LynneC’s review of Girl Least Likely to Marry by Amy Andrews
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Kiss 3 Jul 12
This is the story of a narcissist and an intellectual snob. He’s the narcissist. Two unlikeable characters who fail to move me with their story. Furthermore, this is one of the worst edited Harlequins I’ve ever read. However, in a change for the Kiss line, the cover works with the story.
For the most part, it’s a road story. It starts with a Sex and the City setup, with four girls with different characteristics who are nevertheless good friends. The geeky one, the Brit, the Aussie and the – erm, other one. It was as if the author dipped in a bag with a list of characteristics, picked four out and wrote stories around that. There is no real involvement, nothing to get excited, about and while it’s meant to be a comedy, a light read with topical references, that, too, falls flat. For me, at least. And as I always say in these circumstances, your experience with the book might be entirely different.
Cassie is a scientist, an astronomer, working with auroras. I know next to nothing about astronomy, and staring in the sky makes me dizzy, so I have to leave the realism of her situation to others. I just accepted it. Except I kept thinking about aureoles and not auroras. She dresses in typical nerd outfits of underwear with slogans and big t-shirts, and, of course, because she’s “natural,” and a challenge, the hero finds her irresistible. She considers him inferior, because when she first meets him he has an “aw shucks” attitude and pretends to be stupid just to wind her up. It doesn’t show either of them off well, and that is when my dislike started. Of course he’s a bright boy, despite being an ex-quarterback (see what I mean about clichés?) and I do like that that is cleared up earlier on. A whole book of that “you’re stupid,” “oh shucks, ma’am” would have driven me demented. No, it would have been a swift DNF.
The hero is a wounded ex-quarterback with a failed marriage behind him, mainly because of his infertility (all in the first few chapters, so worry not, it’s not a spoiler).
I got this book from Netgalley, so I do try to finish the ARCs I receive, even if I don’t like them. I persevered. I can’t say it gets a huge lot better or that I’ll be seeking out the other books about the “Awesome foursome” any time soon.
Two things I find annoying. First, the author tries to put in pop references, like the hero renting the first three Star Trek movies. Really? He couldn’t have found the Iron Man trilogy or something more current? Star Trek only has two movies in the current canon, and one of them isn’t out on DVD or Netflix yet. That isn’t the only dated pop reference in the book, but it serves as an example. The reference to the old (really old) Pointer Sisters song “Slow Touch” is there, too. Do people still know that song?
And this is probably the worst edited book I’ve read for some time. To take a few examples:
“Pasteles” instead of “pastels,” “heiny” instead of “heinie,” and one of my favorites, “His hands at her waist were burning a tract right down to her middle.” Nice that he had a religious or political pamphlet to hand. Or, wait, shouldn’t that be “track”? “‘I think Reese meant to keep you and I apart,” isn’t technically an error because it’s in quotation marks, but since the fussy, brainy heroine uses it, it is at least out of character for her to use “I” when she should have said “me.” “His chest pounded with the thump of his heart and his belly bounded to the corresponding pump of his aorta.” That reads as if his aorta is in his belly. There are others. On the whole, I like “tract” best.
She keeps referring to the hero as a southerner, when he’s not. He’s a Texan, and that kind of talk can get you in trouble in Texas. Yes, Texas is geographically in the south, but “southerner” in this sense has a more specific meaning, or so I’ve been learning. If her editor is American, she should have picked that up.
The editor should have picked a lot of things up. Many of these errors are ones that should have been sorted out at the editing stage. Every author makes slips like this, but I don’t see many of them in published books. So while I can’t entirely blame the author for them, her name is on the cover.
There are quite a few jarring head-hops, too, such as in the following:
Besides,’ Tuck said, pulling out his chair and sitting, his knee protesting at the movement, ‘I can flirt just as well from this side.’
Gina laughed. She couldn’t help herself.”
So, first his inner thoughts and then hers?
Some of my grumpiness is that I didn’t find the book particularly funny, but others might. The slogans on the underwear are too obvious, and the heroine’s snobbishness in the intellectual field strikes me as annoying rather than endearing. I’m not convinced the hero and heroine have anything lasting here. Lust, yes, lots of it, but attraction and mutual interest? Not so much. However, as always, take this with a pinch of salt. I’m sure some people will love this book.
Grade: D
Summary:
Talk nerdy to me
Samuel Tucker is absolutely the last person scientist Cassie Barclay would ever date. Yes, he’s gorgeous, but he’s also far too cocky for his own good and thinks that Pi is a tasty afternoon treat. So when he asks her to dance at her friend Reese’s non-wedding she’s wondering why on earth she says yes!
Tuck is used to people assuming he’s all brawn and no brain, and amuses himself by winding Cassie up. But when he finally takes her to bed, suddenly it’s Tuck who can show Cassie a thing or two! Can he convince her that love and sex have nothing to do with logic and everything to do with chemistry?
Read an excerpt.
