Review: Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie

You know how in my New Year post I mentioned that I was reading Rest You Merry and Shutter Island (if not, read it http://thebooktarts.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-new-years.html), I am here today to review a completely different book that I read instead of the two books that I was reading. Yes, apparently I am A.D.D. when it comes to reading books. No, I don't really care that you think it is weird. Anyway, onward!

I just read Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie. I love Crusie's writing. She writes slightly more saucy (aka sexually explicit) chick Lit, but not really romance because there is always some other plot that seems more important than the romance. Like an American Sophie Kinsella. Like if you put the romance parts of Meg Cabot romance novels into her modern chick lit books. If you haven't read any of these authors and are thoroughly confused, we are apparently not in the same reading demographic and you are missing out on delightful fluff! Anyway...not really the point. Jennifer Crusie...love her writing, love her stories, love her characters, except the main characters in Tell Me Lies.

I really enjoyed Tell Me Lies. It had a really great mystery element to it and plenty of intrigue and all the things I like in a book: sex, violence, hot cars, embezzling, accidental druggings...all the standards! I enjoyed finding out where the story was going, even though I guessed most of the plot points before they happened. It was a fun, light read. But dude...I really didn't like the main characters. First, we had Maddie, the married mother who stayed with her cheating husband so as to not cause gossip that would hurt her mom's feelings. Second, we had C.L. who Maddie slept with once in high school before marrying her now husband and who is now back in town, 20 years later and not quite the bad boy he once was. Third, we have all the stock characters...C.L.'s aunt and uncle, who raised him, Maddie's cheating husband, Treva, Maddie's best friend since childhood, and Em. Em, I actually liked. She is Maddie's daughter. I wasn't so sure about reading a romancey novel that had a kid in it, but really I found that Em was the most relatable character.

My problem with Maddie was that she seemed kind of stupid. Like, her husband had cheated on her before and now was doing it again (maybe) and it took her quite a while to decide to divorce him, even though she didn't even really like him anymore. Seriously? What kind of wussy heroine is that! And then, when C.L. comes back into town, he and Maddie start lusting for each other. Before she's divorced. Not necessarily bad, especially for a romance novel that involves a cheating husband, but seriously, she has a kid. I cannot get behind that. She also seemed to take an excessively long time to grow a pair and not act like the goody-goody everyone thought she was, which was driving her crazy. Gah!

My favorite character, as I said, was Em, the daughter. Her narrations seems very real. She is 8 and wants to know what is going on and no one will tell her for real and she is pissed about it. And scared. Very relatable. I will say that even though Em didn't make me like Maddie more, it did make me like C.L. more. Because C.L. treated her like a normal person and not a stupid kid.

So, even though this is kind of ranty, I still really enjoyed Tell Me Lies. The sex scenes were super hot, as was all the lusty pining for each other. And there was lots of humor in the dialog and internal monologues, which is always good. And since it was a chick lit, you know that there is going to be some sort of happily ever after. So that is nice. I recommend Jennifer Crusie fully, though would suggest reading one of her other books to really get hooked, like Bet Me, Fast Women, or Welcome to Temptation, all of which I read and freakin' loved!

And now I am going on vacation and have Shutter Island to read, which I may actually get around to reading, and Lady of Skye by Meg Cabot (under the name Patricia Cabot). And my mom is bringing some trashy crap to give me, also. So I may or may not actually read Shutter Island. I feel like it may be too "good" for me to actually read. I so just love trashy books.