jethrien

Title: Strange Bedpersons
Author: Jennifer Crusie
Genre: Contemporary romance
Thingummies: 4

Synopsis: Liberal crusader is sweet-talked into pretending to be engaged to her conservative lawyer ex for a weekend; predictable but still entertaining chaos ensues.

Thoughts: When I finished reading this, I intially wanted to give it a five. Upon reflection, I've realized it has several major flaws which I did not notice at all at the time and did not mind in the slightest while reading. I was simply having too much fun.

First, the plot twist near the end is incredibly predictable and telegraphed from a mile away. I think I figured out the shocking ending about a third of the way in. Second, the main character has some serious self-righteousness going on, and initially, it appears that the author does not realize the problems.

Fortunately, the unbalancedness of the portrayal evens out a bit by the end. Tess comes to realize that some of her very-well-justified declarations and actions are actually just as jerky as those of her ex. Which is good, because otherwise she'd deserve to be smacked. This is a wannabe-Manic Pixie Dream Girl, from the perspective of the girl, who eventually realizes that insisting on having sex on a piano at an open house for the opera actually could ruin her guy's life. Thank you.

The slow realization that organized, careful people actually have reasons for what they do (and there are advantages to dating us) was rather gratifying. But all of that is secondary to the trademark Crusie banter, that snaps and crackles along so wittily that you'd pretty much be willing to keep reading if the entire plotline consisted of sitting on a garbage heap throwing rotten banana peels at each other. There's a fantastic, mortifying scene with his uptight parents that reads as a dress rehearsal for the even better scene in Bet Me. I love how, after running around and trying to be subtle, her characters have a tendency to give up and just say what they're thinking in the most hilarious way possible, even if that's telling the high society mother that the reason Tess keeps dropping her fork is that they're conferring under the table, and just give them a minute down here.