Review #13: Calling Me Home, by Julie Kibler

Calling Me Home is a wonderful debut novel from Julie Kibler, and I predict this will be this year's The Help.

Miss Isabelle, an eighty-nine-year-old white woman, asks her hairdresser Dorrie, a thirty-something black woman, to accompany her to Cincinnati for a funeral.

The story switches between Dorrie narrating in present day and Isabelle telling the story of her early life, set in the late 1930s and early 1940s, just as America was emerging from the Depression, on the eve of the second World War. Dorrie's got a lot on her plate - her young son is in some grown up trouble, her beauty shop isn't exactly a cash cow, and the man she's dating seems to good to be true. She's having a lot of trouble trusting that he's not going to turn tail and run like all the other men in her life have.

Young Isabelle is the daughter of a country doctor, living in a small southern town that doesn't allow non-whites to be within the city limits after sundown. Like many young southern girls of that era, she bonds more closely with her mother's maid, Cora, than with her own mother, and finds herself falling in love with Cora's son Robert. But true love or not, this is 1940s Kentucky, and the son of a black maid has no business even being near a young white girl, let alone loving her.

No review I give this book will do it justice. It's an excellent read on all accounts, and both Isabelle's and Dorrie's stories are extremely compelling. I found myself in tears on more than one occassion, and I can't wait to see what Kibler will write next.

Review #12: Beautiful Bastard, by Christina Lauren

Beautiful Bastard started out as Fifty Shades of Twilight fanfic. Someone, some really, really, really stupid someone, actually greenlit this pile of crap and published it. On paper. With, you know, ink and glue. That person should be fired.

Chloe Mills is an intern at a big, fancy-schmancy family company, and she's working for Bennett Ryan, who is the surly prodigal son, recently back from Europe and poised to take charge of the company. Somehow, Chloe knows the Ryan family, including Bennett's dad, and they all love her, but for some reason, Bennett hates Chloe, and Chloe thinks he's a jackass. Which, he kind of is, so I can't fault her for that. But what I can fault her for is that five pages in, she's leaning over a conference room table, and Bennett's got his hand up her skirt, ripping her underwear, and suddenly, they're boinking all over the place.

Of course, Chloe's horrified, and Bennett clams up, and he goes back to being a jackass, and she goes back to being... whatever Chloe is. But ten pages later, they're boinking again. Lather, rinse, repeat, and you know what the most annoying part is? He rips her underwear every freaking time. And little Miss Chloe here doesn't wear Hanes Her Way. No, ma'am. She wears Agent Provacateur and La Perla. On an intern's salary. And likes it when Bennett rips her drawers. I'm here to tell you, if I spent three hundred bucks on a pair (one pair!) of underwear, I don't care if it's George Clooney himself, nobody's ripping my skivvies. My biggest splurge is the 5 for $25 sale at Target, and I think I'd get mad if George ripped one of those. (Well, maybe not. It's George. Probably I could make him buy me some new ones.)

And then, the book just... ends. Sex, sex, sex, underwear ripping, sex, big fight, weird uncomfortable slightly rapey scene in a lingerie shop, sex, sex, underwear ripping, sex, and then that's it.

Chloe, honey? Kick Bennett to the curb, find someone who's not going to be all rapey in the conference room, and maybe get some therapy. And Bennett? Grow up and get over yourself. You are a jabillionaire with a nice family who loves you. You have no reason to be all angsty. And learn to do the BDSM thing the right way, dude.

You know what this book is? It's porn. Which is okay. I like porn, if it's well done. But this is bad porn. With bad sex. Bad cheesy hairy 70s porn with a big giant porn stashe and a bow chicka wow wow soundtrack. Ew.

Review #11: Tainted, by Brooke Morgan

Holly Barrett is swept off her feet by Jack Dane, a charming Englishman with not a few quirks. She falls madly in love, and within weeks, Jack is living in her home (with Holly's young daughter Katy, mind you), and they marry. Holly's grandfather Henry - her only living relative since her parents were killed three years ago - blesses the relationship, even going so far as to help foster the union when they first meet.

Enter Katy's absent dad Billy, the young wealthy city boy who took Holly's virginity and left her with a baby on the way. Billy's spidey senses are tingling, and he knows there's something up with Jack Dane. But Holly and Henry can't see past Jack's charms, or their anger at Billy for leaving Holly and Katy behind, and Billy is left out in the cold.

Eventually, though, Henry can't tune out Billy's protests, and starts to research who Jack Dane really is. Jack figures out that Henry and Billy are on to him, and what happens next is shocking.

Morgan is a decent enough writer, but I found myself quite frustrated with the characters. Jack is so glaringly wrong that I couldn't understand how Holly could fall for him, and more, how everyone else could be so charmed by him as well. Jack, for his part, is not as charming as Morgan seems to think he is. Only Katy, Billy, and the dog (the dog, for heaven's sake! really?) seem to be able to see through Jack's facade.

Review #10: Eat, Drink, and be from Mississippi, by Nanci Kincaid

I've sat on this review for a week or two, mainly because I'm not sure what to say about it. Eat, Drink, and be from Mississippi follows the story of Truely Noonan, a young man from Mississippi who lights out for the fortunes of California as soon as he is legal. He falls in love, makes his millions, and loses his love. He drifts through life, meeting a young teenage boy through a convoluted series of events, and winds up almost adopting him. His sister's marriage falls apart, she becomes more involved in his life, and he realizes that family sometimes finds you, whether you want them to or not.

Eat, Drink is an okay book. It's not fantastic, and it didn't leave me on the edge of my seat. There were a few twists I didn't see coming, and I was relatively satisfied with the ending. I wish that Kincaid had fleshed out her characters a little bit more, though. It's like she edited out huge sections that would have given her characters heart and empathy and sympathy and soul.

I probably would have put this book down and wandered away from it, save the fact that I feel like I invested too much time in to it to not finish it.

Review #9: Crash, by Nicole Williams

When I was younger, reading YA fiction when I was actually, you know, a "young adult", Judy Blume's Forever was the scandal du jour, the book every library needed to ban so that we wouldn't learn about The Sex. Judy and Forever are about as harmless as a puppy when held up against Nicole Williams and her first book in a trilogy about the "good girl" and the "bad boy".

On the surface, it's not a horrible book. Good girl Lucy meets bad boy Jude on the eve of her senior year in high school, and they fall in love as only seventeen-year-olds can. He is inappropriate for her in every single way, and they both know it, but she doesn't care. He has no family - is living in a foster home, in fact - and her family is a ghost of what it once was, tragedy having torn them to bits years earlier. They come together and fall apart a half a dozen times, finally culminating in a cheesy gradution speech that would make John Hughes cringe.

If all this book was was an on-again, off-again teen romance, I would set it aside, sigh a little at the fact that kids these days have crappy books to read, and move on. (And possibly think about my own high school boyfriend a little bit, and the drama we created. I think I may owe my mom some apologies for that.) Dig beneath the surface, though, and you have a romantic lead who is prone to violent outbursts, which Williams shows in a positive light, and a relationship that is so codependant, so disfunctional, Anna and Christian Grey look like the poster children for a healthy marriage. In fact, you know what this book is? It's the YA equivalent of Fifty Shades, only without the sex. That's terrifying to me and this is why: Fifty Shades didn't bother me because of the sex, or the "abuse" or the psuedo-BDSM business; it bothered me because Christian Grey was an obssessed, possessive, scared little boy, and controlled Anna in more ways than just the bedroom. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the bedroom was the only place that Christian didn't control Anna.

Jude is like Christian Grey, only without the handcuffs and grey silk tie. His possessiveness isn't sweet or endearing or romantic - it's scary. It's the prequel to the husband who slowly but surely isolates his wife, who loves her with the kind of obssessive love that makes you wind up a Lifetime movie of the week. And Lucy's determination to save Jude is admirable, but he's not a puppy she can save, and at seventeen, she needs to be more concerned with her own future than his.

As a single mama who is trying my damndest to teach my daughter that she is a strong, independent woman, and, quite frankly, to teach her that I am, too, especially after years of not being one, I'm appalled at the underlying message this book sends. If Jude is the new romantic leading man that we're selling to our daughters, I fear for their future.

Review #8: Savannah Blues, by Mary Kay Andrews

Full disclosure: I feel like I've read this book before. Romance and chick lit is like that, and usually, I figure it out within the first 100 pages. This time, though, I finished the entire book and I still couldn't tell you.

Eloise (Weezie) is a Savannah antique picker, someone who goes around to dumpsters and yard sales and picks the treasures to sell to the antique shops in town. (As someone who dabbles in that, it's not nearly as easy in real life as it is for Weezie.) Weezie lives in the carriage house behind her ex-husband Talmadge Evans III's home, where he is shacking up with Caroline, the woman for whom he left Weezie. Tal is kind of a jackass, and Caroline's kind of a bitch, and when Caroline turns up dead, Weezie's the prime suspect.

Weezie's quickly cleared of the murder charges, but soon discovers there are other shenanigans afoot in her little town, and she's suddenly knee-deep in them. Along the way, there's a super hot restaurant cook, Weezie's uncle James (a priest-turned-lawyer), her mama, who gets in to the bourbon and Xanax every day, and her crazy best friend Bebe.

Andrews' writing and plots are reminiscent of Jennifer Crusie, kind of madcap and adventurous, with a little bit of romance, and a female main character who is kind of a mess. It's not great literature, but it's a fun little diversion.

Review #7: Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks

Yeah, I know. Nicholas Sparks. But he wrote The Notebook, and, well, I'm a sucker. And this was a freebie on my Nook.

Safe Haven introduces us to Alex, a young widower with two small children who runs the local small town general store, and Katie, a beautiful girl with a secret to hide. Katie's on the run from her husband Kevin, a detective with the Boston Police Department who has a propensity for beating his wife. Katie (of course) winds up falling for Alex, and their only real struggle is that Kevin finds Katie and goes bananas.

I realize that this is a romance novel, and it's not based in reality. I know that Sparks is not exactly considered high-end literature, but this book irritated the daylights out of me. Sparks kind of tried to delve in to Kevin's crazy side, but not enough. Sparks kind of tried to convey Katie's fear when she was getting ready to run, and later, after she left. Sparks kind of tried to show Alex's reluctance at falling in love again and saddness at the realization that his children were forgetting their mother. But he just...didn't.

I've been sitting here on my couch trying to figure out why it irritated me so much, and it finally dawned on me: it's like a Lifetime movie. And like a Lifetime movie, the only reason I finished this is because I was hungover this morning.