Friday, October 5, 2012

Crash Into Me

This is my 150th post! I can't quite believe it. But I'm definitely having fun writing book reviews and I want to keep this blog going for a long time.



First, Best and Only
Barbara Delinsky
Romance

I’m sad. Way back when I used to devour romance novels like they were candy, I loved Barbara Delinsky. She combined family drama and relationships into un-put-downable books. This is the first time I’ve picked up one of her novels in awhile, and I am appalled that I ever liked her.

First, Best and Only is the story of Marni and Brian Webster (she calls him “Web” throughout the whole novel, which really bugged me). Marni was seventeen when she fell in love with twenty-six year old Brian. They secretly began dating and everything was fine until Brian got into an accident with Marni’s older brother, who died. After that, they lost contact thanks to her parents. Now, thirteen years later, Marni’s president of her dad’s company and is persuaded to be the cover model for their new magazine. Imagine her surprise when she arrives at the photo shoot and finds the photographer is Web, the only man she ever loved.

I just could not get invested in these two, which is bad because that’s the point of a romance novel. Perhaps it had to do with the writing. Marni and Web both said something “softly” so many times that by the end of the book I wanted to start slashing through that word with a red pen. Ms. Delinsky also hates the word “said”, apparently, because she came up with numerous different substitutions: “chided”, “announced”, “put in”, “murmured”, “breathed”, and my personal favorite, “interjected”. Dear god, I get ragey just thinking about them. 

I would not recommend this book, especially if you’re into romance. Steer clear, people. Steer clear.

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