Genre Challenge: Romance

I finished the first book in my Genre Challenge. I read Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie to count as a Romance novel. Let me tell you, it was quite a challenge to get through the book. I must say, it was one of the worst books I have ever read. I thought that the characters were very flat and stereotypical. At first it was difficult to keep all the characters straight because none really stood out to me. Plus they all had one syllable names- Bill, Joe, Max, Nick. The first couple of times that the characters Max and Nick were mentioned, I thought they were the same person because they were so similar. I later found out after further reading that they were brothers. I even reread a couple of pages to see if I had missed something.

I found the dialogue between the characters to be pretty awkward and found myself asking several times- do people really talk that way to each other? Because in none of my relationships or friendships has anyone ever talked to each other so one dimensionally and clichéd.

I feel really bad that I didn’t like this book. I know that Jennifer Crusie is a very popular author in the chick lit arena and her books do well. I have also heard that her books are very funny. Not once did I laugh out loud or even chuckle to myself. Perhaps her later work is better. This one was written in 1999. The only thing that I liked remotely was the story between Bill and Quinn. He was the stalker ex-boyfriend who just couldn’t get the fact that Quinn had broken up with him.

Another problem that I had with the book was the small town mentality. Everyone in the town thought that the coach, Bill, was the be all and end all of the town. I have never lived in a small town, so I have no reference to this, but it was difficult for me to think that people may actually behave like this.

So needless to say, my foray into the romance genre was not a success. I would stick to Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown, even though their later novels are classified more as romantic suspense. Better yet- I’ll stick with a classic Bronte the next time I want to read a true romance.