Book & Baking Blog Entry 19

Wow, I should really tell a little bit more about my recent baking experiences, but other than some cookies for a bake sale the pastries have been few and far between. I think I'm putting on weight. Gosh, I really love cookies.

So, it's back to books.

As I like to go on about, ad nauseum, the kindle has some great benefits including free books. The free books do tend to be either "you get what you pay for" or "beyond copyright" books. I wrote about A Woman Named Smith. This was a classic, Gothic novel. It was fun and seemed a bit out of the ordinary for the genre.

This week I read a modern mystery that was free (hmmmm....or was it 0.99?) Divorced, Desperate and Dating is truly a book that I got what I paid for. I did manage to read the entire book, which puts it above a number of other books that I have received from Amazon.

The plot of the book was pretty basic: Wildly successful woman has thing for cop that she kissed once and he (normally a promiscuous jerk) is of course really in love with her. Someone is trying to kill her and comedy ensues. Only, I don't think it's supposed to be comedy. And it's not comedy in any sense that Christie Craig (the author) intended.

At least it was entertaining and I didn't feel that I had to delete it or to have a hot shower to wipe the smut off of me.

Criticism 1: I would say that referring to a penis as a Jimmy Dean is, at best, sophomoric and at worst, crude and kind of gross. Especially when following it up with a meat grinder comment. There were a lot of junior high moments comparable to this one.

Criticism 2: The sex scenes were more gross than erotic as well. In fairness, I do not like to read sex scenes. I think that if I want to know about the gymnastics that happen in ANYONE else's bedroom, real or fiction, I'll pick up some soft-core porn magazine and really focus on it. I don't need to know all of the body fluids swapped by our main characters.

Criticism 3: In a mystery, once it's solved please head for the exit. Do not dally amongst more sex, counting condoms, and crappy emotional scenes that the heroine has alone and/or with her "best" friends.

While not horrific, I don't think that I'd pay for this one. You can get better sex and better mysteries elsewhere.

In fairness, Craig writes better than I do, and she's a published author. There are worse books.

Happy Reading!