a cliché marriage proposal from Shane. I liked the way Brenda’s character was written; she was such a melodramatic bitch. I also liked the character of Agnes; she was a strong female with a temper. Pretty fantastic.

Bookshelf worthy? Electronic or support your local library!

Faking It by Jennifer Crusie

In the sort of sequel to Welcome to Temptation, it’s been three years and Davy Dempsey has been swindled out of his money that he stole from Clea in the previous book. This book is basically a perfect circle of characters. The person who stole his money – financial advisor Ronald – is in love with Clea – the reason he stole the money in the first place – who is trying to seduce a potential third husband – Mason – who is actually in love with Gwen Goodnight, who owns a gallery that her daughter Matilda used to paint forgeries for, who gets brought into all of this mess when her niece Nadine sells one of the forgeries to Clea.

Confused yet? As for Davy, he gets brought in because as he tries to steal his money back from Clea, he runs into Matilda who is trying to steal her painting back. An instant…something is formed between the two and Davy decides to help out.

Okay, so, I’ll admit about half way through this book I was already planning on giving it three stars. The characters weren’t really popping off the page for me, Davy and Tilda’s relationship was pretty much dry and boring, and the whole Simon and Eve/Louise thing sort of reminded me of the Rachel and Leo storyline from the last book. Totally unnecessary. But then, as the secret was revealed that Tilda was the one who had painted the ‘Scarlet’s’ that they had gone around buying back from people, she finally lets go.

And boy did she let go.

The final scene where it’s revealed what the hell was going on throughout the book was actually quite comical, and saved this book from getting a three star rating.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Once Tilda stopped being a tight ass, the book actually became quite fun.

Bookshelf worthy? Electronic or support your local library.

Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

I’m sure we can all agree that there is always a reason for the books we read. Whether it’s to smile, cry, or go to a different world, we all have our reasons. But we also have our moods too. Sometimes you’re just in the mood to cry, sometimes you’re just in the mood to laugh, and sometimes you’re just in the mood to read a good romance.

Two years ago when I started my Reading Challenge – after a year of non-reading – I was on Goodreads trying to figure out what I should read, when I came across the title Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. I liked the premise, so I added it to my reading list. Finally, last September I checked it out from my local library and I fell in love with a new author.

Right. So, Welcome to Temptation. Sophie and Amy Dempsey drive into Temptation to film a movie for a ‘friend’ of theirs named Clea. While in Temptation, they cause quite a controversy. A lot of the town’s population believe that they are filming pornography, and the Mayor Phin is sent in to investigate what they’re up to. What he doesn’t plan for is falling in lust with Sophie, who for reasons revealed right at the beginning (wohoo!) can’t stand him. Yet, somehow they end up together in bed anyway.

And it turns into something so much more.

As much as I love this author, and really this book, there was just something I couldn’t understand with this one. Sophie’s family is conmen, right? Is that what I’m supposed to imply from the five step thing at the beginning? I wish there would have been some more explanation on that.

Right, as for the characters… I loved Sophie and Phin and his daughter. I absolutely hated Amy – the girl needs to learn to take care of herself – and Brandon the therapist was just…. GAH. Is it bad that I desperately wanted Phin to hit him back? As for Liz, Phin’s mom, I didn’t like her at the beginning because she was so controlling of her adult son, but she totally redeemed herself with the whole Virginia thing.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. As much as I loved jumping between Sophie and Phin, I could have done without Rachel’s POV. Yay, for her for getting out of Temptation, but it sort of interrupted the plot.

Bookshelf worthy? I vote electronic or library.

Morganville Vampires Series Book #11: Last Breath by Rachel Caine

So ever since I started reading the physical copies of the Morganville Vampire books (around book 9) I’ve been cheating. Before I start reading the book, I flip to the back of the book and check out the track list that Caine was listening to while writing it. I listen to each song and get a gist of what might happen. For this book, I did the same thing, and after reading it I only have one question. Why wasn’t the song “My Last Breath” by Evanescence not on this list?! The song perfectly describes the second half of the book!

Right. So. Last Breath. I’ll admit that this book started out really slow and I was sitting and going C’mon pick up the pace… when the mysterious runner from the other town with vampires shows up things got real interesting. And they got interesting fast. Something that this runner had causes the Founder Amelie to turn on Claire and Shane and she orders Myrinn to kill Shane. Oliver comes in later to talk her out of it, so he is sent to stop the crazy vamp and man does the action only escalate from there.

Because of Myrinn’s attempt to kill Shane, Claire is no longer speaking to him, which made me a little bit sad for our bunny slipper-wearing vamp. Don’t get me wrong, what he did was bad – but he was under orders and Claire should know that Amelie’s will is hard to fight. Michael and Eve are preparing for their engagement party and their wedding. But even this causes problems with the citizens of Morganville. The humans, because they don’t want to stand with the vampires who have been oppressing them for years. The vampires, because they don’t think they should ‘marry the cattle.’ Bloody freaking hell. So, at the engagement party, the Founder lays down the law and says that she doesn’t approve of the marriage and that it won’t take place. Eve, finally, snaps and cusses out Amelie and bitch slaps her. Holy shit!

You know considering what Amelie did to earn that bitch slap, you would think she would let it slide. Especially because she knows what it’s like to be denied her love. But no…she’s the Founder she has to make an example. Luckily though, Morganville has bigger problems and Amelie quickly forgets about her vendetta against Eve.

The bigger problem for Morganville turns out to be another species of vampires (I won’t even try to spell the name) that are water based, and the master of this species feeds on other vampires to make more of his kind. Hence why there are vampire disappearances all over town and Amelie instigates a vampire wide evacuation of the town.

Oh, and in case that wasn’t enough, the head of this mysterious vampire race kills Claire. But she doesn’t really die. Thankfully, she dies in the Glass House, which has been in tuned to her for a while now, and saves her. However, because she isn’t a Glass she doesn’t get to come back as a ghost like Michael did. …seriously, what was with Hiram Glass? Why did he hate Claire so much?

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. I think I got my daily workout thanks to the ups and downs of this book. And the craziest thing is the book ended on a cliffhanger – the first time since book 5 or so. Uh…excuse me while I go place a hold on the next one.

Bookshelf worthy? Electronic or support your local library.

1-800-WHERE-R-YOU Series Book #3: Safe House by Meg Cabot

The last time we saw Jess Mastrani she had just saved a kid from a cave and had discovered that her ESP powers – the ones she received when she got struck by lightning and make her find lost people if she sees their picture before she goes to sleep – have advanced. When she gets back to start her junior year of high school, she goes back with a new attitude and a new wardrobe.

But her new attitude barely lasts a day. The girl who sat in front of her – Amber – was found dead the day before and the Popular Crowd are blaming her for the girl’s death. How could something like that possibly be her fault? Well, because thanks to good old Karen Sue, everyone still thinks that Jess has her ESP powers and she should have been able to use them to find Amber.

The crazy thing is another girl – Heather – goes missing and this time Jess does everything she can to find her. She does, with help from Rob, but now she’s next.

Okay, so as I keep saying I love Meg Cabot’s books, and I love this series. I just wish that Rob wouldn’t take so long to show up! Seriously, the last book and this one he took at least 100 pages – out of 260 – to finally make appearance. In the last book it made sense because Jess was at a summer camp that was four hours away. But why did it take him so long to show up in this one? It doesn’t make sense! Then there’s Jess cluelessness when it comes to Rob. I mean, in the first book he clearly stated that he felt something for her, he just couldn’t act on it because of his probation. So why does Jess insist on not knowing how Rob feels for her?

Talk about a girl who desperately needs a clue.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Love the twists and turns of the mystery. Love how Rob tries to play all aloof about his feelings for Jess, but eventually just throws it out the window…wish he would do that more. And Jess’s parents are infuriating as usual.

Bookshelf worthy? I really like the cover redesigns that came out in 2007, and it’s Meg Cabot so, yes.