Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 stars2.5 stars. I couldn't sympathize with the characters who were making impractical and stupid decisions.
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2008
Tish and Shane are madly in love and in lust with each other. Within less than a year after getting married, a crisis happens which causes each of them to make stupid decisions, and they divorce. Two years later, they still long for each other but don't act on it. Shane proposes to someone he likes but does not love. His new fiancé Elysee hires Tish to make a video film of the engagement party and wedding.
This story might be ok for someone wanting nothing too brainy with a feel good ending. Tish was wonderfully artistic and creative, but she had no practicality or business sense. She was further weakened by her habit of burying her emotions under excess spending. I could accept the initial set of stupid actions causing the divorce due to a crisis. But I did not like the dumb decisions both Tish and Shane were making two years later. Therefore, I didn't have enough sympathy for them to be able to enjoy the story. However, there may be some readers who will find humor in watching impractical foolishness and don't need to sympathize with the characters. In Spoilers below, I describe a few actions that annoyed me, which might help readers decide if they would enjoy this book in a way that I did not. If one is not annoyed, the rest of the story was entertaining. On the plus side, the author wrote a wonderfully sensual sex scene for the couple's first date.
CAUTION SPOILERS.
I was annoyed at Tish's stupidity over the way she handled her client lunch at the beginning of the book. She was behind on all of her bills. Her credit cards were maxed out. Her car was to be repossessed. Yet she takes two people to lunch who see the waiter cut up her two credit cards which have been cancelled. Because of that, the potential client had to pay the bill and never hired her.
Then, immediately after that, she spent her last $94 on a pair of shoes, leaving only $3 to her name for food. I have a hard time sympathizing with such self destructive behavior.
I can't believe Shane was such a wimp that he would ask Elysee to marry him when his inner thoughts at the moment were "Tell her it was a mistake. Tell her you didn't mean to ask her to marry you just yet."
I did not like that Tish walked through the house, outside and into her car, and then drove through all kinds of secret service protection when Larkin held a gun at her side. Her life had been threatened with the fire. She should have known he would kill her anyway. She should have run for it while she was in a place full of secret service agents. Instead she stupidly went with him to her car and drove off so he could kill her in private.
Later, Elysee sneaks away from her secret service protection to go to an isolated location alone where an assassin is waiting to kill someone. She has no weapon yet intends to help the targeted victim.
Sexual language: moderate. Number of sex scenes: two. Setting: current day U.S. Copyright: 2008. Genre: contemporary romance and chick lit.
