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SheriC

Portable Magic

Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.

Currently reading

A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, #1)
Ursula K. Le Guin
Whisper Network
Chandler Baker
Progress: 54 %
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
Progress: 28 %
The Mystery at Lilac Inn
Carolyn Keene
100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories
Gary Raisor, Richard Chizmar, Al Sarrantonio, Avram Davidson
Progress: 70/512 pages
Leading Change
John P. Kotter
Peanuts Classics
Charles M. Schulz
Progress: 66 %
The Bungalow Mystery
Carolyn Keene
Progress: 192/192 pages
The Bungalow Mystery #3
Carolyn Keene
Progress: 192/192 pages
The Mystery at Lilac Inn
Russell H. Tandy, Mildred Benson, Carolyn Keene

Secrets ★☆☆☆☆

Secrets - Jude Deveraux

This book was a real stinker. It started off with the Successful Career Women Are Evil trope, followed by an earth-mother type heroine who evidently buys into the Way To A Man's Heart Is Through His Stomach trope. I kept at it, because I've read and loved Deveraux's stories in the past. But then this gem on pg. 41: "They walked into a high-celinged sitting room that looked like something out of a Jane Austen movie, and it was the prettiest room either of the women had ever seen."

 

Like a Jane Austen... movie? Jane Austen MOVIE?

 

Abandoned before I could make the 50 page minimum. One star, only because I don't do half-stars.

 

Reading progress update: I've read 30 out of 389 pages.

 

This is another book off my Neglected shelf. I remember Jude Deveraux fondly from a number of years ago when I was reading a lot of romance novels, so when I found this book on the shelf, I blew off the dust and decided to give it a try.

 

So far, I'm underwhelmed. The MC is annoyingly and overtly passive-agressive, but I think this is a common JD story line where the character changes and grows as the story progresses, so I will try to have patience with it.

 

Less easy to excuse is the tiresome "successful women are cold man-eaters and homebody nurturers are the underdog" trope. There are a couple of wtf-moments that I can't make sense of, like "She was so disciplined that she hadn't realized she was pregnant until she was nearly five months along and it was too late for an abortion". ??? How does self-discipline = clueless about the massive changes a woman's body goes through during the first half of pregnancy? Then there's Thomas with his heart so weak that he has to move in with his son and have an elevator installed to keep him from the exertion of walking up a flight of stairs, but he's able to plant and harvest his own vegetable garden?

 

I'm sticking with it for now, because I trust JD to write me a good soppy love story, and because I'm still short of my 50 page minimum.