This book has been getting a whole lotta love on Amazonlandia in the romance forum. Since it clocks in at a mere 99 cents, I had to give it a try. It wasn't really my cup of tea.
So, Plot Summary:
Haley lives next door to the neighbor from hell, Jason, a hot, hunky slice of manflesh who has utterly terrible manners. He urinates outside. His drunk friends try to sneak over their fence so they can swim in her pool. He is a teacher at the same high school where she teaches, and he occasionally breaks into her classroom to steal, erm, borrow, teaching aids. Haley can't stand him, but she is a doormat, so she never does anything about it, until the day that he tries to pull up her grandmother's tulips. She freaks out and tackles him to get him to stop, they are nearly attacked by a horde of angry bees, and end up fleeing, together, into her house until an exterminator can be called to take care of the yellow jacket nest that he has disturbed.
And so it begins. Since Haley is not Jason's type, he adopts her as his pet slash friend. He decides that no one interested in Haley is good enough to date her, and he chases them off. His jealousy can't be because he is, himself, secretly infatuated with Haley. No way, she's not his type. Or is she?
Review:
Generally, I felt like the book was fairly well-written and probably succeeded in terms of what the author intended to do. I didn't see any major issues with the writing or the formatting. There were some minor issues related to homonyms/proofreading (I specifically remember band instead of banned, although that's the only one I remember right now) but they didn't detract so greatly from my enjoyment that I would give the book a poor review based on that alone. Mathewson has a breezy, casual writing style that is fun to read.
So, why didn't it work for me, especially since I have enjoyed many books enjoyed by some of the other readers who really liked this book? I think it really boils down to the characters. I felt like the author was so caught up in making the situations funny and the characters over-the-top that I just didn't believe in any of it. I was looking for a book about characters that could convince me that their romance was real. I didn't find that here. Basically every single character was completely one-dimensional.
Let me provide an example in Haley's dad. We've got our heroine, who is a high school teacher with a college degree. She is 24. She owns her own home. She is bright, and intelligent and really self-sufficient. And her dad is such a cliche of the emotionally distant wealthy guy that he doesn't have any idea when her birthday is, that he doesn't know how old she is, and he thinks she runs a day care, which is beneath her and beneath her family background. This just didn't work for me. None of Haley's family, save her grandmother, had any redeeming qualities at all. It doesn't ring true. With the possible exception of Bernie Madoff, human beings are not so completely bereft of positive qualities.
More importantly, though, I think that this book was intended to be a romantic comedy. There were parts of it that I found funny, but overall, I really didn't like the relationship between Jason and Haley. I didn't see Jason as a jealous, loving man who is just too emotionally unaware to realize that he has fallen in love. I saw him as an immature, petulant brat who only wanted a toy until he broke it. In real life, he deserves to have someone key his car (not that I'm advocating vandalism). The scene of the book that happened by the pool broke my heart, and nothing that happened after that redeemed it for me. I liked Haley, and I wanted her to find someone who loved her and valued her, since there didn't seem to be a single person in her life who saw her as a competent, loveable person,including her so-called friends. I just didn't think that Jason was that person.
So, ultimately, this book didn't work for me. The over-the-top characterizations and situations left me empty. I can see how the book might work for a different reader, who is looking for something light and frothy, and doesn't take it too seriously. I was expecting something different, & I think I did take it too seriously. It just wasn't my cup of tea.
I gave the book 3 stars on amazon. Here, I'd probably give it 2 1/2. Plus, the cover is lazy.
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