Saturday, May 30, 2009

Faking It - Jennifer Crusie

Description~

Mural artist Tilda Goodnight is struggling to pay off the mortgage on the family business and keep the Goodnight secrets safely hidden. Juggling her life gets even more complicated when she hides in Clea Lewis's closet and collides with sexy Davy Dempsey. Tilda is in Clea's bedroom to steal back a forged painting; Davy's there to steal Clea's account codes and retrieve the $3 million the larcenous blonde stole from him. Somehow, Tilda finds herself exchanging a mind-blowing kiss with her fellow burglar, and when Davy follows her home and rents a room from her mother, she's forced to deal with the charming con man. Everyone in Tilda's world is pretending to be someone else, including her daydreaming mother, her split-personality sister, and her cross-dressing ex-brother-in-law. All of them, including Tilda and Davy, are Faking It. What will happen when all the secrets are out and everyone knows the truth about everyone else? Will Davy recover his 3 million? Will Tilda recover all the forged paintings and find her true artistic calling? Will Tilda's mother run off to Aruba with a hit man named Ford? And exactly what is the difference between a man labeled a "doughnut" and one who deserves the title "muffin"?

Ok, I'm gonna try to do this as short and painlessly as possible. Let me start out buy saying I LOVE JENNIFER CRUSIE! I really do! I think her books are always entertaining, funny and very sexy! HOWEVER I do believe JC missed the mark on this one.

You start the book out by meeting an artist from childhood Tilda Goodnight. Shes stuck unhappily painting murals because of a family secret hidden in her basement. When some of her secret starts to be reveled she is forced to fall into the "family business" and steal a painting. While doing so she runs into ex-con Davy Dempsey (we met him in Welcome to Temptation) and sparks start to fly while hiding in a closet. They soon find that they need each other to get what they want...Davy his stolen money back and Tilda her paintings. While doing so they slowly start to fall in love. But will their secret from each others past lives be too much to bare?

Me and Wena were talking about this book the other day and we were trying to figure out what went wrong with the story. I think she put it best when she said "There wasn't anything bad about it, but there really wasn't anything good either". So let me get this out...Davy pissed me off in many situations...lets just at one point he told Tilda another woman was great at sex and she sucked and it's not like they were fighting at the time...they were fine! (It was in WAY harsher words that i wouldn't like to type) I had a real love/hate relationship with him. I felt his character didn't have much depth. His only "hang up" was he used to be a con man and it didn't really posses a problem. You know normally each character has their "issues" none of them really did and maybe that was a problem. They didn't have to really overcome anything. This was a very hollow book for me. As for Tilda, I kinda liked her in a way but there again her issues weren't big or horrible. Her relationship with Davy came kinda easy...too easy so there wasn't much struggle which normally makes books funny.

I don't think it would be a very good review without mentioning Tilda's family so I'll do it in a hurry. Her mother drank consistently which is ok by me but if your going to mention it all the time why not have her doing zany drunken things...idk. Her little side story with a hired hit man, Ford probably would've made a more compelling story here. Tilda's niece's story has kinda cute. You watched her go through a few guys dating and all the normal teenage stuff. Now her sister...WIERD!!! She has split personalities and it was just to odd for me to grasp. One of her personalities was dating a guy named Simon and one was a single mom. YA I KNOW?!?!?

So I'd really like to forget this book. I'm not even gonna put a snib bit into this review b/c I don't think its worth it. I hope this wasn't disrespectful to the author b/c I truly love her work. I just think she missed it on this one. I MADE myself finish this book when MANY told me not to. I hate to admit this but I wish I would've listened to them and moved on. It was pretty painful. Poor Baby! lol

I'm onto Lisa Kleypas's Sugar Daddy. I'm really excited because I've never read her before! Wish me luck!

I give this book a total of...



UPDATE: No, I didn't get my ebook reader Friday :o( I'm supposed to get it Tuesday...grrr....

<3monroe

10 comments:

Kristie (J) said...

I adore a good Crusie too and I tried to get into this one at least 3 times wondering what was the matter with me that I couldn't get past the first few chapters. Then I just gave up figuring 3 tries was more than enough for any book.
I'm anxious to see what you think of Sugar Daddy though. I love this one.

May 30, 2009 at 1:04 PM
Monroe Dawson said...

Kristie-
Im anxious to start it tonight!!! :o) I hated that Faking It wasn't good...it depressed me a bit.

May 30, 2009 at 3:54 PM
Amy said...

I haven't read Jennifer Cruisie in years, and I know I'll be passing on this one. Thanks for the review and heads up!

I just got Sugar Daddy from PBS, so I hope to be reading it soon too!

May 30, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Monroe Dawson said...

Amy-
Ya I love JC and I would REALLY like to not even think she even wrote this book. :o/

May 31, 2009 at 8:34 AM
Unknown said...

I just wanted to let you know that I have awards your blog the 'One Lovely Blog' award!

Stop by my blog to pick up your award!!

http://averyjamesphotography.blogspot.com/

Crystal

May 31, 2009 at 11:07 AM
Monroe Dawson said...

Crystal-
Thanks so much for the award!!! :o)

May 31, 2009 at 3:55 PM
Rowena said...

Well, look at it this way...at least you're finally done with FI and you get to get on to reading a much better book in Sugar Daddy. I can't wait until tomorrow to see what you're thinking of it so far.

May 31, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Monroe Dawson said...

Wena-
IDK I felt horrible that this book wasn't good. You know how much I like JC...o-well everyone is allowed 1 hiccup right?!?

June 1, 2009 at 3:15 AM
Mollie said...

This is my least favorite Crusie too. LOVE most of her others especially Fast Women, Welcome to Temptation and Bet Me.

June 1, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Monroe Dawson said...

Mollie-
Hey thanks for stopping by! OH I LOOOOOVE Bet me as well as just about every JC book! :o) They are all too cute! Have you read any Rachel Gibson?

June 1, 2009 at 5:00 PM