Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

The Book of Magic

By Alice Hoffman.

I read Practical Magic so many years ago I don't think I could even find the original review, if I ever wrote one. Ditto the movie. I know the author has been writing prequels to the book and I haven't particularly felt like reading more about the Owens Love Curse during a period of time where you know it's going to be sad. But this book takes place after Practical Magic, so then I was interested.

Since then, Sally's lost another husband to death (bummed me out) and is closed off to love again. Gillian is still with her dude, but hiding that they're married to duck the curse. Antonia, a lesbian, is having a baby with her best gay guy friend, and Kylie's still secretly in love with her best guy friend Gideon. Unfortunately, Sally being all anti-magic about things has led to Sally NOT warning the girls that the family is cursed about love, and poor Kylie finds this out when her boyfriend is hit by a car and is in a coma.

Aunt Jet dies at the beginning of this book, but has about a week of warning before she does so, so she ties up loose ends and digs up a magical book that could help someone get rid of the curse. She left it for her sister Franny, but Kylie finds it and flies off to England, where the curse began. Unfortunately, the magical ally she finds there is Tom, whose line is also cursed and he's looking to do bad things. So most of the rest of the family, including Grandpa Vincent (gay, faked his own death to be with his true love), also fly to England, where they meet some new magical allies. Antonia is stuck at home, but falls in insta-love with the lawyer handling Jet's will. Most notable in this is Sally falling in instalove with Ian, an ex-con turned professor who investigates the dark side of magic. Honestly, I don't know if I lurve that particular relationship or not, but that's the one that gets the most development here. Antonia and Vincent also find true love again, but it's not covered much. Anyway, somebody needs to sacrifice, guess who, and it's time to end this whole thing.

Overall this was a pleasant enough book. I wasn't madly in love but was entertained enough. I think I felt the romances were all pretty shsallowly established. Kylie and Gideon only get a few pages, but it seemed like the healthiest relationship of the bunch. I wasn't too into Ian as a love interest--like, I get that he's not super evil at heart, but he's dubious enough that I was all "I really don't know about this dude as a match for Sally." But it has a happy ending, so I'm good with that. Three and a half stars. 

Happiness for Beginners

By Katherine Center.

I've read the sequel to this, What You Wish For, already. This book takes place...maybe 8-10 years before this one?

Helen Carpenter recently divorced her alcoholic husband and at age 32, has decided to do a 3 week long SUPER INTENSIVE hiking program in the mountains to see if it changes her and her life. She's got a little brother, Duncan, age 22 (and drastically different from what you see in the sequel...but you get where he originated from, I guess), who she finds irritating, along with his best friend Jake. Unfortunately, she finds out that Jake's also signed up for the same program she is. It isn't a coincidence, as Jake's had a crush on her since he was 16. And after he begs a ride along to the program and she grudgingly gives in, Jake starts making moves and Helen finds herself kinda reciprocating...and then changing her mind and saying that she wants to pretend they don't know each other there. Okay, fine.

I admit I found the beginning a bit awkward. Helen's really not paid attention to him at all before other than finding him to be another young bro, though her being 32 and him being 22 doesn't seem to dissuade/bother her as much as you'd expect her to. Helen's also a .... I guess crankier heroine than usual, which I'm certainly fine with, but you do kind of wonder why Jake was pining for so long there when she has had no interest and doesn't even know what his last name is or that the rest of the family (such as they are) adore him. 

Anyway, upon arriving, the program isn't what Helen expected--other than her it's all college kids, especially Greek life ones, and the trip leader looks like he's 16 and SUPER CRANKY. It' promises to be a totally dirt filled, finicky, nitpicky, hardgoing experience, and why did she sign up for this again? She does kind of hit it up with a few people, such as snarky Hugh who ends up doing a wilderness no-no that she has to rescue him from. Then there's Windy, a girl who seems quite perfect and wants to be a pet psychiatrist--the conversation Helen has with her about her SUPER cranky rescue dog Pickle is a hoot. Windy, however, falls for Jake at first sight, as does pretty much everyone else on the trip, because Jake is charming AF. People are planning Jake and Windy's wedding, seriously, and Helen finds herself bothered by that.

This book makes it work, is what I'd say. Helen slowly gets more and more into Jake in the way he'd like, even as she thinks he'll end up with Wendy. She develops a talent for mapreading and does a good job of handling wilderness life after awhile. Jake's issues--we eventually find out the other reason why he wanted to go on the trip besides being with Helen--well, that's quite affecting, especially when it starts to bite him in the ass a bit in the woods. The affection becomes clear and you do root for them. There's also some backstory about Helen's family that comes into play and explains her issues with her brother and her mother. 

Quote Corner:

• "I gave you Jake because you absolutely never believe in yourself--and he finds a way to believe in you every damn day."  May we all find someone who cares about us like that.
• "I had finally come to understand that not getting what you want is actually the trick to it all. Because not getting what you want forces you to appreciate what you already have." 

The book does take awhile to get around to the denouement, which is to say that frankly, the looooooooong last section in which Helen goes to the bar mitzvah of her high school ex's kid (to which everyone else is kinda like "why are you doing that?" and I really don't get why Helen's family even wanted to go?) kind of drags on and on, even if I'm amused that she basically became some kind of bar mitzvah cheerleader or other at it. 

Overall I think I'm giving it three and a half stars. I liked it, but there's a few weak spots. 

 

 

How To Walk Away

By Katherine Center.

We don't learn much about Margaret Jacobsen's previous life before it's utterly destroyed. Her boyfriend's taking piloting lessons and even though Margaret's afraid of flying, she caves in and goes up with him. He proposes in the air, and then crashes the plane. Chip walks away without so much as a Band-Aid, while Margaret will never walk again and has burns to deal with to boot. (I note there's a possible cameo from Cassie in this one as a rescuing firefighter.) Of course she loses her new job that she hasn't gotten to start yet. Of course her new condo has stairs. Of course Chip immediately descends into guilt and alcoholism after what he's done, though I give credit to Margaret for generally realizing that he's not around much and he's a mess when he is and this isn't likely to continue. And of course her mother becomes one of those people who looks up every miracle inspirational story and drums them into Margaret's head, while at the same time literally saying she can't look at Margaret now.

Sounds like a downer, isn't it? I confess I probably wouldn't have picked this up had this not been Katherine Center, who has really impressed me with her books so far. And this did not disappoint.

While in hospital rehab, Margaret is assigned the gruff, surly, Scottish Ian as her physical therapist. He's not obviously fun and encouraging like the other PT's, and he apparently has some SUPER bad blood with his supervisor. But as they get to know each other, well... Ian has Been Through Some Shit, and definitely made some mistakes with the boss, and you are pretty much like "well, no wonder he was surly." He and Margaret eventually hit it off, though the way they met certainly makes things uh, legally difficult.

There's also her sister Kitty, who fled the family and cut them off years ago but finally returns once she's told of Margaret's accident. Kitty had her secret reasons for running, but does her best to be there for Margaret even if she's got issues with their mother. That eventually comes out too.

This isn't just a romance--well, it's slow burn, I'll say--but a story about a lady getting her new life together. This doesn't go all super miracle--Ian's life gets more befucked and at one point he tells Margaret he's not interested when he clearly is, though you can certainly get why he does that. But Margaret does need to make a life for herself, even if she's certainly clear on her feelings as to who's the better man. It's inspirational while being realistic, and it's not syrupy or fake. 

I really only have one quibble about this book, which will go below the spoiler cut. I also do find it a bit odd that we don't know that much about Margaret's previous life--hobbies? what else did she get up to? I guess she was just...perfect by family standards. But I do appreciate that the book doesn't waste time on portraying her life before her old life gets destroyed, since that's going out the window anyway. She builds a new one. Heck, she even knits, which cracked me up as a yarnie. 

This is a very, very good book. Four stars. 

Etta Mae's Worst Bad-Luck Day

By Ann B. Ross.

I've only occasionally read Miss Julia books (I'm not even going to attempt to find previous reviews of any), but this seems to be a side adventure in the same world anyway, presumably early on in the series.

Etta Mae Wiggins is ambitious but poor. She owns her own car and trailer, where she frequently annoys her landlady, Miss Julia, with calling about complaints. She's had two ex-husbands where the relationship went sour. She works as a home health care aide, where she met Mr. Howard Connard, a rich man who's had a stroke. Well, they've hit it off and Howard has proposed. However, his son Junior plans to chuck Howard into a home ASAP, which would throw off Etta Mae's wedding plans. After being fired from her job, Etta Mae realizes she's going to need to sneak around and elope with her potential third husband ASAP.

Yes, Etta Mae is an unapologetic gold digger, pretty much. Not so much that she craves millions, just enough to be able to not worry about money any more. She does, however, admittedly want the respect of the town if she's Mrs. Howard Connard rather than little ol' Etta Mae. She likes Howard and cares about him and doesn't want him in a home (or his kind manservant, Emmett, to be out of work), and she is definitely willing to get sexual with him. Yes, that's at least somewhat intimated as to exactly what Howard can get up to. It's a good bargain, and after her previous husbands she doesn't care about being in love so much any more anyway. So we've got a gold digger who we kind of root for to get to the aisle, you know?

But at the same time, her first ex-husband Skip shows up--he's got a winning lottery ticket and of course there's two thugs chasing after him for it and he keeps trying to hide at Etta's. That's also bad enough, but when she comes home and finds Junior knocked out bloody with a concussion in her trailer, the cops certainly wonder about that one. Did I mention that Etta Mae has another ex-boyfriend, Bobby Lee Moser, who also takes an interest in her and her case/issues?

Anyway, mostly the book is a frantic rush to get herself and her potential third to the church on time, as it were. The girl can hustle and cover her bases, I gotta say, and it was a compelling read to me. Despite the subject matter, I actually didn't mind the whole gold digging thing--she's clear eyed as to what she's doing and why and she seems to care about her future husband, and you really want Howard away from his relatives. However, the ending....well, I'll have to cover that below the spoiler cut. I guess I will say that the ending is of course inevitable, and yet kind of fizzled a bit too fast.

Three and a half stars. 

Things You Save in a Fire

By Katherine Center.

"So, to succeed in my new job, I basically need to be an asexual, androgynous, human robot that's dead to all physical and emotional sensation." 

Cassie Hanwell is a female firefighter. She's extremely good at her job and gets along great with her coworkers in Austin, and has even won an award...But when the guy who did A Very Bad  Thing* to her as a teenager turns out to be the guy giving her the award...and then he gropes....well, Cassie suddenly beats the shit out of him with said award in front of everyone. 

• You can certainly guess what this was, though the actual word isn't said . 

Cassie was on the promotion track, now she's on the "possibly gonna get fired for that" track. However, around the same time her mother's told her that she's lost vision in one eye and needs Cassie to move to the Boston area to help her out...but only for a year. Cassie's been estranged from her mother since her mother left her dad for another man on Cassie's 16th  birthday and of course she says hell no, but clearly the universe has set things up to make Cassie move anyway.

Before she goes, her female captain gives her huge warnings: Cassie's only been in places that wanted her, and her new captain straight up hates female firefighters, but he's desperate and had 2 people retire. The captain gives her the rundown: nothing feminine about you whatsoever, don't cry, don't date, don't do anything further to remind people of your gender. Uck, but there it is.

Actually, the job isn't too bad at first. Sure, the guys are grumbly about having to hide the porn, and they do pranks (well, she's fine with that, used to that), and the station is rundown as heck and missing useful medical things, but it could be worse. However, there is the rookie. Who is gorgeous and sweet and enlightened and adorable, if it a bit easily squicked out by the medical aspects of the job. Cassie's paired with him pretty frequently and even though she tries to avoid him, she fell at first sight when she's never loved anyone before--she's never gone there after That Guy. But oh dear god, she can't date him or even be slightly partial to him.

Of course, this is a romance, so...suffice it to say she starts heading towards that ledge, in a manner of speaking. But then when budget cuts hit and one of them has to get canned--someone starts giving Cassie the hazing/stalking treatment she was warned about, and then there's a significant fire...I'll discuss more below the spoiler cut, but suffice it to say that the last section of the book really heats up, plotwise. I love how Cassie calls out these guys, saying that they're supposed to be heroes, but instead someone's throwing a brick through her mother's window. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book (I got it from the library and am getting it for Christmas as a keeper). I love Cassie and how she's turned herself into a buff lady who nobody should ever be able to mishandle again. She's avoided all relationship stuff since age 16 and she's still openly resentful of her mother for leaving in the way that she did. Her mother acknowledges  that she did wrong, but there were extenuating circumstances going on that forced her hand, more or less. There is definitely some dynamics going on about being a "man's woman" (i.e. "technically I'm a girl but let's try to forget that?") at her job, vs. being around her mother and her mother's best friend, who are crafters. While Cassie doesn't go full softy necessarily, she learns that it's okay and safe to have a more womanly side when she wants to--and I enjoyed that the guys at her work realize that too by the end. 

The rookie that she falls for....well, I think it's pretty weird how she literally tries to avoid learning so much as his NAME (it's a little ridiculous that we don't find out his full name until like 180 pages in!). I certainly get trying to avoid him for her own career safety, but the name thing's a little dumb. Btw, I would like to say that between this book and What You Wish For, the author writes "love at first sight, but we still have more plot to go through and things don't just start easily" very, very well. The rookie is SUPER sweet and adorable and totally worthy, and isn't it nice to see a guy who's actually worthy of someone?

I'll talk about the end below the spoiler cut, but this is highly recommended by me. Four and a half stars.

What You Wish For

By Katherine Center.

This book is amazing.

Backstory: Librarian Samantha Casey has epilepsy, which literally made her father decide to ditch her forever. She basically lost her family over this.. Later, she worked at a school in California and fell madly in love with Duncan Carpenter, a totally wacky, happy, enthusiastic guy who was always wearing crazy outfits and doing amazing things in the classroom. (He sounds like great fun, I gotta say.) But she never got up the nerve to really interact with him, someone else asked him out. The one time they had any interaction, he asked her to cat-sit and when she found herself reading through a notebook of his, she was all, "This is Too Much," and she got another job in Galveston, Texas. 

The new job in Galveston has been heavenly. It's a little patch of hippies in the middle of Texas, and Sam lives in the carriage house of the school founders, Max and Babette Kempner. She adores Max and Babette and feels like she's a second daughter/found a new family with them--even if their actual daughter Tina hates her for this. (I note that Tina is married to Kent, a complete jerk who runs the school board, and has a sweet kid named Clay who thankfully takes after his grandfather.) Everything there is really great.

And then Max drops dead while dancing at his party. Everyone is devastated. And it's even worse when Kent takes over and hires a new principal.... which turns out to be Duncan. At first Sam is delighted--he'd be a new Max all over again!--except Duncan HAS CHANGED. He's now a boring suit guy. He's no fun at all. He's completely obsessed with safety above all else. And he pulls out a painted squirt gun in the middle of a meeting to scare the shit out of everybody. THE FUCK?!? AT A SCHOOL?!?!

Soon everyone hates him and his memos about firing the security guard, canceling all field trips forever, canceling the playground, and painting all walls gray. On the one hand, this sure helps Sam get over that crush she had. On the other hand, this guy has turned hella awful and she openly declares him her enemy and the rest of the school feels the same way.

So what happened to Duncan? You the reader will have long since figured it out before Sam does as to what happened to him to make him suddenly change into a guy who's literally all about nothing but school security--I can only assume that's Idiot Ball sort of logic to put off a big reveal. That said, I did really enjoy HOW it came about, i.e. Duncan needs someone to give him a ride/watch him after surgery that gets him high and amnesiac about everything he blabs about liking Sam, as well as what happened to him.

After finding that information out, that changes the plans, and Sam and Babette and company come up with a plan to improve Duncan/get him to have fun again/get him into therapy, not get his ass fired, and it's all very sweet. 

The relationship between Sam and Duncan is pretty damn adorable, even if the whole "you shouldn't be dating your boss" thing is utterly ignored in this one. (I guess private schools...don't care?) You definitely feel they are Meant To Be, even if it took some time. And I love how Sam came out of her shell after being a boring dresser when she originally worked with Duncan--after her epilepsy came back, Max encouraged her to do things that made her happy, like dressing colorfully and having pink bangs. (I don't have pink bangs, but did have pink hair for awhile.) Though even though Sam seems like she mostly is over her own stuff, she does get triggered about her epilepsy and whether or not it will drive someone away like it did in the past. 

Anyway, I found this sweet and adorable and inspirational and four and a half stars. I got it as a library book, I may need to purchase it to keep. 

Quotes:

• "One flower hat can't fix all my problems." "No, but it can sure help." -Sam and Max
• "The point is to be happy anyway. As often as you can." -Max
• "I might never drive, but dammit--I had a fun wardrobe." -Sam
• "Fuck lunch duty." -Sam
• "I bite and scratch and claw my way toward happiness every day." -Sam

The Midnight Library

By Matt Haig.

Nora Seed is 35 and feeling fed up with life. She never made anything of herself, she never got married, she lost her job, her cat died, blah de blah. However, upon presumably attempting to do herself in, she ends up in "The Midnight Library," a space in the world between worlds or something like that, run by the memory(?) of an old librarian, who tells her that she can try out all the different lives she didn't live and see if there's one of them she'd like to move into instead.

Sounds fun, right?

"Want is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely. Maybe you have a lack problem rather than a want problem. Maybe there is a life that you really want to live." -Mrs. Elm. 

Nora tries out the lives you'd wonder about: 

• What if she'd married Dan and settled down to pub life with him? Dan's still not happy and cheating on her. (Dan never pans out, really.)
• What about her cat? Well, he was going to die either way.
• What if she'd become an Olympian? Some things are better, some things are worse.
• What if she'd become a rock star? Some things are better, some things are worse.
• What if she meets another "slider" doing the same thing?
• What if she just keeps trying out lives for eternity, realizing that you'll never find the ideal life?

Sometimes people's lives change--they may stay alive longer or die anyway--depending on what Nora did or where she was. Some relationships improve and some devolve. She goes through The Book of Regrets and the more lives she checks out, the less regrets she ends up having any more. She also realizes that she was trying out lives for other people--what if she'd done X or Y like someone else wanted--and then starts to vary it up.

But once you try a life and reject it, you can't ever go back to it, and when Nora finds a pretty good life with a nice husband and child--will she stay? Can she stay? 

In the end, I think you kind of know how things are going to resolve, even if Nora doesn't necessarily know that. I'll discuss the ending below the spoiler cut. Overall I liked this one, in a chill, quiet, interesting sort of way. In the end, she realizes it's the regret that gets to you more than anything else, but "most of what we'd feel in any life is still available." It was very profound. 

Four stars. 

Problem Child

By Victoria Helen Stone.

Previous book here.

Every review I've read of this book says "It's not as good as the first one." I disagree. Sure, it's not a revenge tale--if anything it reminds me of whichever Dexter book it was where he realized his stepchildren also had Dark Passengers or whatever--but I still enjoyed it, thought it was fitting Jane, etc.

Anyway: a few years or so later, things are going well for Jane in her relationship and she's having a good time screwing with (but not screwing) a coworker who keeps trying to take her credit and whatnot. Then her boyfriend Luke is starting to want to move in together and maybe rethink the no-kids thing, and Jane freaks out. Around this time, she gets a phone call from one of her her deadbeat convict brother's babymommas, who appears to be the only one concerned that his 16-year-old daugther Kayla has been missing for like a month. Jane obviously wouldn't normally give any kind of a shit, except for a remark that Kayla is like Jane.

Another sociopath in the family? Sounds likely. Jane is intrigued enough to go to Oklahoma--which is as awful as you'd figure--and deal with her relatives again (ditto). It helps to get to run away from her relationship stuff too, and Jane certainly enjoys detective work. I'm still not clear on why wind turbines were A Thing in the mystery here, but there is a hilarious scene with a guy named Derrick--and how she manipulates him WITHOUT putting out--that is goddamned hilarious. Eventually Jane finds Kayla and while Kayla is certainly up to some bad shit, Jane thinks she has potential to make more of herself if she's mentored. And Jane is intrigued enough to want to give this a shot. 

It is implied at the end of the book that maybe this might be a bit tricksier than Jane originally thought, though. Is Kayla moldable, or will she be independent enough to cause serious trouble that Jane can't deal with? We shall see, assuming there's a book 3. I confess I'm with Jane on the "hm, this could be interesting, let's see how it goes" category. Finding a mini-me must be intriguing, right?

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Jane's voice again and hanging out with her, and look forward to her future exploits with a teenager in tow. Four stars. 

Jane Doe

By Victoria Helen Stone.

Jane (last name unknown, duh) thinks she is a sociopath, though maybe she's not as bad as she thinks. She had a traumatic, neglectful, abusive childhood in Oklahoma and learned to shut down most of her emotions, so she feels a lot more remote compared to most people. However, she had one best friend in the world, Meg, who she loved and cared about. Unfortunately, Meg got into an abusive relationship while Jane was living in Kuala Lumpur, so Jane was only so aware of what was going on beyond the constant breakups and getting back together. And then finally, Meg killed herself because of her "soulmate" abandoning her. 

Now Jane has taken two months leave from her job and returned to Minneapolis where they went to college and gotten herself a data entry job under a fake last name (unrevealed) at Meg's ex Steven's business. She's blonded up her hair and bought a bunch of cute girly flowery dresses and lacy bras to peek out from  under them. She's going to be catnip to Steven, he will pursue her, and then she's going to take him down. Maybe she'll kill him--at least, she certainly ponders it--but her overall plan is to figure out what he loves the most and take it away from him. Pretty straightforward plot there! You want a revenge fantasy, there you go.

Jane has studied people since she doesn't get them, and she can read Steven like a book in his shitty push-pull behavior. I think any woman who's ever been in an abusive relationship or suspects she is in one should read this, because this book makes it clear that that kind of shitty man behavior is a PLAYBOOK. Steven negs Jane about her weight--she's a size ten and perfectly fine with that, thank you very much, but he'll switch between "You're a good eater" and "Do you REALLY want that dessert?" behavior.

Steven has a very obvious "every woman in the world is a dirty whore" complex, which presumably comes from (a) being raised evangelical Christian by a pastor dad and (b) his mom having an affair and leaving when he was 15. I feel sorry for him on those two points, but by now he's a manipulative asshole whos' the sort that always wants to make a woman dependent on his approval, which he'll yank away semi-frequently for his own amusement. Happily, Jane gives absolutely no fucks about Steven's approval or feelings or whatever, so in her head she's being all, "Really, dude?!" while outwardly she's pretending to be distressed by him calling her a whore again. She "makes mistakes," she plays him like a fiddle. It's brilliant. Seriously, all women should read this to know what these fuckers are like. 

But Jane's not all bad. She adopts and is fond of her (also nameless) cat. And then she runs into Luke, a brief boyfriend she had in college who's very happy to see her again. While she's "dating" Steven, she also dates Luke, who is genuinely nice, comes from a somewhat similar shitty family background, and he enjoys just like, hanging out and reading. Luke thinks Jane is perhaps a bit autistic or something, but he finds her restful compared to his mama drama that he grew up with. It's adorable. 

There's only one thing I thought didn't go as well, which I'll discuss below the spoiler cut. But I did love how the takedown went on and what she did to do it, and the ending was as good as it could get, I think.

Four stars. I really enjoyed this and recommend it.

Here are some other reviews I enjoyed reading. I also agree with this SMTB review:

As I read this book I thought, what if Jane is not a sociopath, but rather an example of a what a woman can be when all the baggage that comes from being a woman is stripped away–the doubt, the irrational sense of familial duty, the self-criticism? She has such immense power in that way. What if all women were like that? What a terrifying world that would be for so many men.

I admit that's something that also appealed to me about The Rook: what if all the shitty baggage of being yourself/a woman was stripped away and you didn't feel it and weren't affected by it any more? 

Sex and Vanity

By Kevin Kwan.

(Disclaimer: I'm going to spoil the whole plot here. I just don't see the point in holding back in this one. Also, I'm writing this up on the day of the Harry/Meghan interview and the half-PoC stuff coming up here seems super relevant.) 

Lucie Tang Churchill is what she sounds like: a half Chinese Churchill from THOSE Churchills. Her mother Marian is a lovely person (and apparently a genius geneticist!), but since Lucie is the kid that takes after her in looks--her brother Freddie came out white-looking--she gets off and on weird racist shit like being called a "China doll" by her racist grandmother and gets asked if she feels more Chinese or more white. Lucie has been raised fairly well white and does her best to blend in and assimilate and whatnot.

At age 19, Lucie goes to a wedding on Capri with her older cousin Charlotte as chaperone. While there, they meet the SUPER generous--if a rather kooky dresser--Rosemary Zao and her extremely hot, serious teenage son George. We don't get a whole lot of personality development from George, probably because unlike everyone else in this world, he's not too into the title words (and indeed, calls them out in his biggest speech in the book). Lucie reacts on a weird soul level to meeting George, in an "I'm repulsed and yet super attracted to you" sort of way. He's not the sort that she wants, but somehow she's still fascinated. And when a guy has a heart attack and falls into Lucie's lap while she's at a cafe, she freaks the hell out and runs away because it reminds her of her father's death. George understands her pain, they have a few moments, and finally they start giving into their passion. George goes down on Lucie...and then some assholes fly a drone camera over them, capturing the moment. While the drone/video situation is thwarted, Charlotte chews Lucie out for what she got up to, think of the consequences, and well, the implications of a half-Chinese girl getting involved with a Chinese guy in their world....

Five years later, Lucie and George meet again in NYC, right after Lucie has gotten engaged (very public proposal-y) to Cecil Pike, a white rich social climber guy who's financially generous, into sexual role play (this was a bit eye-rolly!) and gets super triggered out by running into snobbery, like being around Lucie's relatives. He absolutely loses his shit for a few pages when he shows up at a club with a shirt without a collar, and he's frequently spectacularly rude to Lucie's mother and brother, both of who are perfectly nice to him. At one point Cecil absolutely slams the idea of asking a celebrity guest he knows to go to Marian's benefit, scoring the idea that the celebrity would EVER go to something as puny as Marian's event. Freddie uses "six degrees of separation" to invite the woman, who accepts enthusiastically. After this, Lucie is literally "Ew" at the idea of becoming "Mrs. Cecil Pike" (something that made me gag every time I read her bragging about it) and she peacefully and tactfully ends the engagement. 

Marian and Rosemary become fast friends, forcing Lucie to deal with George and their attraction rearing up. (And at one point, bizarrely, their oral sex/drone incident actually MAKES IT INTO SOMEOBODY'S MOVIE, THE FUCK?!) George pleads his case, it's very romantic, Lucie rejects him....and then forges a shitty-yet-kinda-amusing letter to the co-op board from her mother when Rosemary wants to get an apartment in their building. Rosemary, as it turns out, is very forgiving and understanding once she finds out that George has been coming on to Lucie against her will. 

This description I just wrote is a whooooole lot more interesting than the actual book. That's about why I got it--the plot sounded at least somewhat interesting, However, much as I know Kevin Kwan loves to snob about and make snobby comments that are amused at snobbery and whatnot, he could have used a bit less of this and a bit more love story. I feel like this is supposed to be a romance novel, more or less, but the romance needs more building. George and Lucie have inexplicable attraction, but they don't spend all that much time together to build upon it. There is LITERALLY no scene in which the two of them finally get together--the big climactic scene is Lucie talking to his mother, and then we cut to an island epilogue in which they're together, and that's it. The fuck? I felt like I was eating half-cooked baked goods.  Also, while Lucie is nice most of the time, she gets a bit shitty to George and especially his mother on that co-op letter, and I was all yeesh, girl. I liked Lucie dealing with the racism she got brought up with, when that happens, but it's not as much of a plot element as you'd think. 

I rather liked her mother and brother (I wouldn't mind if the brother was in the sequel, but alas, he got a girl offscreen at the end) and Rosemary and Charlotte aren't so bad, but there's just not all that much to this one. Two and a half stars.