Chick Lit

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

3 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

I can’t for the life of me figure out why our library does not have a copy of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. I’ve been checking once a month for at least a year. I finally got tired of checking and requested it via interlibrary loan. Two days later, I had the book in my hand. Why I waited so long to go that route is beyond me. The moment I finished it, I went to the ILL form and requested the sequel.
The Pink Carnation was a fun read, quick and compelling read, and definitely chick lit. But really excellent chick lit. Good characters, good dialogue, good sex scenes. Heh. Happy ending, too. Excellent in every way.

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Psycho Bums er Butts

2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Reading Lists /

In May, I saw this list of books recommended for kids, by kids. The list comes to us from Australia which made it extra interesting to me. I like all book lists but book lists from interesting places are the best. I scrolled the list and “The Day My Bum Went Psycho” caught my eye. Okkkkk, never heard of it but I decided I really needed to check it out.

I went to Amazon and discovered “The Day My Butt Went Psycho“. Of course it got a name change for the US market. Bum is not politically correct. Americans must say BUTT. I clicked my little library search tool, never expecting our library to have it, and they did have it. I reserved it and found myself number THREE on the list. Sheesh. Two people ahead of me for this book. Interesting!

Ten days later, I picked it up from the library and presented it to RJ, our 10 year old bookaholic. She started reading it on Memorial Day Saturday as we drove to the Corn Festival. She pretty much didn’t stop reading ’til she was done (except to eat fair food and ride fair rides). She read one page and announced, “Yep, his butt went psycho”! There was all sorts of interesting discussion about psycho butts as we drove toward the corn. When she finished, RJ said it was good – weird but in a good way.

TW read it next and said it was funny in that 10 year old butt humor sort of way. I didn’t think I wanted to read it. I have enough butt humor in my life already, thank you very much. But, I changed my mind after making it through The Moonstone (yea me!). I needed some butt humor after all.

And butt humor was what I got. We know butt humor but the author has gone above and beyond the call of butts err duty. If you have a kid who likes butt humor, this is your book. If you know people who find phrases like “cluster butt” and “butt-catcher” funny, then this is your book. If you know some folks who walk around with their butts where their heads should be (like bosses or idiot ex husbands or something like that) then this is your kind of book.

Butt humor. Sheesh.

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Carolina Isle

2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction /

Problem #1 – Why is this book called Carolina Isle? Yes, it’s about an island off of NC (fictional island, real state) but the island is called Kings Isle. Why not name the book Kings Isle? Dumb name.

Problem #2 – The two cousins are suppose to look alike enough to be able to “swap lives”. So when RJ spotted Ariel across the room at a party, why didn’t he mention this look-alike to Sara? Weird and dumb.

Problem #3 – What the …. ? An island where the inhabitants set up tourists to fleece money out of them, ok I get that. But in such an extreme, dreamlike, unimaginable way? Give me a break.

What’s weird is I got past all three of those problems and found myself enjoying this ridiculous book – it was almost like science fiction or an episode of the Twilight Zone. Just as I’m enjoying it, and looking forward to the “mystery” resolved and the couples falling in love and stuff – BAM – cruddy ending.

I liked that the rich and spoiled and sheltered girl saved the day. Terrific. Good job. But to wrap it all up in a “1 year later” sort of way was just ridiculous. And have everything tied up, the way it was. Ack, it went from Twilight Zone (which was likeable) to Harlequin (which was ridiculous).

At some point last night I was looking forward to reading the other Jude Deveraux book that is on the shelf. Now I think I’ll just skip it. Mindless adventury/mystery/love stories I can enjoy, but when you screw up an ending that way – there are better ways to spend my time.
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Anyone But YOU!

5 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites /

Anyone But You was pretty darn amusing – for a mindless bit of chick lit for 40ish women. Particularly mindless chick lit for 40ish women who like dogs.

Nothing new or unusual happened in the book. Older woman meets younger man. Older woman and younger man are both attracted and have to figure out how to make a move, when to make a move and why to make a move. Moves were made and then older woman tries to screw it up because she’s sure the younger dude couldn’t love her old flabby body and younger dude tries to screw it up because he’s sure the older woman wants a more high money/high profile kind of life. The dog, of course, pretty much saves the day – with a little help from the dysfunctional brother and dysfunctional best friend.

Even though there wasn’t anything “new or unusual” it was fun and I like fun.

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Weird, Weird, Weird

4 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction /

I wish someone had told me that the first 20 or so pages of Emotionally Weird were so insane and boring… getting through those first 20ish pages was hell. (I should start reading the Amazon reviews for these things) It took me 10 days to get through that section and then just a little more than a day to finish the rest of the book.

It was, indeed, emotionally weird – and weird in general. Pretty amusing and fun little book. Too bad about the beginning, though.
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The Understudy

2 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction /

The Understudy was a cute little bit of fluffy chicklit – if the main character is a man, can it still be chick lit???? It’s was an “understudy” sort of book – a not great but waiting in the wings to go on, perfectly acceptable sort of book. I liked the ending. Boy didn’t really get the girl. Boy didn’t get his big break and become the star he always knew he could be. No nice neat ending.

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Weddings are Bad

2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Mystery /

See I told you weddings were bad. You get married and bam someone poisons your champagne…. or was it your wife’s champagne? Either way, you’re wed and dead and buried! Wed and Buried was definitely not church-like (see my previous read about The Peabody Sisters) and it was definitely not great chick lit either.

Nice break from the Unitarians but I don’t want to read any more of that stuff! Moving along, and quickly!

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