Loved it. Sometimes there's just no need to say anything more than that. I loved this book. However, this being a review, there must be more to say. So I try.
Sophie Quinn is a writer, toiling to produce the most dull material possible. Her husband, Paul Stoddard, has a job with an educational foundation that necessitated their move from Washington, D.C., to Portland, Maine. Sophie's not overly pleased with the move, but she's long acquainted with making the best of things and is dedicated to continuing the practice. Paul, however, makes that difficult for her--he's increasingly distant and dismissive, while at the same time seemingly more interested in a female coworker's opinion about everything than he is about Sophie's.
Rather suddenly fed up and inspired to make a change, Sophie makes a list: a self-improvement list. One of her projects is to join a local walking club, at the urging of the really nice--albeit gay--man that she meets in a diner one morning. That decision may be what starts her life.
Bartolomeo writes like a dream, exactly the way that I wish I could write. Her characters are genius, rich studies in contrasts: delicacy, deviousness, evil, despair, sadness, hope. When I finish one of her books, I am inevitably sad because it's over. How can I not be, with passages like this?
"...maybe it was time after all these years to stop refusing what people offered. All I needed was just a few pointers, just enough to get me started. There was nothing pathetic about that. And after I got started, there was no telling where I could go."Rating: 10/10
II) The not so great: Hissy Fit, by Mary Kay Andrews
Not bad. Not fantastic. I suppose I shouldn't fault it for not being what I was in the mood for, but it was something of a disappointment.
Keeley (barf) Rae Murdock is an interior designer. She's about to marry A.J. Jernigan--until she discovers him en flagrante dilecto with her intended maid of honor, Paige Plummer. Keeley throws a massive hissy fit in the middle of her rehearsal dinner at the country club--and in so doing, ostracizes herself from the entirety of polite society in Madison, Georgia. Her business suffers. She's basically forced to accept a job that she's been reluctant to accept: the must rehab an antebellum mansion owned by Will "Bra Boy" Mahoney. He's the new owner of the Loving Cup intimates company in Madison. He purchased Mulberry Hill with the intention of decorating it in a style that will woo his ideal woman. The problem is that he doesn't really know her yet.
Hilarity ensues. Or, not so much. But she tried.
Insert one gay best friend (Austin LeFleur), one aging parent stuck in the past (Wade), one feisty aunt (Gloria or "Glo"), a bit of very minor intrigue (about which I will not tell anything at all--someone might read this despite my lukewarm review, after all), and one recipe for Grits & Greens, and you have y'er'self the plot of one overlong and undersexed ersatz romance novel, packaged as modern chick lit.
Rating: 5/10
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