Katy reviewed on 6/21/2015 + 13 more book reviews

Let me preface this review by saying I like Katie MacAlister. I've never been able to get into her Dark Ones or Dragons series, but I have all of her 1-shot books. She usually makes me laugh out loud at least once, and her characters are quirky.

In this book, she just tried too hard. The main characters are SO quirky, I really think the book would've been better if they came down with a mysterious disease and died.

Case in point: the lead female is a grown woman who had been living with her fiancee for two years. And she's had some sort of job, so she's not a complete moron. I don't expect or necessarily have a craving for grown people to use swear words, but I expect an adult to speak like an adult. Not refer to sex as "rompy time" or refer to a back pain as an "ouchie back" -- keep in mind, this is still the phase where she's NOT trying to make the guy run screaming for the hills because he thinks she has some unsettling daddy issues.

She apparently DOES know real words, she's just completely incapable of using them in any way that makes sense. For example, when apologizing to a foreign person who obviously does not speak completely fluent English (it's why she's apologizing), she says, "Sorry, that was too colloquial." Riiiiight. Because "colloquial" is one of those words that every non-native person knows.

The language is only one of her issues. By page 150 she's become incapable of using common logic and jumps to conclusions faster than a caffeinated cheetah at a trampoline store. At that point, I just stopped reading the book -- and I very, very rarely stop reading a book once I start. I can (sort of) take main characters who use creepy baby talk, incredibly implausible romance, situations that are beyond ridiculous, and other oddities (I enjoy all of the aforementioned when it's done well, by the way -- well, maybe not the baby talk), but having my pet rock be smarter than the heroine that I'm supposed to root for on top of all the rest? Pass. Hopefully, someone else will enjoy the book.

The first few times you read one of MacAlister's books, the non-language "nnrrg" or "foowah" is rather cute. After a while, you being to wonder just how lazy of a writer she is. I suppose, as long as she keeps selling the books with the same formula, she'll keep writing the same book. This book was not particularly funny, definitely not clever, and having people bang each other within a couple of days of meeting is not romantic. This type of story has been done much, much better before -- by MacAlister herself.

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