No…that is not the title of the book I just finished. That is my state of mind. The book shall remain anonymous, but the rant cannot be held in any longer.
Where to start. Okay, first I’ll begin with the fact that this book is hilarious, the characters are strong, the voices are great, the dialogue is snappy, and the author switches back and forth (not on a regular schedule, but as needed) between the female and the male character quite adeptly. So why am I not telling you what it is or where to get this fabulous book?
Coincidence.
We’ve all read books full of coincidence, right? Sometimes you buy it, sometimes you don’t, but when the entire plot hinges on a a HUGE, MASSIVE, UNEXPLAINABLE coincidence, how am I supposed to love your book, no matter how well it’s written? And as if one coincidence isn’t bad enough, why not throw in another fairly large one for good measure? I just wonder how in the world the writer got these past the editor?
What happened was I spent a lot of non-reading time trying to rethink how she could’ve made it work, told the same story, without the coincidence and the only way would be to make the male character actually worse than he is, but then his redemption would be even sweeter at the end, so why not?
For example: Plot A happens and Plot B happens and you just can’t buy that they both happened. However, if Plot B happened BECAUSE Plot A happened (I’m thinking revenge), then the book works almost exactly the same and no one has to buy any bridges in Brooklyn. If I thought of this in just one afternoon, why couldn’t the author????
And since I’m on a rant, I’ll just go ahead and tell you what else made me insane. The two characters are on a road trip. They drive the same vehicle throughout the novel. They do not have any engine trouble. In the book, the characters refer to the vehicle as a Trailblazer, a truck, and a car. It has a truck bed as well as a back seat. Ooooookaaay…But this is the really baffling part. On the cover of the book, they are parked on the side of the road and the two characters are standing around a sports car. Yes, a sports car. With the hood up. As if they are having car trouble! Huh?
And my last little bit of rant is the Three’s Company Rant. AKA, lack of information to cause confusion and anger. If a guy wants to win his girl back, and he did something really stupid, would he just say, “I wasn’t thinking.” or would he lay it out on the line? Especially if he had a really, really good reason for doing what he did, it just didn’t turn out to be the smartest move he ever made. Yes, I know, eighteen year old guys are not big on communication, but this character was smart and funny and articulate, so why wasn’t he at the end of the book? Why not just say, “I did X because I thought X and it seemed like a good idea at the time.” instead of just saying he’s sorry. There was NO REASON why a reasonable girl wouldn’t have forgiven him if he’d explained.
Anyway, you’d never know from this post that while I was horribly frustrated, I tore through this book because it was funny and entertaining on a lot of levels. Good secondary characters too. Oh, well…my consolation is that I’ll try another one of this author’s books and hopefully it won’t drive me to insanity too.
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