Showing posts with label meg cabot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meg cabot. Show all posts

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Book Review: Recent Reads #3


Title: Seeing Me Naked
Author: Liza Palmer
Genre: Chick Lit

Why I Picked It Up: Meg Cabot liked it. I picked it up in the bookstore and it didn't look shitty.

Context: I haven't really been into chick lit in a while. I pretty much got sick of the vapid twenty-something bimbo heroines who don't manage to get their shit together till the end of the novel once I started reading awesome romance novels about strong thirty-something women who find nice men and have fun adventures (and sex).

Basic Plot: Elizabeth is a somewhat trendy pastry chef with a father and brother (who is awesomely named Rascal and who looks and acts exactly like Jeremy Darling from Dirty Sexy Money inside my head) who are famous authors. She's a workaholic, has a some-what dysfunctional long-term on-again-off-again relationship with a globe-trotting journalist, and is starting to think about making serious changes to her life.

Review: I liked it. And I really didn't think I was going to.

I liked the heroine. I especially liked the complicated interactions she had with her family members (especially Rascal). And I liked sitting around watching her think things through and figure her life and promising new relationship with a cute basketball coach.

It was a nice, sweet book and it made me smile.


Superficial Assessments:
Title: Terrible. And really not very appropriate. I can see how it's connected and all... but no. Bad title.
Cover: So-so. I like the color. I especially like that it's not pink and doesn't have shoes on it (If the damn book's not about shoes... I don't want to see shoes on the damn cover!). The picture is unique and kind of interesting, but also kind of strange and odd.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Book Review: Recent Reads #1




Title: Big Boned
Author: Meg Cabot


Context: It's the third entry in Cabot's "Heather Wells Mysteries" series about a moderately chubby former pop star who works at a NY dorm with an alarmingly high death rate.


Review: Meh. I really wanted to like it. I mean, Heather Wells is easily my favorite of Meg Cabot's many heroines. She's grounded and funny and kicks ass.

This novel? Didn't kick enough ass.

It was boring in a lot of places, the central murder mystery was ridiculously unengaging, the resolution was predictable and (again) boring, Heathers graduate student was a gigantic pain-in-the ass, and the ridiculous amounts of coupledom were annoying (saved at one point by Heather hilariously commenting on it... but only to a point).

Overall, it just seemed like Cabot ran out of steam and got on board the derivative train. That sometimes happens with later entries in a Cabot series, though. She's said she recently thought up a plot for a fourth book (after previously stating that this would be the last one because she'd run out of Heather Wells story ideas) so hopefully she's thought up something new.


Worth Reading? Once, yes. As a library rental. Because Heather Wells is still awesome. Either way, I'd definitely recommend the first two novels ("Size 12 is Not Fat" and "Size 14 is Not Fat Either), because they fucking rock. Even though they have ridiculously stupid titles (and really fugly covers).