Maggie L. (psychocygnet) reviewed on + 2 more book reviews
I really, really wanted to like this book. It's well written, it's got Crusie's mix of fluff and depth and humor, what more can anyone ask?
But I just couldn't get close to the characters. Tess is a strident liberal who berates people for not living, dating and decorating the way she thinks they should, her love interest is almost eerily manipulative once she moves in with him (I mean, how many people are going to stay with a guy who throws away your stuff and then presents you with replacements he picked out?), and Norbert Welch is an absolute caricature of a conservative (whose motives for becoming as wholeheartedly conservative as he did make no sense to me. Trying to tiptoe around spoilers: I can see why he wouldn't be into pacifism, but why is he antifeminist if he turned away from pacifism because of a girl? And why the knee-jerk opposition to things that don't even relate to that epiphany?)
And these characters don't do much changing, either- Tess insists that Nick have wild public sex with her because she's annoyed that she had to make any sort of compromise, and Nick keeps throwing out Tess' clothes until the last chapter or so. They just didn't seem like people who wanted to grow with each other, much less grow old with each other. And maybe that means they deserve the chance to keep punishing each other, but... that isn't very romantic.
But I just couldn't get close to the characters. Tess is a strident liberal who berates people for not living, dating and decorating the way she thinks they should, her love interest is almost eerily manipulative once she moves in with him (I mean, how many people are going to stay with a guy who throws away your stuff and then presents you with replacements he picked out?), and Norbert Welch is an absolute caricature of a conservative (whose motives for becoming as wholeheartedly conservative as he did make no sense to me. Trying to tiptoe around spoilers: I can see why he wouldn't be into pacifism, but why is he antifeminist if he turned away from pacifism because of a girl? And why the knee-jerk opposition to things that don't even relate to that epiphany?)
And these characters don't do much changing, either- Tess insists that Nick have wild public sex with her because she's annoyed that she had to make any sort of compromise, and Nick keeps throwing out Tess' clothes until the last chapter or so. They just didn't seem like people who wanted to grow with each other, much less grow old with each other. And maybe that means they deserve the chance to keep punishing each other, but... that isn't very romantic.
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