Recent Reads: A Style Revamp

So, my project really isn't working. The entire blog is dominated by book reviews (which is really not what I wanted). They clog up everything, I never get to them untill weeks after I've read the book in question, and sometimes there isn't much to say. Also, it's summer... and I tend to read a lot of bad porny romance novles in the summer and I just can't make myself write more than a few words about them.

So... format change it is.

Once a week (after this week... obviously), I'll talk about my reading progress a bit and list the books I've read. If they're particularly note-worthy and I've things to say, then they'll get their own "splotlight" entries. Otherwise, they'll just get noted and counted. We'll see how it progresses.

So, to get caught up. Here's how progress since my last book review:

#28: Airhead by Meg Cabot
#30: Pants On Fire by Meg Cabot
#31: Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas
#32: Irresitable by Susan Mallery
#33: It Happened ONe Autum by Lisa Kleypas
#34: Mad Dash by Patricia Gaffney






Airhead is Meg Cabot's latest YA novel. The basic premise is the a normal teenager suddenly switches identities with a teen super-model. I won't give away the surprise twist regarding how this happens though. Luckily, the book is quite fun and I look forward to future entries. Not princess-caliber awesome, but still plenty enjoyable.


Pants on Fire is a YA novel Meg Cabot released last year. It sounds like it's about horny teenagers but it's not. Well, the heroine really does spend a lot of the book making out with very cute boys... but she spends more of it lying through her damned teeth in a attempt to keep all of her balls in the air. But she's at heart a sweet girl, and the crash isn't nearly as terrible as she thinks it's going to be. Fun little stand-alone from Cabot, skews a little younger than I'd prefer. (Even with all of the making out and boy-lusting).


Tempting was really a quite bad romance novel. I randomly picked up Mallory's The Sassy One last summer and surprisingly enjoyed it. (Even though the heroine wasn't really what I'd call "sassy" in the slightest). But every book I've read since of hers has sucked. The writing's hollow, the characters are hollow, and the sex isn't remotely interesting. All of her books feel plastic-y and fake. I'm done. Sorry Susan Mallory, but you're just not for me.


I LOVED Blue Eyed Devil. Lisa Kleypas' latest contemporary romance novel featuring members of the rich Texan oil family. If it were a film, it would be a very glossy, non-preachy, high-class Lifetime movie about a wounded heiress moving on from an abusive marriage and finding love with a self-made millionaire oil-man who is afraid that no matter how good a man he is, it's against his nature and he'll end up hurting those around him. Yeah, I can't imagine recommending it to a single person I know, but I loved it nonetheless. When the paperback comes out and the hardback is super cheap, I'll totally add it to my collection.


Kleypas' historical romance novels are less awesome, though. In fact, I don't really like them at all. I can't say I'm much for the historical romance novel genre in general though. It Happened One Autumn was especially porny and anachronistic (I think that's the word). I breezed right through it and it left very little impression. Except it felt a lot like a poor, sexed-up imitation of a Georgette Heyer novel. And Heyer, in many ways, wrote imitation Jane Austen. So a sloppy, underdeveloped, over-sexed imitation imitation. Not truly terrible, but not really any good either.


Oh, Mad Dash. I've been reading this book since December. This is the second time I borrowed it from the library. I meant to finish it the first time... I really did. It's not the book's fault. I just wasn't in the mood. It's a quiet, funny, bittersweet yet surprisingly hopeful book about a twenty-year marriage and the two individuals in it. It was very good, just not something in my usual style or something that I'd need to read again any time soon. I liked "Flight Lessons" better, though.