Review: Fast Forward by Juliet Madison

While it had a great premise finishing this book was an absolute slog. Fast Forward is meant for the relative who sends you life affirming cartoons about aging as she sips from her Maxine mug. I wanted Big and I gotFreaky Friday. Juliet Madison gives us no one to root for. Meet Kelli, a twenty five year old model suddenly thrust into her own fifty year old body. Nothing makes sense to her, or to us. Eventually the reader understands that Kelli was not shown her future, but one of her possible futures.

Unfortunately Fast Forward is as shallow as Kelli’s twenty something self before it becomes completely enraging. (I admit the enraging aspect was personal in nature and will not enrage most readers. Let’s just say the ending for Kelli’s father held some toxic messages.)  Kelli is unhappy with her less than model perfect figure. While she has not been disfigured in any way, Kelli is no longer lithe. For an up and coming young model this is a disastrous fate. Kelli runs around marveling at the technological changes 25 years has brought, despairing over every less than perfect aspect of her appearance, and waiting to wake up in her 25 year old body. (Spoiler alert: she does.) My first source of major frustration was the way Kelli’s friends and family completely fail her.

“Where’s Grant? I need Grant!” I said, shoving his hand away. “Grant? Who’s … oh, surely you don’t mean Grant, your ex?” “Yes. No! I mean, he’s not my ex!” “Honey, you haven’t had anything to do with him since we started dating twenty five years ago.” William’s expression changed to a frown. “Or, have you?” “Twenty five years ago? But Grant and I … we … he was supposed to propose to me on my birthday.” “Kelli, you broke off your relationship with him, remember?” “I did?” It’s quite possible I’d gone mad. William nodded. “But I proposed and you said yes. And here we are, still happily married after almost a quarter of a century.” Madison, Juliet (2013-02-01). Fast Forward (Kindle Locations 191-198). . Kindle Edition.

Her inability to recall her life is treated by everyone, down to her doctor, as a shoulder shrugging mystery. (Can’t recall half your life? Huh. Here’s your car keys, you’ve got a meeting at three.) Her husband is fairly obsessed with nudge-nudge wink-wink sexting while Kelli recoils at the thought of sex with a stranger. Her children have set up birthday treats that are gendered and self interested. From her mini-me daughter to her (of course) fabulous gay son, Kelli’s kids love her in the distracted way that says she’s on her own. Leaving no cliche unturned, Kelli ends up talking to a pair of psychics. As you do.

Fast Forward’s ending is determined by it’s beginning, not by true character growth. There’s nothing here to suggest that Kelli’s horror with her less than perfect (and oh so old at 50!) appearance is wrong. When Kelli comes to accept herself it is not because she has a deep understanding about body image and our culture, it is because she views her body as the beat up vehicle that brought her to her desired destination. She loves it because she put the miles on it herself. This is a very popular age acceptance viewpoint, but not one I ascribe to. (Resignation is not acceptance.)

My body was a living reminder of my wonderful life. It had done amazing, beautiful things and there was no way in the world I’d prefer to look like a twenty-something perfect beauty with a body untouched by life. Of course, I still valued my appearance, but as I dusted my face with mineral foundation I knew that if I chose not to bother anymore, it wouldn’t make any difference. Madison, Juliet (2013-02-01). Fast Forward (Kindle Locations 3720-3723). . Kindle Edition.

Kelli’s world failed to come alive for me and I’m not sure I’d try Juliet Madison again. 

*This review was originally posted at Love In The Margins.

Review: Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood

I didn't utterly hate it, so there's that. If there is a literary equivalent of easy listening, this book is it. Snoozey McSnoozerson with a side of sleepytime. The writing is simplistic, the characters defy belief, the twists and turns of the plot are nonexistent. This is a bad guy. This is a bad guy too. Here's another bad guy over here. Here they are, all caught. Wait, that bad guy as well. You know what would have rocked this book and set the plot on fire? If our heroine Olivia had actually been wrong about something. Preferably the Ponzi scheme she was chasing down, but really, anything.

Olivia has cancer as a kid and meets three other girls in an experimental drug program that.... doesn't matter at all to any other aspect of the plot. The cancer exists just to show that her family is a bunch of bad guys except for the ones that aren't. Olivia is convinced, without any evidence, that her father runs a massive Ponzi scheme. She's rerouted her career into a field she thinks will help bring him down. Her aunt is convinced as well and urges Olivia forward as the Only One Who Can Do It. (Olivia has serious martyr issues.) Ok, what if Olivia had been wrong? What if Grayson (our hero) proved that Olivia's father was innocent and Olivia had simply transposed her justifiable resentment into criminal conspiracy? It's absolutely ok to despise parents that don't turn out to be mastermind criminals. Really.

But whatever, Olivia is never wrong. She's working on her dad's case, her day job at the FBI, and as an attorney for children caught up in the court system (although she doesn't go to court, she seems to mostly drive them to safe houses.) She gets shot three times and has sex a few days later, even though the surgery is touch and go. She taunts men with popsicles like she's a sexually abused tween and buys groceries for her shut in neighbors. She's rich as hell, so when she gets shot her aunt's staff comes to clean and restock her home while a personal chef caters weekly. Yet at the start of the book she's pinching pennies, skipping meals and worrying about her income. Olivia likes her men temporary and her sex whenever it's offered. Don't call her for a month? We're cool. Two weeks? Why worry about it. Olivia has no emotional needs at all. She's a giver, a pleaser, a servant to her serfs. I was really hoping they'd shoot Olivia in the head so a second heroine would appear. Look, she steps in to handle her lover's nephew's school bullying problem in a completely illegal and unlikely manner for no plot reason other than yet another example of her goodness. Come on. I don't care how many kids she works with in court, you don't walk into someone else's life and stitch their problems up in twenty seconds.

Grayson isn't much better. He's an FBI agent, single parent, home remodeling landlord, investor, investment type who is well known in the socialite circles. When it's revealed early on that Grayson knows Olivia's aunt no one asks how. Her aunt is surprised, she didn't know they were acquainted - and that's it. Olivia doesn't ask questions. The aunt doesn't ask questions. Grayson acts like a teenager with his first erection through most of the book, not the seasoned adult he's presented as. He does a lot of Ricky Ricardo posturing and has a miracle life where there is no paperwork involved. Grayson foils an attempted kidnapping and murder? It's all good. Let's hand the bad guys off to the team and hit the sheets. His work consists of taking a few phone calls and slapping the occasional cuff on. Wait, he can also engage in some low level police brutality with no complaints from any law enforcement and shoot people dead without having his gun held for an investigation period. Grayson is Olivia's perfect match in doing what he wants and being The Only One Who Can. Serving a time critical search in another state? Local can't get through those tricky old locks, but Grayson and his partner enjoy a good night's sleep then fly in to save the day in seconds!

Look, there's nothing objectionable about Sweet Talk. I didn't really want to DNF it at any point. It's a great read for a day you're sedated on cold meds and can't follow anything complicated. Turn the brain off and enjoy. It's unoffensive and smooth but it isn't good.

Review: How Miss Rutherford Got Her Groove Back by Sophia Barnes

This cover suggests Boxing Helena to me. Miss Rutherford is presented as a headless torso in an open position. It feels somewhat soulless, which brings me to the title. A genre that is aggressively Caucasian mimicking a very popular contemporary African American title is problematic. Add in that How Stella Got Her Groove Back was a thinly disguised tip to the author's own (now failed) marriage and certain problems in Barnes' book are thrown into even sharper relief. Emily is a complete Mary Sue, and a manic one at that.

When we first meet Emily she could put Snow White to shame. Living in a cottage with her sisters after being disinherited by her evil step-relative, she whistles while she works. Scrubbing floors and living for the one day a year she is invited to the ball, Emily dreams of marrying her neighbor, her childhood sweetheart, her savior. When this fails to pass, she becomes suicidal. (She is fond of saying things like she should have been "left to die".)  It is not that Emily breaks as much as she dents. Her suicidal depression leaves as quickly as it arrives. Emily walks through a series of cliches that range from the allowable to the completely infuriating while those around her hold her hand and weep over her noble purity of feeling. Those who bruise the tender fruit of Emily's soul are heartless creatures, while Emily herself is excused of all responsibility.

Given that the side characters are so thinly drawn it hardly matters that their emotions are barely noted. At one point Emily is put in possession of an elderly chaperone who immediately goes to her room and fails to appear until close to the end of the book. (Much like the eldest Martin child in the American serial All My Children, who walked upstairs in the 1970's and was never seen again.) Gone and forgotten, when she is mentioned again I had to flip back to recall who they were discussing. Further removing the reader from an ability to sympathize is the author's inability to choose a path and stay on it. In one scene Emily urges her former fiance and his intended to enjoy every second of their betrothal ball as she could not stand to diminish it in any way. With her very next breath she berates them as undeserving of her. Whiplash moments like these abound. Later in the book Emily rushes off to see the previously rejected BFF as "I have no quarrel with her, you know." Emily is prone to this kind of passive aggressive bullshit when she isn't making her own life infinitely harder through impulsive and ill considered actions. The author drops in and out of these implausible shifts with equally awkward conversations.  Not naturally, or in a way that makes internal sense, but to point out the author realizes this is kind of a left field event. As a reader, I was as bewildered as Emily's former fiance. In addition to the emotional curveballs the author keeps the plot curveballs coming too. (What's that, Lassie? Emily must marry in a month or her sisters lose all? Why didn't anyone mention this 2/3 of the book ago?)

So. Emily kisses childhood friend, Emily jokes about marrying childhood friend, entire town and both families expect it to occur, Emily (when faced with a need to marry) does not tell him. She lives on the neglected corners of his life scrubbing her own floors and waits.  Emily charms the birds from the trees with her gaiety. Childhood friend runs off to London and falls in love with BFF who returns to town but doesn't tell Emily who she is engaged to marry so that it can be a shocking revelation at the ball. This makes no sense. I can buy both of them as completely clueless about Emily's air castles, but to not tell your BFF you're marrying a mutual friend? Not to challenge your son on his fiance's changed circumstances? Not to tell your parents ahead of the ball you will announce the engagement at that you're marrying? Like the rest of the book, these events have to happen for other events to happen. At one point I wrote "Miss Barnes has gone a cliche too far."

The real one eyed reading occurs at the end of the book. Our hero has been harboring the deep dark secret that he is a surrogate child. His father was so enraptured by the surrogate that he installed her in all their homes, preferring her to his wife and living openly with her after his wife's suicide. Since his death said evil doer has been blackmailing our hero for fairly absurd sums of money on the basis of a signed letter confessing all! Why our hero's father would write such a letter set aside, why the hero wouldn't just let her give her plot a shot, all of this you have to take on faith. (After all, this is the guy who thinks Emily isn't like the rest of us but means that in a good way.)  Kate (the former BFF) runs to Emily (because she hasn't had enough gas-lighting) and tells Emily that the hero's biological mother is actually his mistress. Rather than run suicidally off into the night like the last time, Emily runs suicidally off to a formerly barely mentioned and shortly never to be mentioned again diabolical relative. She'd rather marry him (here we discover the must marry in a month timetable) than face Hero McIncestCheaterpants again!! (Histrionic, much?) Emily arrives, determined to marry Edward. I was sort of hoping he'd ask Emily if she'd ever consider a soothing drink and a nice cooling cloth, but he's as over the top as the rest of them.

First he gloats about his feelings of inadequacy and then he proclaims he's going to rape her. Emily can't go back to her sisters, her life or our hero. Remember, her former BFF who is engaged to her pretend fiance told her that a woman old enough to be his mother is sleeping with the hero! Rape is her only option!!! Emily starts to take her clothes off like the good little martyr she is. (I think the only way I followed this bit is my southern heritage. Convoluted explanations are our birthright.) Luckily Emily is saved by the hero and Edward is whisked off the canvas with a "Sorry, my bad" after the hero stakes his prior claim. While we were waiting for Emily to finish taking her clothes off Kate was being berated (yet again) by Emily's equally reality challenged sister. How could Kate make such an allegation? Doesn't she know Emily self harms?? (I hope Kate learns her lesson here and puts as much distance between this toxic family and herself as possible.) Emily is whisked off to marry the hero in secret, since he stopped off at the Get A Special Permit Store and took care of business. At his home, he confesses all (after first dillydallying about confessing anything) and they decide to trick the blackmailer into revealing the location of the letter.

Crazy things happen (big shock) that I am really not interested in reliving. In the course of them the blackmailer reveals a secret addition to the dead Earl's will that leaves her buckets of things. She will trade Emily the letter in return for access to the home (that she already had access to earlier in the book, and earlier in her life) so she may retrieve it. But what's this! As the hero braces himself to learn how his father further betrayed him he discovers the codicil is a giant "Pwnd!" intended for the blackmailer. It reveals that the letter in question has a fake signature! It can't be used! He knows his wife didn't commit suicide but was killed by his mistress and he kept sleeping with her because... I can't even. Why would you write either document? Man up, dead Earl. Quit abandoning your wife, your son and your duty to the estate. Don't leave her with an inheritance and a blackmail letter and a lot of bad sex memories! On the other hand, if he hadn't then our blackmailer couldn't do what we were all longing to do at this point. She whips out a hidden gun and shoots Emily.

Sadly, Emily survives.

*Since I wrote this (and scheduled it) my kindler, gentler, less annoyed short form review was the subject of one of many sock puppets out in force for those who dare to dislike this book. My personal puppet was as unable to pick a lane and stay in it as Emily herself. (Bless.) Someone should hold a class on Effective Puppetry For The Debut Author with a section on Making It Look At Least Plausibly Organic.  That someone won't be me. I can't be bothered. I left How Miss Rutherford Got Her Groove Back intending to try the author's next book. Despite some style issues there were indications that (freed from her melodramatic bent) Barnes could deliver an entertaining tale. Watching the drama playing out over multiple sites I would rather make my break with Miss Barnes as clean as my break with Emily.