The Town That Came A-Courtin'
Jul. 27th, 2010 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coffeebuddhaForever and a day ago, a particularly bad book inspired me to very briefly start a book review blog. It lasted all of three posts, but that first review still holds a soft spot in my heart. So, because I'm bored and have hit another snag on Odd Fish-Sorry!-I decided to post it over here for all you fine folks to enjoy.
***
Saying that I like to read is a bit of an understatement. I won't say that I've never met a book I didn't like, but I've very rarely met a book I wasn't willing to at least pick up and scan through.
I also like food. Don't worry-this isn't as random as it may seem at first. Somebody somewhere once said at some time that books are food for the mind or the soul or something like that. I'm fond of this idea. Poetry's like potato chips. I don't seek them out and I'll usually pass them over if there's anything else around, but if I start eating them, then I can never seem to stop. Historical fiction and/or biographies are an amazing steak dinner. I'm always torn between lingering over each mouthful and just inhaling the tasty sucker. Fantasy and scifi are egg rolls. I love them and always say I'd be happy eating nothing else for the rest of my life, but I know I'd actually get tired of them really fast. And romance novels? Romance novels are cookie dough. There's really nothing redeeming about them, if I devoured more than a little at a time I'd get nauseous, and even though lots of people enjoy them, I've always been under the impression that it's a bad idea.
Ladies and gents, I sat down and ate a whole tube of cookie dough in one sitting. And I think it had spoiled.
At first glance, The Town That Came A-Courtin' seemed like a good idea. It obviously wasn't high brow literature-just look at the TITLE for crying out loud-but it looked like a cute read for a lazy summer afternoon. The blurb on the back cover was innocent enough. A lucky in everything but love woman ends up in a little town named Bliss, she falls in love with it, and the chipper townsfolk decide to play matchmaker. Sugary goodness, right?
No.
NO.
Let's start with the 'heroine', shall we? Abby Houston is a bestselling author. She says that she's an 'author', not a 'writer', because apparently you're only a 'writer' if some magical literary fairy pops out of your manuscript and gives you some special blessing, but any half wit with a pencil stub and a scrap of paper can be an 'author'. Okay, not really, but it makes as much sense as whatever nonsense she tries to use to explain her reasoning. All you really need to know is that it's an attempt at false modesty. It falls flat and is annoying. Especially since it pops up a lot. A. Lot.
Let's move on to her physical appearance. I'll be honest, I don't remember exactly what she's supposed to look like and I can't be bothered to look it up. Picture a relatively pretty woman in her late thirties/early forties with tiny feet and you're probably as close as you need to be. The feet thing is important, because since they are apparently the only thing Abby likes about herself, they're mentioned a lot. (Also, this book is kinda insulting if your feet are bigger than a size 6.5. But I wouldn't get too hung up on that because there's SO MUCH MORE to be insulted by.)
Much of the beginning of the book is spent with Abby talking about how plain and unattractive she is. Even though men apparently throw themselves at her. Even though the rest of the book is spent with almost every single person she meets thinking, and then exclaiming, that she's TEH MOST BEAUTIMUS WOMAN IN TEH WORLD. Even though when her kidnapping stalker(don't worry, I'll get into that later) shows her a picture of the woman she looks like, she thinks that the woman is beautiful. Again, false modesty. Again, it was annoying. Again, it popped up A LOT.
Then there's her single status. She's divorced. She's an independent woman who doesn't need a man to be content/happy with her life and is pissed that her meddling mother thinks that she has to be miserable if she's single. Except, as you've probably figured out, Abby is a bit of a liar. Oh, she proclaims that she doesn't need a man and at times she even thinks the part, but the BIG message her thoughts and actions send out in this book is that a single woman is automatically a miserable, worthless human being who is obviously riddled with horrific flaws since no man has deigned to love her. We are not amused.
Okay, we've got a pretty decent idea of what makes Abby tick, so let's move on to the plot. The blurb made me think that she'd be spending a good chunk of time in Bliss. Can I just say that the blurb made me think a lot of things, and pretty much none of them were true? In reality Abby's just stopping in for about a day and a half for a book tour.
She gives a speech at some sort of club that the author never really explains* and suddenly everyone's trying to set her up with the mayor. There's a twist in there involving a man she met the night before, a dead wife, and a name mix up. It's stupid and not worth going into. I'll just assure you that she acts like a silly twat over the whole thing and if people had been in their right minds they would have stopped talking to her right then. Anywho, she goes out on a date with the mayor, the entire town stalks them, the NEWSPAPER sends a reporter to cover the date(seriously, wtf?), and things end on a confusing, sour note, because the author wants to create more drama.
*Okay, random thing that pissed me off here. The author spends pages explaining generic Southern things that pretty much anyone who's ever watched a stereotype would instantly understand, i.e. iced tea and manners, but the few times I actually needed her to tell me what the hell she was talking about, i.e. the above mentioned club meeting thingy, I'm supposed to just use my speshul telepathic powers to read her mind.
The next day Abby's all pissed and not happy with Mr. Mayor. This is fine, because it frees her up to go frolicking with her stalker. Okay, again not really. He kidnaps her. Which is serious. But the way it unfolds, you can't help but feel that she deserved it. So, the kidnapper isn't going to lay a hand on her because she looks like someone, but she can't escape because he took her out into the middle of fucking nowhere and she can't walk out to the highway in stilettos. Apparently walking in her bare feet never occurred to her.
Abby uses her OMG!AMAZING powers of deduction to deduce that he won't hurt her and has left a big enough trail that people will be there soon to rescue her. She then promptly forgets that and decides that the only way to stay safe until they invariably die of old age is to sit down for an Oprah style powwow. They talk, people come and rescue her, she pleads for them to be nice with stalker guy because it 'isn't really his fault'.
Another great lesson from this book-if your parents die when you're young and you have to be raised by an aunt and uncle who love you and treat you like you're one of their own, you can do any terrible thing you want and get away with it because you had such a HORRIBLE childhood. Seriously? It's terrible when any child is orphaned, but considering what could have happened to this guy, it really pisses me off that the author seems to genuinely believe that being raised by loving relatives is just about the worst thing that could happen to a kid.
The book ends with Abby and the mayor sickeningly proclaiming their love in front of the media, most of Bliss, and the mayor's two youngish children, who seem remarkably pleased considering the fact that Abby is replacing their practically sainted dead mother after only a day and without ever being introduced to them.
Also, transgender dogs ADORE Abby. I swear to God, I'm not making that up.
Don't read this book. It kills kittens just by existing.
Vital Statistics
Title: The Town That Came A-Courtin'
Author: Ronda Rich
Genre: Romance
Length: 320
Copyright: 2006
What Amazon Says: 4 1/2 Stars with 28 reviews
What I Say: I'd rather spend the rest of my life looking for my soul mate on Craigslist than read this book again. 1 Star, mostly because Rich has demonstrated that she managed to pass 6th grade grammar and I like the color of the dress on the cover.
***
Saying that I like to read is a bit of an understatement. I won't say that I've never met a book I didn't like, but I've very rarely met a book I wasn't willing to at least pick up and scan through.
I also like food. Don't worry-this isn't as random as it may seem at first. Somebody somewhere once said at some time that books are food for the mind or the soul or something like that. I'm fond of this idea. Poetry's like potato chips. I don't seek them out and I'll usually pass them over if there's anything else around, but if I start eating them, then I can never seem to stop. Historical fiction and/or biographies are an amazing steak dinner. I'm always torn between lingering over each mouthful and just inhaling the tasty sucker. Fantasy and scifi are egg rolls. I love them and always say I'd be happy eating nothing else for the rest of my life, but I know I'd actually get tired of them really fast. And romance novels? Romance novels are cookie dough. There's really nothing redeeming about them, if I devoured more than a little at a time I'd get nauseous, and even though lots of people enjoy them, I've always been under the impression that it's a bad idea.
Ladies and gents, I sat down and ate a whole tube of cookie dough in one sitting. And I think it had spoiled.
At first glance, The Town That Came A-Courtin' seemed like a good idea. It obviously wasn't high brow literature-just look at the TITLE for crying out loud-but it looked like a cute read for a lazy summer afternoon. The blurb on the back cover was innocent enough. A lucky in everything but love woman ends up in a little town named Bliss, she falls in love with it, and the chipper townsfolk decide to play matchmaker. Sugary goodness, right?
No.
NO.
Let's start with the 'heroine', shall we? Abby Houston is a bestselling author. She says that she's an 'author', not a 'writer', because apparently you're only a 'writer' if some magical literary fairy pops out of your manuscript and gives you some special blessing, but any half wit with a pencil stub and a scrap of paper can be an 'author'. Okay, not really, but it makes as much sense as whatever nonsense she tries to use to explain her reasoning. All you really need to know is that it's an attempt at false modesty. It falls flat and is annoying. Especially since it pops up a lot. A. Lot.
Let's move on to her physical appearance. I'll be honest, I don't remember exactly what she's supposed to look like and I can't be bothered to look it up. Picture a relatively pretty woman in her late thirties/early forties with tiny feet and you're probably as close as you need to be. The feet thing is important, because since they are apparently the only thing Abby likes about herself, they're mentioned a lot. (Also, this book is kinda insulting if your feet are bigger than a size 6.5. But I wouldn't get too hung up on that because there's SO MUCH MORE to be insulted by.)
Much of the beginning of the book is spent with Abby talking about how plain and unattractive she is. Even though men apparently throw themselves at her. Even though the rest of the book is spent with almost every single person she meets thinking, and then exclaiming, that she's TEH MOST BEAUTIMUS WOMAN IN TEH WORLD. Even though when her kidnapping stalker(don't worry, I'll get into that later) shows her a picture of the woman she looks like, she thinks that the woman is beautiful. Again, false modesty. Again, it was annoying. Again, it popped up A LOT.
Then there's her single status. She's divorced. She's an independent woman who doesn't need a man to be content/happy with her life and is pissed that her meddling mother thinks that she has to be miserable if she's single. Except, as you've probably figured out, Abby is a bit of a liar. Oh, she proclaims that she doesn't need a man and at times she even thinks the part, but the BIG message her thoughts and actions send out in this book is that a single woman is automatically a miserable, worthless human being who is obviously riddled with horrific flaws since no man has deigned to love her. We are not amused.
Okay, we've got a pretty decent idea of what makes Abby tick, so let's move on to the plot. The blurb made me think that she'd be spending a good chunk of time in Bliss. Can I just say that the blurb made me think a lot of things, and pretty much none of them were true? In reality Abby's just stopping in for about a day and a half for a book tour.
She gives a speech at some sort of club that the author never really explains* and suddenly everyone's trying to set her up with the mayor. There's a twist in there involving a man she met the night before, a dead wife, and a name mix up. It's stupid and not worth going into. I'll just assure you that she acts like a silly twat over the whole thing and if people had been in their right minds they would have stopped talking to her right then. Anywho, she goes out on a date with the mayor, the entire town stalks them, the NEWSPAPER sends a reporter to cover the date(seriously, wtf?), and things end on a confusing, sour note, because the author wants to create more drama.
*Okay, random thing that pissed me off here. The author spends pages explaining generic Southern things that pretty much anyone who's ever watched a stereotype would instantly understand, i.e. iced tea and manners, but the few times I actually needed her to tell me what the hell she was talking about, i.e. the above mentioned club meeting thingy, I'm supposed to just use my speshul telepathic powers to read her mind.
The next day Abby's all pissed and not happy with Mr. Mayor. This is fine, because it frees her up to go frolicking with her stalker. Okay, again not really. He kidnaps her. Which is serious. But the way it unfolds, you can't help but feel that she deserved it. So, the kidnapper isn't going to lay a hand on her because she looks like someone, but she can't escape because he took her out into the middle of fucking nowhere and she can't walk out to the highway in stilettos. Apparently walking in her bare feet never occurred to her.
Abby uses her OMG!AMAZING powers of deduction to deduce that he won't hurt her and has left a big enough trail that people will be there soon to rescue her. She then promptly forgets that and decides that the only way to stay safe until they invariably die of old age is to sit down for an Oprah style powwow. They talk, people come and rescue her, she pleads for them to be nice with stalker guy because it 'isn't really his fault'.
Another great lesson from this book-if your parents die when you're young and you have to be raised by an aunt and uncle who love you and treat you like you're one of their own, you can do any terrible thing you want and get away with it because you had such a HORRIBLE childhood. Seriously? It's terrible when any child is orphaned, but considering what could have happened to this guy, it really pisses me off that the author seems to genuinely believe that being raised by loving relatives is just about the worst thing that could happen to a kid.
The book ends with Abby and the mayor sickeningly proclaiming their love in front of the media, most of Bliss, and the mayor's two youngish children, who seem remarkably pleased considering the fact that Abby is replacing their practically sainted dead mother after only a day and without ever being introduced to them.
Also, transgender dogs ADORE Abby. I swear to God, I'm not making that up.
Don't read this book. It kills kittens just by existing.
Vital Statistics
Title: The Town That Came A-Courtin'
Author: Ronda Rich
Genre: Romance
Length: 320
Copyright: 2006
What Amazon Says: 4 1/2 Stars with 28 reviews
What I Say: I'd rather spend the rest of my life looking for my soul mate on Craigslist than read this book again. 1 Star, mostly because Rich has demonstrated that she managed to pass 6th grade grammar and I like the color of the dress on the cover.