The Plot as I Understood It:Five years ago, Lea Curran slept with a circuit rodeo rider who picked her up in a bar and snuck out of the motel room in the middle of the night, taking away beautiful memories of hot and heavy sexin’ with a gorgeous guy (on the cover he looks like Matt Bomer and yeah, I would have tapped that) and getting herself well and knocked up in the process. Lea isn’t the type to go bed-hopping, but she had just buried the father she had never forgiven for being a cheating bastard and found herself in a bar, hating herself and looking for a way to ease the pain. Reilly Martin grew up a poor, little rich boy whose famous country singer mother only had him to save a loveless marriage and was paraded around as a child like a chihuahua in a Prada pet carrier. These two happy people bump into each other in a bar, sense each other’s emo tendencies, and get up to some Australian naked happy fun times in a cheap motel. Fast-forward to the present and Lea is the mother of a sickly four-year-old child called Molly and there’s no other cure for Molly but stem cells from a sibling which, when injected into her, will help her body produce the blood she needs. Or something like that. It’s some kind of anemia that will kill her very soon. Mustering up some courage and swallowing her pride, Lea heads on over to the Martin ranch with her little daughter in tow and knocks on Reilly’s door. Reilly is shocked and pleased and angry and turned on and confused that the lady he’s been looking for for the past five years is suddenly at his doorstep, telling him he has a daughter and could-he-pretty-please-knock-her-up-again-so-the-baby-can-save-the-daughter-he-never-knew-he-had? Reilly’s all, “LOL WUT?! Get out. Are you smokin’ crack?” But then Reilly sees the cute little girl looking all sickly and pale and his daddy genes activate and he gets all, “ZOMG, I have a child!” But he tells Lea he can’t help her, so Lea packs up Molly in her truck and goes back to her own ranch, all the while preparing herself for Molly’s inevitable demise. Until… Reilly shows up at her door! Lea’s all, “What are you doing here? I thought you said you won’t help me.” And Reilly’s all, “I said I CAN’T. All those years of rodeo-ridin’ crushed my balls and my baby batter is no good anymore and I’m sterile.” And Lea’s all, “Noooo!!!” **sobsobsobwhyyyyy** Reilly can’t stand seeing her looking so forlorn and helpless and says, “But… butttttttt…” Lea looks up. “Yesssss…” Reilly pulls at his shirt collar, scuffs his boots against the ground, and clears his throat. “Uh… well, right before the doctors told me I can’t make babies no more… erm… I got some baby batter frozen somewhere. Uh, you can have it if you want.” And Lea’s all, “Really?!” And Reilly confirms yes, she can have it, but only if he gets to keep the baby afterward. Lea can have all the stem cells she wants, but Reilly gets the finished product in payment for his stud services. Lea balks at this. She can’t give up her own baby, no. She can’t. But if Reilly walks away forever, Molly will really, totally die. Forced to give up one child so she can save another, Lea relents. She gets pregnant and Reilly asks that she and Molly move in with him until the baby is born. Lea agrees. For the good of the babies. Did I mention that Reilly is super hot? And really kind of nice? Oh yeah, this is going to end well.

The Heroine:I’m a little confused about something. Lea says she was able to hide the fact that she has a bastard child even though they seem to live in a fairly small town (province?) because she is known as Leanne Curran “by reputation.” What does that mean? I think there might have been a previous book about her sister or something (Outback Baby Tales?) where Lea is first mentioned because I have no idea what this “reputation” is and it’s never talked about. I was hoping she’s known around town as the horse lady who goes out every once in a while, gets black-out drunk, and sleeps with random rodeo dudes, but it’s probably something boring like she’s a good businesswoman who knows a thing or two about horses. Anyway, when she was a young girl, she caught her father having sex with another woman while her mother, dying of cancer, is lying in bed in a room down the hall. Dying of cancer. Lea can’t understand why her father could betray her mother in such a way and becomes bitter and cynical about monogamous love and committed relationships. She has a hard time believing that Reilly could actually love her and turns away any attempts of Reilly to get to know and befriend her. Lea is in a very tough situation. Both of her sisters have their own families, her parents are dead, and all she really has in life is Molly. She doesn’t seem to have any friends—in fact, with the exception of some farm hands, household help, and some offhand mentions of Lea’s sisters asking how she’s doing, there aren’t a lot of people in this book. Lea is well and truly isolated. There’s a scene where Reilly asks Lea what she would do if Molly were to die and Lea kind of laughs bitterly and quips that she’s not going to walk out to the desert and keep walking till she dies, that she’ll survive and keep on keepin’ on. She can’t allow Reilly to get close because she has too much to protect: herself, Molly, and her unborn child. She’s prickly and defensive. She fantasizes of breaking the contract with Reilly—she signs away her parental rights in exchange for the stem cells—taking the children, and running away where he won’t be able to find them, yet at the same time, she steels herself against bonding with the baby because she wants to inure herself enough that she won’t break when she has to give him up. For Lea, there’s just way too much at risk for her to let Reilly in. She’s stubborn and hard to know, often fighting against her own instincts and desires in the name of self-preservation. I found it hard to sympathize with her at times because I just wanted her to open her eyes and see that Reilly is for real and wants to be there for her. At the same time, I understood that she only wants to protect her sick child and to be able to find a way to get on with her life in the event that the treatment fails and Reilly doesn’t stick around. Still, she’s frustratingly stubborn and made me roll my eyes so much I got dizzy. Buuuuut… she really has no reason to trust Reilly, does she?. She doesn’t know him. He was a one-night stand five years ago. Why would she have any reason to believe that he truly wants her and not just because she’s the mother of his two kids and the one and only chance he has to have a family?

The Hero:Reilly…is a nice guy. His parents were some country singing superstars in the 70s and his mother only had him because she believed her fans expected her to have a child. Reilly grew up in the care of nannies and was occasionally dragged around by his mother all over the country for photo ops. He becomes a rodeo superstar and does the romance hero thing of getting drunk in bars and sleeping with any woman who throws herself at him (why does the romance hero does this? Okay, fine, you’re virile…I believe you. Chicks find you desirable. Oooh, chlamydia is so sexy). He sleeps with Lea and it’s the best sex he’s ever had and it was so special and they talked all night in between the sessions of hot sexin’, then he wakes up and she’s gone. She’s gooooone. Five years later, Reilly has retreated to his ranch and is still involved with the rodeo, but not as the main attraction. He’s one of the guys who rides in and rescues the rider when he’s in trouble. Mostly, he just works at his ranch and plays with his horses. When Lea shows up at his doorstep, he pretends not to remember who she is even though deep inside, he’s thinking It’s her! It’s her! Look cool, Reilly. Stay calm. You’re the Fonz. You don’t even remem—but oh, it’s her! Reilly wants to have the family he never experienced as a child, but his “disability” has made that impossible. Imagine becoming resolved to being childless and lonely for the rest of your life only to find that you actually have a kid you didn’t know about. I found it interesting that Reilly never found a partner before Lea with whom he could have children, albeit via in vitro fertilization (which is how Lea gets pregnant, anyway). On one hand, Lea is desperate and will do anything in her power to make sure that the pregnancy is successful because it might save the child she already has. On the other hand, why would Reilly “waste” the admittedly small sample of sperm he has left on a woman he doesn’t know and may disappear with his last chance of having a child? Naturally this means that Reilly really just wants another way to bind Lea to him. It’s one thing if they had the one child (whose infancy Reilly never got to witness) together, but to have another child whose gestation Reilly gets to be around for? No matter what, that just ensures that Reilly will be in Lea’s life for the foreseeable future. Reilly is a good guy: he’s family-oriented, seems to actually want to sit and listen to Lea’s concerns, and he’s not Grabby McMolesterson who slavers over the heroine like some deranged wolf who prefers the meat of pregnant women or something. He manipulates Lea effectively into situations that benefit him the most by telling her that it’s all for Molly, knowing that Lea will do anything for Molly. Is it safe to say that Reilly takes advantage of Lea’s emotionally fragile state to get what he wants? Maybe, but Reilly just seems… so nice. And lonely. Oh hell, the poor guy just needs a hug.

Oh My Word: What I found refreshing about this book is that the hero doesn’t grab the heroine every five seconds and forcibly kisses her to “remind” her that she wants him as much as he wants her. While Reilly manipulates Lea into staying at his ranch with him, it’s not just because he wants easy access to her hot pocket. He really wants to get to know her, you guys. And that’s nice and all, but bleeeeurgh these two are about as sexy as julienned carrots in a ziplock bag sitting in the office fridge. I get it—it’s hard to get sexy out of “my child is going to die, so please impregnate me so I can use the baby’s blood to save my dying child” plus “oh no, I busted my testicles and can’t make baby batter no more, so I’m no longer a man,” but Reilly and Lea just seem so “meh” together. Sexy doesn’t have to mean they’re banging on every available surface every available minute–hell, Mulder and Scully could heat up a room with a brief eye contact–but these two just don’t seem to HAVE chemistry. The author tells me they’re attracted to each other and they have a lot in common—they both like horses—but I just don’t buy that it’s a grand romance. The scene I found especially telling was the one where Reilly proposes marriage to Lea on the basis that they like each other okay and they’ll have two kids together and Lea’s like, “What about love?” There’s no sizzle between Lea and Reilly, nothing to make you get all breathless and go, “Oh, these two crazy kids just need to get together already!” Like I said, maybe I just found it hard to cheer for these two because of the dying kid between them and OH MY GOD, wouldn’t you feel bad about drooling over your HOT GORGEOUS ONE NIGHT STAND from FIVE YEARS AGO when your kid is dying of some rare blood disease? Epic boner killer. Speaking of the dying kid, I did not shed a tear while reading this book at all. I’m a watering pot and I’ll cry over practically anything, especially over cute tiny kittens on Youtube who can’t get out of cups, but I couldn’t squeeze out any tears for this book. I mean, we’re talking about a kid dying and the only way to save her is for her mom to hunt down her old lover who never knew about the existence of the kid and have another kid with him, only to find out that he can’t have kids anymore because his reproductive organs don’t work? Holy crap, I was expecting major waterworks! In fact, I was reluctant to read this book because I was convinced I’d come across a scene where little Molly is lying in a hospital bed and she’s got all sorts of tubes coming out of her and she’s all frail and little and Lea is begging her, “Hold on, baby, hold on! Please, hold on for mommy!” and I would just die. I can’t ever take that shit. When you write a story like this, you gotta go for broke, man! I didn’t even hear the teeny-tiny violins that my brain usually plays whenever I read a sad scene. Trust me, I’m a big crybaby and I didn’t even get choked up this time. I want more cheese! More melodrama! Lea and Reilly needed to come together and hug and kiss to some big, grand soundtrack with a constantly surprising refrain. In the rain. And they need to be crying and laughing at the same time. Instead, we just get, “Oh yay, we both like horses and we have two kids together, so do you want to get married?” It was just… meh. I don’t know, maybe I should stop watching Mexican telenovelas. I really think it’s starting to mess with my perception.

The scene that did stick in my mind, though, was the crocodile scene. There they are—Reilly, Lea, and Molly—sunning themselves and having fun in a nearby watering hole when all of a sudden, there’s a frickin’ crocodile! So they grab their shit and run like hell to Reilly’s jeep. I gotta admit: that made me laugh out loud. A crocodile!

Christopher Pike was a staple in my early teenage years. He was one of the authors I regularly watched out for along with Caroline B. Cooney, Lois Duncan, R.L. Stine, and V.C. Andrews. There was another girl from the junior high I went to who also loved these books and I would get so mad whenever she got to the library before me on New Release day and checked out the new Christopher Pike. That bitch. I wonder what she’s up to now. Emily Andrews, wherever you are… YOU NEVER RETURNED “REMEMBER ME” BEFORE YOU MOVED TO OHIO AND I NEVER GOT TO READ IT. UGH. I hope the library hell’a fined her for it and now she can’t apply for an FBI clearance because she owes like, thousands of dollars in library fines. I bet while she was cleaning up her room one day before she went off to college, she found that copy of “Remember Me” under her bed, smiled to herself over the fond memories that the sight of it brought, and thought, “Ha-HA. Dionne Galace never got to read this. Fuck that silly bitch.” Screw you, Emily Andrews! I never told you to your face that you always smelled like boiled broccoli and baby powder after gym and everyone always talked about you behind your back! Who’s the silly bitch now?!

The Plot as I Understood It: This delightful tale of OMG-WHO-KILLED-THAT-BITCH-JANE starts out in a police station with seventeen-year-old Alice Palmer looking disheveled and confused while being interrogated by a homicide detective about the murders of seventeen-year-old Jane Retton, who is Alice’s best friend, and her jock boyfriend Kirk Donner. Alice tells the detective that Jane had fallen overboard from her father’s yacht during a heated argument with Kirk and Patty Brane, the head cheerleader and the arch-nemesis of Jane. Jane, Alice said, just never surfaced and must have drowned. The detective asks what Jane, Kirk, and Patty were arguing about and Alice tells the detective that it all started with a diary…

The narration then switches to Jane’s point-of-view. Jane works for the school paper and tends to write contentious articles about the basketball team and the cheerleading squad. As you can guess, this is not the most effective way to make friends. When she’s not pissing off half the school, Jane enjoys writing in her diary—only it’s not really a diary because some of the stuff she’s written on it could be classified as fantasy… as in, made-up. While contemplating if she should lose her virginity to her current boyfriend, she writes a steamy sex scene starring Kirk and herself for her own amusement. If anyone else were to read her diary, Jane would just absolutely die. But one day, she goes to school and notices everyone in the hallways sneering and gawking at her. Jane quickly realizes with growing mortification and dismay that someone must have stolen her diary and shared her dirty, little fantasy with the student body. In fact, someone had actually taken the time to photocopy this very salacious portion of Jane’s diary and decided to distribute the pages to her classmates. Utterly humiliated, Jane goes to Kirk to ask him to tell everyone that what she wrote in her diary is not true, but her boyfriend seems to be basking in the glow of being known as a stud. He’s only too happy to enhance his own reputation with this rumor, while Jane suffers from embarrassment. Worst of all, the culprit turns out to be Patty, who did it to punish Jane for all the less than complimentary articles she has written about the squad on the school paper and for dating Kirk, the hottest boy in school. Betrayed by her own boyfriend, Jane decides she’s going to do everything in her power to make them both pay. Oh yes, they will pay.

Jane, Alice tells the detective, planned on pulling a very mean prank on Patty and Kirk and she needed Alice’s help to make it happen. She and Alice will throw a party on a yacht rented by Alice’s father and they will invite all the popular kids in school, including Patty and Kirk. Jane will instigate a fight between Patty and Kirk and in the scuffle and confusion, she will make it look like one of them pushed her off the yacht, so that they will be blamed when she disappeared. Jane, as it turned out, is a very good swimmer and scuba diver. Her plan goes like this: she will affix her scuba gear to the bottom of the yacht and put it on once she goes under. She will stay underwater until the yacht is out of sight, then she will swim to the shore, drive to Alice’s cabin, and hang out there for a little bit. Once Kirk and Patty are well and truly cooked, she’ll pop out and tell them she got bored at the yacht, swam to the shore, and decided to go home. It’s a good joke. It’d be a challenge to pull off, but man, it’d be worth it and she figured Kirk and Patty deserve it for being such assholes. The plan should have worked… but because this is a horror novel, everything goes horribly wrong and somebody dies.

Oh My Word: I’d always liked Christopher Pike when I was a kid because even though he wrote Young Adult books, they were a little darker than everything else out there. The kids worried about real things like peer pressure, drinking alcohol, whether or not they should have sex with their boyfriends, and what kind of shovel would be best for digging up holes to bury bodies. This was actually a fun little whodunit and I found myself rooting for Jane to succeed even though she seems to be a gleeful bitch with a sadistic streak. The characters in this story are so awful and are such cardboard stereotypes that I actually couldn’t wait until somebody killed them off. The person whom I thought was the killer actually turned out to be the killer but the motive for all the killing had me in stitches. Holy shit. I couldn’t believe that Christopher Pike actually got away with it. What am I talking about, you might ask? Cold sores. The killer just snapped and started cold-murdering people because of cold sores. Yes, they’re unsightly, disgusting, and just plain gross. COLD SORES! This is what happens when sex education isn’t taught in schools and kids don’t learn how communicable diseases are transmitted. This is the main point of “Gimme a Kiss.” Sure, there’s also the thing with Jane and her diary and how she’s a total harlot because she wrote about doing dirty things with her boyfriend that everyone believed to be true and I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned about planning really elaborate, convoluted revenge that can easily go wrong when you can instead put super glue in the cheerleader bitch’s shampoo or super glue the boyfriend’s armpit shut (a lot of my revenge plots includes super glue). The #1 sign that your Big Heaping Revenge Plot is going to go wrong? You need a motherfreakin’ yacht and scuba gear to accomplish it. Frickin’ ridiculous. Still, this book was a blast to read and I imagined that the detective interviewing Alice throughout the novel was Stabler. Moral of the story: If you’re going to write some nasty stuff you don’t want anyone else to find, you keep that shit under lock and key, preferably in a safe with a retinal scan. Oh, and if the person you want to make out with has a nasty-looking sore on his/her lip, it’s probably not a good idea to suck face with them. Cold sores are a bitch.

The Plot as I Understood It: Ephraim “Eph” Scott is not the happiest sixteen-year-old kid you’ll meet. His father died when he was a kid and his mother, when not passed out drunk on the couch, works late hours at the local supermarket as a cashier. Eph not only takes care of his mother like he’s the parent instead of the child, but he also takes over her shifts at the supermarket whenever she can’t make it to work. His only escape is school where he gets to hang out with his nerdy, wise-cracking best friend Nathan and peek surreptitiously at the nerdy, beautiful, but unapproachable Jenna, who wouldn’t notice him even if he spontaneously combusted in front of her. But Eph’s challenged, but ultimately predictable life takes a turn for the weird when he comes home and finds his mother unconscious in the kitchen with a bottle of vodka and an empty bottle of pills. Panicked, Eph wakes up his mother and she tells him she tried to kill herself because she just came home from the morgue where Ephraim was supposedly dead and so hopelessly mangled from being crushed by a bus that he could only be identified by his library card. Wut?! Eph accompanies his mother to the hospital where he meets a kind nurse who is the mother to the two most beautiful girls in school, Mary and Shelley (their father is an English professor), the twinly objects of unrequited affection of his best friend Nathan. The nurse allows Eph to stay with his mother even after visiting hours. He looks through the things left behind by the body whom everyone seems to think is Ephraim and he finds the wallet identical to his as well as a 1998 limited edition quarter from the state of Puerto Rico… wait a minute… scratch that. Puerto Rico is not a state. Right? ::checks Wikipedia:: Okey-dokey, then. Where were we?

Ephraim is bemused by the coin, but keeps it with him (he collects state quarters) and the next day, finds a note in his locker telling him to flip the coin and make a wish. Eph is a smart kid and doesn’t really believe in whimsical fuckery, but he’s also a teenager in a desperate situation. In a weak moment while alone in his room, he makes a half-hearted wish that his mother isn’t a useless drunk and flips the coin (heads). When he wakes up the next day, his mother is cooking him breakfast in the kitchen and she looks younger and healthier than he has ever seen her. She has a great job, is dating a nice guy, and doesn’t remember ever going to the hospital for attempted suicide. Eph goes to the hospital to check out the body that his mother had thought was him in the first place, but no one in the hospital knows what he’s talking about and Mary and Shelley’s nurse mother doesn’t remember ever meeting him. He also encounters the school bully whose favorite hobby is beating up on his best friend Nathan and stuffing him in lockers—and he looks like he just got the stuffing beaten out of him. The bully tells Eph that Nathan had done it and Eph can hardly believe it. At school, he comes across his best friend Nate, but he’s different somehow—snarkier and there is a cruel edge to his jokes. Adding to Eph’s confusion, Mary, one of the hot twins, seems to be interested in him and Jenna is all of sudden not too indifferent to his existence. Could the wish he made on the coin really make all of this happen? But why is this world so vastly different from the world he knew? How could an off-handed wish for his mother not to be a drunk anymore affect the world in such a way that Nate has turned into a bit of a jerk and Mary and Jenna, the two hottest girls in schools, are paying attention to him?

But just when things in his life are starting to go right—Jenna has liked him all along!—he finds out that Jenna’s father just got promoted at his job and they’re going to be moving to California. Eph makes a wish that Jenna doesn’t have to move to California and boom! Jenna’s dad all of a sudden suffers from a heart attack and they don’t have to move anymore. Beset with guilt, Eph confides everything to Nate, who becomes obsessed with using the coin, so that the two of them aren’t a couple of high school losers anymore. Eph is the only one who can remember how the everything “used to be,” but if someone is touching him while the world “shifts,” that person will remember too and Nate wants to use the coin to their advantage. Eph is more concerned about setting things right, but Nate accuses him of being selfish and convinces him to wish that Shelley, one of the hot twins, is in love with Nate. But in this world, Eph also happens to be dating Mary—even though he’s really in love with Jenna—and Nate, who seems to get darker and meaner with each “shift,” finally gets Shelley and warns Eph not to mess it up. At this point, Eph’s life has gotten more complicated than it originally was and with each wish to make things “better,” it just gets more and more messed up. On top of that, there seems to be a doppelganger of Nate following them around and he is one scary dude…

Oh My Word:I’m going to stop talking about the plot now because I don’t want to ruin anything for you. But I gotta say: whatever you think this story is about, I can almost without a doubt tell you that you’d be wrong. That’s what I really like about this clever, gripping, dark, yet surprisingly funny novel: it’s original, even though it’s really just a modern take on the “Monkey’s Paw.” Eph is a rare protagonist in a teen novel that he’s not emo about every little thing nor does he whinge about every decision he has to make and annoy the crap out of the reader, prompting them to yell, “Oh for God’s sake, do something already!” This isn’t a tale where Eph gets drunk with the power of the coin, wishes for ridiculous things, realizes in the third act that he’s fucked everything up, and hurries to clean up his mess before the final act so he can get the girl. Eph is surprisingly level-headed for a teen and takes the time to look around his new surroundings and tries to figure out how his latest wish will affect everything before making the wish. Ephraim, after all, had to grow up early and take care of himself and his mother, so he’s a little more mature than your average fictional teen. Don’t get me wrong—Eph is not a precocious little shit who talks like he swallowed a dictionary; he’s just not thoughtless and inconsiderate. I found it interesting to read about the way everyone around Eph changes as he stays the same and effectively becomes an observer out of time and not really belonging anywhere because for the most part, he’s really the only one who knows how things are supposed to be. The secondary characters are also solidly written and developed. Jenna is not just somebody’s love interest: she’s smarter than Eph, pretty, and hey, she’s Asian (high-five)! Nate is not just your average bullied nerd, either: he’s got some deep, dark resentment simmering underneath and some serious I-deserve-this issues to boot. The dialogue is witty, the characterizations are spot on—the nerd isn’t just a nerd; the pretty girl is not just somebody’s prize to be won. But this book wouldn’t have worked if Eph weren’t so steady and consistent. That’s what I like about this kid: everything in the world around him can change with a wish and the flip of a coin, but he’s the same Ephraim throughout. He’s thoughtful, clever, and earnest. He really just wants to set things right. Not to say that Eph is a boring saint or anything; after all, he does make a wish for the girl he likes to like him back and when Nate asks him to wish for Shelley or Mary to fall in love with him, Eph balks and says it wouldn’t be fair to the girls. Hypocrite much? And yet, Eph is just a great character to root for and this book is addictive like… crack. Arrrgh, the whole time, I was like, “Zo-em-gee, HOW CAN THINGS GET WORSE THAN THEY ARE?” I’m warning you that if you pick it up, you’re gonna want to finish it right there and then, so I suggest you don’t pick it up at 9pm on a Sunday. I just really enjoyed the idea that for a wish to come true, something has to precipitate it; if something is supposed to happen and you interfere with it so that it doesn’t happen or it does happen but now there’s a new addition to the equation so the end game is essentially different, there has to be a consequence for it. It’s like Twilight Zone for kids. And speaking of Twilight Zone, E.C. Myers gives a great shout-out to it by having Jenna’s dad collect DVDs of old classic TV and she invites Eph for a Twilight Zone marathon. Damn. I love that shit. And I love this book.

Dear E.C. Meyers, write more. SRSLY, when is your next book coming out?!? Love, Bam.

Callie Woodland (…creatures. snerk) is a sixteen-year-old girl who is just trying to survive day-by-day while taking care of her seven-year-old brother Tyler, sickly with some unspecified ailment (he coughs, gets high fevers, looks pasty–the usual kids-in-a-coal-mine, Oliver Twist type syndrome). Their father was a government scientist who taught Callie how to shoot, fight, and hunt, so she would be able to take care of herself and her brother. You might wonder why Mr. and Mrs. Woodland didn’t get the vaccine even though Mr. Woodland worked for the government and they could have avoided certain death, but Mr. Woodland don’t play that way. He is a good, straight-arrow man. And now he’s dead. And the missus too. And Callie and Tyler have to scrounge around for food and sleep in abandoned buildings like refugee orphans in a Charles Dickens novel. Thanks a lot, Dad. Priorities, man! Dad’s nickname for Callie was Cal Girl. Really?! Add another “L” to “Cal” and what do you get? Because Callie is tired of eating out of garbage cans and lugging around her sick little brother from hovel to hovel, she checks out a special clinic in Beverly Hills called Prime Destinations, which she heard about from another Starter. Callie gawks at her surroundings and is served clean water and this chocolate thing called Supertruffle (which seems to be a vitamin/protein bar), which she snarfs down pretty quickly. When offered more, she takes one for Tyler and another for Michael (a love interest slash tag-along figure). She meets Mr. Tannenbaum, who appears to be the major domo of the place, and the one who presents her the contract. Let’s break it down: Callie will have a microchip surgically implanted in the base of her skull which will allow the “renter” to take over her body and walk around in a Callie-suit while Callie is “asleep.” She will be given a “perfect girl” makeover, rented out three times, and at the end of the third time, will receive a buttload of money. She hopes it’ll be enough money to get herself and Tyler a small house and food supply for a year. She gets so skeeved out at the thought of a microchip being implanted in her brain that she changes her mind and runs away from Prime Destinations. She gets back to the hovel, shares her Supertruffle feast, and tries to forget about Prime Destinations and the sweet, sweet money it could bring. UNTIL somebody firebombs their building and they lose everything they own. She entrusts Tyler to Michael, promises her little brother she will be right back and everything will be fine, and hightails it back to Prime Destinations. There is a creepy, mysterious entity called The Old Man who Callie finds out is the big boss of the operation, but she shakes off the wiggins, gives herself a pep talk, and signs the dotted line.

Makeover Time! Callie gets a team of people who fix her hair, lasers off unwanted hair and freckles, put on her make-up, and kit her up in fancy clothes. They test out her supposed skills in archery and shooting. The first two rentals are fine. One is for a day (a test-run) and the second one for a week. At this point, Callie’s already counting up the money she’s going to get at the end of the third rental. That is, until they tell her the assignment is going to be for a month. She begs them to let her see Tyler and is escorted to their hideout with an armed guard. She is allowed a couple of hours with her brother upon which she promises she’ll come back for him, then is ushered back to PD. When she wakes up again, she is woozy and lost in a nightclub. She doesn’t know how she got there since she’s supposed to be asleep in the clinic while her body is being rented. A beautiful young girl named Madison approaches her and pegs her to be a “renter” because of her perfect looks. Madison, as it turns out, is a renter named Rhiannon and thinks Callie has a renter inside her, too. Callie plays it off like she does have a renter inside her and befriends Madison. Meanwhile, a hot boy named Blake checks her out and he seems to be a real teen. Madison tells Callie to be careful because it’s against the rules for the renters to use the bodies to have sex or do anything dangerous like cliff-diving, bungee-jumping, or surfing with great white sharks. Callie’s first thought is to return to Prime Destinations, since the chip is obviously malfunctioning, but a voice inside her head tells her it would be the worst idea. Callie tries to figure out where the voice is coming from, but follows its advice anyway and takes the car back to her renter’s mansion. And then she blacks out. She’s hearing voices in her head, the hot boy Blake wants to be her boyfriend (oooh, he’s so hot and rich) and she’s starting to think that this “renting her body out” gig might be a bad idea. Especially when she discovers why her renter requested someone with her skill set–a young, athletic shooter. Her renter wants her to kill someone.

What I like about Callie is she knows what she has to do and she does it. She’s tough, clever, and quick. I would have liked to see her use her hyped-up ass-kicking skills, but we don’t really get any of that. And even though she’s beautiful and everyone is aware of it, we don’t really get the sense that she’s universally adored by all nor is she defined by whether or not she’s going to end up with one guy or the other. In fact, even though there are two guys here— Team Michael, Team Blake–Callie is rightly more concerned with solving her more urgent problems and finding a place where she can have a home with her brother. It doesn’t ever devolve into a stupid love triangle where Callie worries more about whom she’s supposed to be with when she’s supposed to be figuring out how to get her ass out of a sticky situation. There is a sense of urgency here: Callie has to find out why her renter wants her to kill the target and what she can do to stop it from happening. What I gotta hand to Callie is how brave she is. Girlfriend will not hesitate to hold a gun on somebody or shoot them if she has to, just to get the ball rolling. She also instinctively knows which people to lean on and which ones would be easy to manipulate for help. She’s a smart one. Sure, she’s sixteen years old and gets jealous when a boy she likes starts paying attention to another girl or when the other boy she likes doesn’t call her back or return her “zing” messages. But all of that takes a back seat to the bigger problem: who the hell is the Old Man and why does the voice in her head want her to kill! Kill! Kill!

Oh My Word I don’t want to share any more of the story or I might reveal something that will ruin it for you all. Needless to say, I was a little surprised at the “twist.” It was something that occurred to me early in the book in a “wouldn’t it be cool…” kind of way and I was more than a little thrilled when it happened. The moment brought an “ewww” and “oooh.” Mostly “ewwww,” but some “ooh.” And I really can’t say any more about it or I’ll spoil the surprise. I do have to say that the cliffhanger made me lose my shit a little because I don’t know when the next book in the series will come out. I’m definitely interested in where the author will be taking the story. I thought the ending was nice, but then she throws a “dun-dun-dun!” in the last couple of paragraphs and I was like, “ARRRRGH!!! NO!!!!” I hurriedly went to Amazon to see if the next book was available for pre-order, but no such luck. Oh, by the way, I don’t suggest starting the book right before you go to bed because before you know it, it will be three o’clock in the morning and you’re supposed to get up in three hours to go to work. But yeah, definitely worth the read. I wish the author had shown a little bit more of Callie’s supposed fighting skills. I would have liked to see her kick some ass. And I’m really, really happy that this particular book didn’t focus on the “romance” aspect of the story. I mean, kids are being used as meat puppets by old people; you can’t take that shit seriously if the heroine is too busy whining about how hard it is to choose one boy over the other. Meat puppets! I would have also liked some more solid world-building. Maybe I just missed it, but for the first two chapters, I was wondering what Friendlies were. I just figured they were people who wouldn’t beat you up for a slice of moldy bread, but I could be wrong. I was also wondering who the Renagades were. Do they just attack people randomly and what parts of LA do they congregate? What do the roads look like? I realize the war was not too long ago–three years, maybe–so what do the streets look like? Are there abandoned cars in the freeways? Is everything back to some semblance of normalcy? What did they do with all the bodies of parents? That’s got to be billions of people. The story is pretty centralized in LA, but what is happening in other cities? What’s the government situation like? I realize since there are marshals roaming the streets that LA has become a police state, but how can the marshals even handle the young ruffians? Sure, there are medical enhancements so that one-hundred-years-old is the new middle age, but what do they even look like? There are some references to surgical enhancements so that the people would stay healthy and young, but what is the technology, exactly? Is it vitamins that they take everyday? Do they have to have something done to alter their bodies or they would age normally and die? Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the book and can’t want for the next one, but seriously, while reading the damn thing, all I could think about was, how are the old people walking around at 150 years old?

I would hate to get a Valentine like this:

“ROSES ARE RED.

VIOLETS ARE BLUE

ON VALENTINE’S DAY

JOSIE WILL BE DEAD.”

Oooh scary. Not. ‘Cause the sender is not even trying. Seriously, wut?! That’s not threatening at all. I hate it when my stalker-secret-admirers don’t put any effort in the death threats they send me. How about something like:

Dear Bitch-Face:

P.S. That would probably be on Valentine’s Day.

Sure it doesn’t rhyme, but goddamn, that would scare me.

The recipient of this awful Valentine is Josie. Why did Josie receive such a gem? Because Josie is a jerk and a self-absorbed twit (which, I’ve noticed in the R.L. Stine books, seem to be a trend with the teenage female leads). But here is why Josie is a jerk and rightly deserves all the awful Valentines in the world: she, her BFF Melissa, her twin Rachel, and her little sister Erica decide to go horse-back riding one fine sunny day. Erica is a bit of a nervous nelly, so she doesn’t want to even go near a horse, so Josie derisively makes fun of her. Rachel comforts Erica and tells her to just hang out at the ranch while the three of them ride for a bit and they’ll be back for her. Obviously, Rachel is the nice twin. While readying her horse, Rachel asks Josie for help with the bridle; Josie impatiently helps her and calls out to Melissa to check if she put it on right. Melissa, eager to get going, dismissively says yes, fine, let’s just go. I think you know where this is going. Rachel’s horse gets spooked and throws her off, which prompts Josie to scream, “She landed on her head! She landed on her head!” at the end of the prologue.

I knew who the killer was by the end of Chapter Two. Damn it.

Rachel received brain damage for her trouble. While outwardly, she looks exactly the same–pretty, willowy, serene–the Rachel we knew for only a few pages is gone forever. She now has the mind of a child and cannot function on her own. The family can’t afford to hire a caretaker for Rachel, so Josie and Erica are forced to take care of her. Of course because Josie is a selfish asshole who would rather hang out with her new boyfriend–who she’s been with for all of five months, which is a record for her since she usually dumps guys after a couple of weeks– all the babysitting falls on Erica. Erica, the youngest of the three sisters, just really, really, really wants an awesome high school experience. She wants a boyfriend, wants to land the lead in the school play, and just… really wants for someone to care about what she wants, goddamn it. Oh, WANTS. YEARNS. It’s always Josie, Josie, Josie. Why does Josie always gets what she wants? Why is Erica always stuck taking care of Rachel? Why doesn’t anyone care about Rachel but Erica?

Hmm… mmmmmmotive. Briscoe and Green would be giving her the stink-eye at this point.

But Josie is such a jerk that everyone wants to shove her down a deep, dark manhole and fill it with cement. Even Melissa, her former best friend, is baffled by her awful behavior. One leading candidate is Rachel’s boyfriend (ex-boyfriend? If something gets shaken loose in your brainpan and you become stuck in the mindset of a five-year-old girl forever and you never got to break up with your boyfriend, is he still your boyfriend until he dumps you? And who would dump someone who suffered something so traumatic? Awkward.) whose name I can’t remember and can’t bother to look up now. Josie thinks he’s “creepy,” but we’ve already established that Josie is a douchebag. Anyway, Rachel’s boyfriend still comes around the house to visit Rachel even though she no longer responds to him and has the attention span of a cucumber with ADHD. He’s a nice guy and doesn’t want to be known as the asshole who dumped the brain-damaged girl. Josie, of course, hates him and doesn’t understand why he keeps hanging around. Still, Erica is stuck doing most of the babysitting since Josie always seems to be in a hurry to get away from Rachel (she knows, deep inside, that Rachel’s accident is partly her fault and being around her creeps Josie out). Erica even misses a crucial audition for a school play because Josie blows her off and hangs out with Steve, instead.

Hmm… maybe Steve is the killer. Maybe he is Rachel’s secret lover and now he’s planning on getting back at Josie by making her his girlfriend, then taking her to the prom, and spilling pig blood all over her head while she’s on stage, getting crowned the prom queen.

But before Josie met Steve, she was a bit of a player and treated guys like chewed-up gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She has one ex following her around like a creep and begging Josie to take him back and another ex, now dating Melissa, who also hates Josie and spends half the time talking crap about her and how she’s gonna get it. Dudes, get a hobby. And I don’t mean stalking Josie. Heck, read a book.

And then Josie starts getting the badly-written Valentine odes, threatening all kinds of death and bad stuff. Josie laughs it off because honestly, who can take that shit seriously? “Roses are red, violets are blue… I’M GOING TO PULL YOUR SPINE OUT OF YOUR ASS AND BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH IT!!!” (Shush, it’s a kid’s book… of course it doesn’t say that on the note) Instead, she continues to ignore Rachel–who seems to be stalking her on the intercom, asking her to come up to her room and brush her hair, only to find her blissfully asleep by the time Josie gets there–blow off Erica, and go ice-skating with Steeeeve. Meanwhile, Rachel continues to creep everyone out by saying nonsensical things in a sing-song voice and staring unblinkingly at people. And Erica is getting MORE MAD than Josie keeps eschewing her babysitting duties in favor of being an outright selfish douche-canoe. Why would Erica want a social life anyway? She’s only 15! On the exes-who-can’t-let-go front, there are muttered threats and whispers that Josie is a jerk and she’s sooo gonna get it.

And she does! Josie gets stabbed in the back with her ice-skating blades. Bad news bears. Melissa’s boyfriend, as it turns out, is the one sending her the “creepy” Valentine’s messages because he’s still bitter about Josie dumping him. He becomes convinced that Josie is hiding the letters in her house somewhere, so he breaks in–as one would do–so he could steal the letters back lest the cops find them (mmmmmotive!), freaks out in the dark, and accidentally stabs Erica, who probably heard some noise that she just had to investigate.

End of story. Or… is it?

Now Melissa, whom dead Josie blamed for Rachel’s accident–she should have checked the bridle, goddamn it–is getting the awful notes. Her boyfriend Dave is shipped to some juvie detention place and she’s now dating Rachel’s boyfriend. God, does Melissa just wait like a hungry dog for the scraps from Josie and Rachel’s table? Her crazy ex-boyfriend, the one who “killed” Josie, has escaped from the pokey, telling Melissa that he’s innocent and he can prove it. And then he gets STONE-COLD KILLED, yo. I guess he’s not the killer. Oh, and by the way, Melissa has been seeing Rachel–or is it–running around the neighborhood. Wait a minute… she’s not allowed to go outside!

So who’s sending the notes? Who killed Josie and Josie’s ex-boyfriend? If you say it’s Rachel and she’s suddenly okay again and now she’s out for revenge, that’s… a good guess. Why wouldn’t she want to go after the two bitches who contributed to her accident and made her spend an entire year as a turnip?

But you’d be wrong.

Final Word: There is not one likable character in this story. The whole time I was reading this book, I kept thinking to myself, “Oh my god, what an incredible bitch,” and I could have been talking about anybody. The motive of the killer is flimsy, but understandable. Vintage R.L. Stine, but pretty standard stuff. These books always seem to be about punishing pretty girls for doing shitty things and none of the deaths have any impact. Someone died? Ohmygosh, so sad, but hey, I got math homework. Still, the Fear Street series is kid-cocaine and this one is no different.

[Duh, spoilers abound.]

Lynne and Crystal are your typical high school girls–and by typical, I mean in a world that never existed outside of Sweet Valley High or Bayside High School–who only seem to care about boys, make-up, and which girl can get more boys to ask her out. The first chapter literally spends several paragraphs on Crystal waxing poetic about her new favorite lipstick shade called Kiss of Death, natch. We even have Crystal bemoaning to her “ugly” sister at one point that she only had 1 boy ask her out that week. Crystal Thomas is the one of the prettiest, most popular girls in school and her best friend Lynne, the flirtier one, is also really pretty and popular. Crystal’s older sister Melinda looks exactly like Crystal (she might be the Liz Wakefield of the two), but she wears glasses and likes to read boring, old books like Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre on an old armchair in the attic and probably wears paint-splattered jumpers and her hair in a ponytail, so who cares about her. She’s weird. Crystal gets all the boys while Melinda sits home alone on Saturday nights with her dumbass moldy books for company, so Crystal’s real competition when it comes to boys is her best friend Lynne. The friendly rivalry heats up when an oh-so-hot boy who has a bodacious bod moves in next door to Crystal–and their bedrooms are on the same floor and they can see each other through their windows, zo-em-gee– and the two girls make a bet on who gets asked out by the hot boy first. Melinda is in on the bet, too, but it’s not like Scott will even notice her because she wears glasses and likes to read books, so dream on, girlfriend. Oh, sweetie, you’re pretty. You really are. You just need to fix yourself up a little. Shut up, Crystal and Lynne.

The fun part in reading a Fear Street book for me had always been how quickly I can guess who the real killer is. R.L. Stine is pretty good at fake-outs and red herrings, but I usually have the killer guessed by Chapter Three or Chapter Two, if I’m feeling particularly clever. In this book, there are no guessing games to be had. At first I thought the killer was someone else or it’s who we immediately guess it is but there’s a rational explanation for it, like he’s got multiple personalities or a doppelganger who’s the ghost of his dead twin brother punishing sluts on his behalf. I mean, for sure, I thought it was the dead ex-girlfriend who wasn’t REALLY dead but was just in a coma, then woke up, started dressing up like Scott, and cold-murdering sluts who crush on Scott because Scott promised her he was going to wait for her, but instead he moved to a new town and started dating other chicks, but that wasn’t it, either. Nope. The killer is just plain old Scott. Sorry.

Scott moves to Shadyside with his mother because he killed his last girlfriend for being such a tramp. Ohmygosh, she wears mini-skirts and lip gloss and wants to kiss me with her mouth open! Scott’s side of the story is told from a first-person perspective and dude is nuts. He invites his girlfriend to go swimming with him and the poor girl–who probably wore a sexy two-piece, the no good hussy–didn’t check the pool before going for a dive–seriously, who does that–and naturally, the pool is empty. I know they go swimming at night, but shouldn’t you still be able to see that there’s no water in the pool? The poor girl lands on her head and breaks her neck and Scott waits until he’s sure she’s dead before he calls for help. Now because his dead girlfriend was a jezebel who couldn’t keep her hands off of him, he has to move to a new town and start over in a whole new school and live next-door to a shameless hussy who spies on him through his bedroom window and probably wears lip gloss and deodorant! Why can’t Scott just find a nice girl who doesn’t use make up, wears turtlenecks and ankle-length skirts, and wants to wait till marriage to even kiss? Oh and who is to blame for Scotty’s Norman Bates-like psychosis? Mother, of course! His mother thinks all young women are whores who don’t know the right way to behave and just want to take Scotty away from her so he can smoke pot and have pre-marital sex. She’s like Mrs. Bates and Carrie’s mom and Mrs. Voorhees rolled into one. And poor Scott. It’s not his fault that he’s Norman Bates trapped in Zack Morris’ body. Why does he have to be so popular and good-looking and wanted by all the girls at school? Some guys have all the bad luck.

Anyway, back to Crystal and Lynne. These two Kelly Kapowskis would just die (snerk!) if one of them don’t get to date the new hottest boy in school. If Scott picks either of them, it would just totally validate how hot and popular and desirable they are. Lynne, by the way, also stole Crystal’s sister Melinda’s boyfriend a while back so we know she’s a boy-crazy girl who’ll do anything just to get her target. The two Kelly Kapowskis proceed to look their hottest and wear their best outfits and parade themselves in front of Scott who seems to be doing his best to ignore them. Crystal is convinced it’s because he caught her peering at him through his window while he was changing his shirt so he must think she’s a total perv now. Crystal and Lynne and ok, fine, Melinda make a pact that if one of them lands Scott first, the two other girls have to back off and be happy for the new couple. Crystal thinks Scott must like her since she’s caught him staring at her a few times, but that no-good Lynne just has to plaster herself all over Scott and Crystal promised, PROMISED that if Lynne were to bag Scott first, she would totally back off and swear to be happy for her. But Scott seems to be harboring some kind of secret. Crystal finds out that Scott had a girlfriend before who died and ohmygod, Scott must still be mourning her and is definitely so not ready to be in a relationship right now. She gets the bright idea that she’ll be the one to draw Scott out of his shell and get him to love again but oh no! That no-good Lynne got to him first.

But then… Lynne dies. In a suicide. Why would Lynne, one of the most popular girls in school and is totally almost as pretty as Crystal, kill herself? And she leaves behind a note that says she’s sorry for disappointing her parents and that she’s a very troubled girl deep inside and the way she’s been carrying on is just no way for a good and proper girl to behave. That’s weird. There’s no way Lynne would say anything like that. But maybe Crystal didn’t know Lynne as well as she thought she did. Oh no, Scott must be so devastated because this is the second time it has happened to him! Another girl he’s been dating died! Poor Scott! Well, Crystal would just have to comfort him and let him know that she will always be there for him. But why is Scott suddenly paying attention to her nerdy, book-loving, no-makeup-wearing sister Melinda? What could Scott possibly see in her? Well, Crystal would just have to be happy for Melinda and help her fix herself up so that Scott would like her even more.

This is right about the time you start thinking to yourself that maybe Crystal is the killer and the incident where Scott’s girlfriend dives into an empty pool in the beginning of the story was just an accident, right? Nope, the killer is still Scott and now he realizes that Melinda just HAS to be the perfect girl for him because she doesn’t wear make-up and doesn’t wear trashy clothes like her sister Crystal and she seems to like books and seems to know how to behave like a good and proper girl should. And not tempting him and making him feel a little crazy inside every time the little man down there starts to twitch…

Maybe Scott has some kind of hormonal imbalance that causes him to go NUTS every time he’s turned on. Dr. House? What say you? There’s probably a tumor in his brain pressing against his pituitary gland or something.

So then, what happens when Melinda starts dressing sexy and putting on make-up and acting like a complete tart? What happened to his sweet and proper and prim Melinda? It must be that no-good Crystal’s fault! She’s the one who turned her sweet and proper sister into a harlot! Crystal must be killed! And of course Melinda gets mad at Crystal and accuses her of just being jealous when Crystal tells her that Melinda, I think there’s something REALLY wrong with Scott. Crystal just can’t stand that a cute boy is finally choosing Melinda over Crystal and zo-em-gee, it’s totally Crystal’s fault that Scott goes bonkers after Crystal gives Melinda a make-over because Scott liked Melinda just the way she was, darn it! But Scott, it was Crystal who said you’d like me more if I wore mini-skirts and lip gloss and flirted with you…

Oh, that shameless hussy Crystal turning his sweet, innocent Melinda into a jezebel like her. She’ll get what’s coming to her… just like her no-good harlot friend, Lynne.

Scott is a scary dude. Crystal may be boy-crazy and kind of clueless, but Scott is just a crazy bastard killing poor, innocent girls because they’re not prim and proper and tempt him to do dirty, immoral things that he doesn’t want to do. Uh-huh. Sure, Scott. Sounds like this kid is so deep in the closet he SHOULD be able to see Narnia. Or he’s got a tumor in his brain pressing against his pituitary gland. He should really get that taken care of. Or he should be locked up in a looney bin forever. Like in all of R.L. Stine’s books, the bad guy gets what’s coming to him. Good riddance, Scott, ya putz!

Would her love be strong enough to stand the strain of living such a lie? And what if Paul ever found out?

I read this book thinking it was going to be a train-wreck. It has all of the elements of an old school romance that usually makes me want to tear my own hair out. 1) Doormat heroine so desperate for love and validation that she’d put up with heaps of abuse and humiliation from the so-called hero — CHECK! 2) Olive-skinned foreign lover with “primitive” passions that are definitely unEnglish and commits acts throughout novel that crosses the line to psychotic many, many times — CHECK! 3) Heroine, who believes she’s so ugly that she should be walking around with a bag over her head, has a beautiful, but mercurial sister whom the hero SHOULD BE desiring — CHECK! 4) Heroine has a better relationship with her father because her mother just doesn’t understand — CHECK! 5) Hero is embittered and cold because he thinks all women are whores and should be punished 6) Upon being told by the hero that he will punish her for all her transgressions–imagined or otherwise–heroine perseveres and stays because she believes the hero will come to love her someday if she would only just be patient — CHECK! Oy.

If I had read this book as a romance, I would have given it an “epic fail.” I read it as “Misery” meets “Sleeping with the Enemy.” AND OH MY GOD, DID THIS BOOK BECOME EVER SO SCARY.

The Plot As I Understood it When Tessa meets Paul, she thinks he’s the most beautiful man who’s ever lived. She falls in love with his looks–not because he’s particularly clever or kind or funny–and believes he’s the most perfect thing who ever lived. But all her hopes of Paul taking one look at her and falling madly in love are DASHED when Paul falls in love with Lucinda, her much more beautiful sister, instead. To add insult to injury, Tessa overhears Paul telling a mutual friend how utterly boring he thinks she is and how sad it is that she’s so unfortunate-looking. For a normal person–that is, a SANE person–that should have been enough to kill whatever feelings you have for that other person, but not for Tessa. Nope… Tessa believes it’s totally her fault that she was born so ugly–why was Lucinda born so pretty, why God, why–and why should Paul want her anyway when he’s so perfect and she’s… practically Ms. Quasimodo. Because the world is NOT fair, Paul and Lucinda get engaged, so Tessa runs far, far away and tells her family she doesn’t ever want to hear about Paul and Lucinda ever again because it just hurts so much.

Two years later, Tessa returns to England from Israel or Palau or Micronesia (wherever it was that English Roses back in the day ran away to whenever they got their hearts broken) and discovers that Lucinda and Paul never got married because they were in a very bad car accident–Paul was jealous about some dude Lucinda was flirting with, Lucinda grabs Paul’s arm from the steering wheel because she’s crazy, the car crashes into a wall and explodes, and Paul horribly burns his hands and goes blind–and Lucinda dumped Paul. She dumped Paul because he went blind and ewww, his hands are burned and gross–he burned them, by the way, when he tried to save her ass from the car unknowing that she’d been ejected on impact. Tessa dismisses Lucinda as the coldest, most evil bitch ever and decides to seek out Paul even though TWO YEARS AGO, SHE OVERHEARD PAUL SAYING HE WOULD RATHER EAT A BOWL OF BULL TESTICLES THAN KISS HER (not in so many words). Her father tells her this is a crazy idea because Paul doesn’t even love her, Paul’s best friend tells her Paul doesn’t love her–but Tessa won’t listen. She finds out that Paul has been living as a recluse in Cypress and decides to hunt him down like a crazed stalker.

In Cypress, Tessa pretends to be Lucinda and goes to Paul’s house. Paul’s best friend Joe told Tessa that Paul would forgive Lucinda and take her back if only Lucinda returned and Tessa, because she’s NUCKING FUTS, pretends to be Lucinda. Paul, who is now blind, apparently never got close enough to his ex-fiancée to be able to tell her apart from another woman and totally believes that Tessa is Lucinda. THEY GET MARRIED. Blissful weeks of honeymooning pass and Tessa prays daily that Paul never finds out about her deception because she would JUST DIE if Paul leaves her. Tessa’s father writes her and tells her she’s out of her mind and Paul couldn’t possibly have forgiven Lucinda that easily and that he’s probably plotting some kind of revenge, but Tessa would have none of it. HEY TESSA, I CAN TELL YOU THAT PAUL IS PLOTTING SOME KIND OF REVENGE because I’ve read many of these books and from what I can tell, Harlequin Greek heroes positively eat, live, and breathe revenge. So yeah, Paul reveals to Tessa that he only took back “Lucinda” so he could make her life miserable and kill every single happy molecule in her body, but Tessa remains resolute and tells Paul she’s staying because she’s convinced she could get him to love her. Oh, Tessa.

Where it Gets Awful SPOILER ALERT After realizing he will never ever ever get rid of the Tessa-barnacle, Paul decides to give in and becomes nicer to Tessa. Everything goes well for a bit until Joe, Paul’s best friend, comes for a visit and tells Tessa he had found a doctor in London who can cure Paul’s blindness and Tessa freaks out and I SERIOUSLY THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO GO ALL “MISERY” ON PAUL AND MAKE SURE HE STAYS BLIND FOREVER. She tells Joe that she would rather Paul stay blind–she reasons out that she doesn’t want to get Paul’s hopes up–just so she doesn’t ever have to tell him that she’s not really Lucinda. HOW AWFUL AND SELFISH AND COWARDLY IS THAT? I thought these romance heroines are supposed to be selfless or something.

Moral of the Story If you pine long enough for someone–even when he tells you he’ll never ever ever love you because he loves your way hotter sister–he’ll come around someday and love you back. Persistence pays off. It’s also okay to lie to get what you want and to totally pick a guy over your sister if your sister was an evil, skanky ho. Oh, and if you’re a gorgeous Greek billionaire, don’t ever pick the hotter sister; the “ugly” sister will love you for life even if you treat her like doo-doo. Don’t ever cheat on her, though or she’ll totally go Kathy Bates on your ass and cut off your feet and tie you to a bed forever. Just kidding. She’ll take you back, anyway. Just don’t ever lose your killer abs and rock-hard chest–that’s one transgression that can NEVER be forgiven.

Anyway, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman are platonic BFFs. They’ve been friends for a very long time, but Jennifer Aniston is not attracted to Jason Bateman because he’s nebbish, neurotic, and would probably make a terrible boyfriend. He can’t ever make up his mind, is allergic to many things, and worries about the most inconsequential things. Jason Bateman decides he is in love with Jennifer Aniston right around the same time Jennifer Aniston thinks it’s about damn time she considers having a child: she’s successful at work, has a great apartment (don’t they all), and doesn’t need a man to make a baby… that is, she’ll need a man, but only for his biological contribution. In a cup. Jason Bateman goes, “Wait, wait, is this something you really want to do? Kids are too much trouble. They’re germ bombs and will take all your money and make you get fat. And also, do you really want to be a single mom?” Jennifer Aniston brushes off all of Jason Bateman’s nebbish worrying and decides she will have a child, damn it. She finds a perfect donor in Patrick Wilson, who is good-looking, smart, athletic, and has good teeth. She even throws a party where she invites all of her friends along with Patrick Wilson and his perfectly adorable wife, who is totally okay with Patrick Wilson’s genetic contribution because they need the money and both think there should be a lot more little Patrick Wilsons running around.

(That is Jason Bateman sneering at a cup of JIZZ on the movie poster, by the way)

Jason Bateman is very upset at this turn of events. His neurotic, nebbish worrying did nothing to dissuade Jennifer Aniston out of her mission to impregnate herself with a turkey baster and now he’s in full-blown freak-out mode that only Michael Bluth can fully execute.

Which brings me to this question: Is it REALLY that easy? Can a guy really just… um… spill himself into a cup which a woman seeking to get pregnant can just suck up with a turkey baster and inject into her… erm… well of femininity? You don’t need a doctor or anything?

Anyway, Michael Bluth goes into the bathroom very drunk and upset and finds the warm cup of jizz just sittin’ there at the edge of the sink WHERE PEOPLE WHO HAD JUST GONE #2 MAY WASH THEIR HANDS, which he immediately picks up. Of course. Did I mention he’s very, very drunk? He pops the thing open, maybe sniffs it, makes a face, and proceeds to play with it. Not in that way, you pervs. It’s not like he sticks his finger in it and smears the goo all over his face or anything. He plays the “ooh… I’m gonna drop it, I’m gonna drop it…” game and then he does drop it. He may have been on something like cough syrup or Xanax as well as really drunk, ’cause seriously, who does that shit?! He decides right then and there that he’s going to… erm… replace it.

Oh, hey, do you guys remember that movie with Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits where a guy is killed by a bunch of his girlfriends (one of whom is JoBeth Williams, who was the mom from Poltergeist) for being a sexist, cheating, lying scumbag and wakes up in the hot, blond body of Ellen Barkin. Ellen Barkin does an awesome job portraying a swaggering, smirking, sexist ape, only to get date-raped by Jimmy Smits for her trouble. I don’t know what it is about Jimmy Smits, but I really hate his face. Anyway, I’m kidding about the date-rape part. One night, they get really, really drunk and they sleep together and Ellen Barkin gets pregnant. By the way, they apparently get so drunk that neither of them remember anything from the previous night; Ellen Barkin only realizes they had sex when she gets up to go to the bathroom and realizes her chonies are missing. She gets pregnant, like I mentioned, and Jimmy Smits insists they get married so the baby is not born a bastard because no one wants Jimmy Smits’ bastard, does one?

I really, REALLY thought this movie was a remake of that movie. That would have been awesome.

Where were we? Michael Bluth has replaced Patrick Wilson’s genetic contribution with his own and Rachel from Friends is now pregnant. Michael Bluth has no recollection whatsoever of that night and Rachel from Friends has since moved far, far away because she doesn’t want to raise her child in The City. Fast-forward seven years later, Rachel from Friends is back due to a job offer and has brought her child with her. Michael Bluth gets a call from Rachel from Friends and she wants to have dinner to catch up and rehash the old times. Michael Bluth, of course, is still in love with Rachel from Friends, so he goes to meet her, all excited and squirmy and neurotic. He meets the son of Rachel from Friends and is struck by how nebbish, neurotic, and awkward the kid is. Hmmmm…

Meanwhile, Patrick Wilson has divorced from his all-too-understanding wife and wants to become a real family with Rachel from Friends. After all, they already have a kid together. Patrick Wilson and Rachel from Friends go on dates while Michael Bluth babysits Neurotico and wonders about the many, many similarities he seems to have with the little boy. He is horrified when it dawns on him that FOR SOME UNGODLY REASON, Neurotico– how did it happen? how??– is the fruit of his loins. He figures out that on the night Rachel from Friends threw her I’m-impregnating-myself-with-a-turkey-baster party, he must have gotten really drunk, spilled (snerk!) the jizz, and replaced it with his own. Quelle horreur! How does one arrive at that conclusion?

Patrick Wilson, on the other hand, is convinced he’s supposed to form a family unit with Rachel from Friends and Little Bluth and will do anything to make that happen. To wit, for Little Bluth’s birthday, he takes them indoor mountain climbing when it’s very obvious that Little Bluth is the child in your PE class who makes everyone late for fourth period because the PE teacher made everyone stay to do fifty sit-ups because Little Bluth couldn’t run a mile in 15 minutes. Little Bluth CANNOT climb and becomes hysterical when Patrick Wilson makes him do so. Patrick Wilson is bemused because no child of his could be a wussy wimp. He is furthermore confuzzled when Little Bluth seeks comfort from Michael Bluth as Rachel from Friends looks on with equal parts worry and befuddlement. Seeing Little Bluth becoming too attached to Michael Bluth and Rachel from Friends seeming to follow suit, Patrick Wilson decides to up the ante: he asks Rachel from Friends to marry him in a surprise engagement party in front of his friends and family. Convinced that Rachel from Friends will marry Patrick Wilson and he will never see her or Little Bluth ever again, Michael Bluth decides to spring a plan into action: He has to tell Rachel from Friends the truth! But will she hate him forever for his perfidy and turn away from him forever? Pffft, girl, you crazy.

I do have to thank this movie for introducing me to the Eels. This song is awesome.

I swear to God, I’ve read a Harlequin romance novel with this plot before. Help a sister out? Can anyone think of a Harlequin story that resembles this?

Oh my word: I liked this movie. It’s over-baked, contrived, and couldn’t be more silly even if tried, but I really enjoyed the chemistry between Michael Bluth and Rachel from Friends. They’re just both really likable people. The kid who plays Little Bluth a.k.a. Neurotico is spot-on, even though he does take it to Precocious Adult-Sounding Child Alert Level 5 a few times. Patrick Wilson was great as the arrogant jock-strap who can’t believe that Rachel from Friends would choose Michael Bluth over him and he’s not TOO big of a jerk, just desperate to have his own family because he believes that’s the way it’s supposed to be: a man has to have a wife and children. I like the way the movie plays out the whole OH-MY-GOD-YOU-DID-WHAT scene. It was sufficiently mortifying for everyone involved and the resolution and mopiness that follows said reveal doesn’t drag on and on. There are a few eye-rolling moments and there’s nothing to see here, but otherwise a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. It’s worth Netflixing or catching on TBS or USA where it will inevitably show up in a couple of years.

For me, “Sleepless in Seattle” is one of the last great romantic American movies that hearkens back to films such as “It Happened One Night,” “An Affair to Remember” (which happens to be the favorite movie of ALL the women in this movie), “The Philadelphia Story,” “Roman Holiday,” “Starman,” (yes, shut up, Starman), and the classic Meg Ryan-Billy Crystal vehicle, “When Harry Met Sally.” I hate to sound like a curmudgeon or one of the olds, but I gotta say that they just don’t make romantic comedies like they used to (the latest cinematic abortion being this Natalie Portman-Ashton Kutcher travesty where they’re fuck buddies who swear they’ll never fall in love with each other and somehow, the “film” is transcended to the heights of wit and sophistication that before now only Oscar Wilde has ever experienced, just because the two romantic leads say “fuck” a lot. When will Hollywood realize that Kelso will never ever make a convincing leading man? Don’t even talk to me about the Mila Kunis-Justin Timberlake abomination that’s basically the same damn movie, only with a different title. Who will win? I’ll tell you who won’t. The viewers! I’ve seen the trailers for both and both made me want to poke my eyes and eardrums out). When was the last time you saw a romantic comedy film that made you go, “Aww… I want that” or “Aww… I want a man like Tom Hanks and a golden retriever… but mostly a golden retriever”? Can you honestly tell me you thought that when you saw:

1) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
2) All About Steve (update: I did see this movie and hang me, but I thought it was kind of sweet and ends with Sandra Bullock being happy with herself, boyfriend or no boyfriend)
3) The Sweetest Thing
4) The Ugly Truth
5) Valentine’s Day?

Ugh, with the glut of terrible romcoms featuring Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl, Jennifer Aniston, and Cameron Diaz these days that focus more on slapstick and gross-out gags in an effort to appeal also to male viewers, the romance part of the “rom-com” is sadly neglected. I want a movie that’ll make me go “awww” or get misty-eyed and have my throat tighten up on me upon which I would lie and blame my darn allergies.

The plot of Sleepless in Seattle is this: Meg Ryan’s Annie works as a journalist in a newspaper and is about to marry Bill Pullman who is a nice guy who seems to adore her and indulge her quirks (she has many– this is a Meg Ryan character, after all). They are similar and share many common values, which is displayed in the scene where they are shopping for wedding china and discussing how many place settings per table. They simultaneously decide on ten because “Eight is too few and twelve is… too many.” Annie’s boss is Rosie O’Donnell who is also her best friend. The two of them often talk about how nice, responsible, and dependable Walter (Bill Pullman) is and how lucky Annie is to have him, but it’s obvious she’s yearning for something more, like a grand romance. One night, while Annie is driving home by herself from a family Christmas party that she attended with Walter, she turns on the radio and comes across a call-in show featuring a little boy caller talking about his widower father who is lonely and “Sleepless in Seattle” and Jonah (the little boy) wants to find him a girlfriend. Annie’s initial reaction is to scoff cynically, but when Sam (Tom Hanks) grabs the phone from his son and reluctantly starts to talk about his dead wife and how much he loved her (the dead wife was played by Carey Lowell of Law & Order, dudes!), Annie melts and gets teary-eyed. When she comes in to work, she talks about the show with Rosie O’Donnell and they both agree that it is the sweetest thing ever. Annie resolves to find out for herself if Sam is for real and in the course of her investigation, finds herself falling for him, putting her relationship with Walter in jeopardy. Will Annie risk her sure-thing with Walter in order to pursue a possible relationship with a guy she hears talking on the radio and subsequently stalks using her newspaper job’s resources? Duh.

On paper, it’s a pretty silly premise. Thirtysomething woman with pre-wedding jitters hears a man talking on the radio about being a widower and how much he loved his dead wife, goes “awwww,” and finds herself yearning for the same kind of devotion and love even though it’s something she already gets from her fiance. She stalks him, hires a private investigator to check him out and take photos of him, flies across the country herself to see him (they have a meet-cute in the middle of a busy road where they stare at each other in awe and say, “Hello” dazedly at each other) only to wuss out and not even really talk to him, jilts her fiance, and agrees to meet the stranger on top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day like in An Affair to Remember (without knowing that it was actually his pre-adolescent son who set up the meeting). WHO DOES THAT?! How and where does it happen outside of a rom-com, right? It’s crazy! We don’t see what happens to Sam and Annie after they meet up on top of the Empire State Building and smile at each other and decide to hang out, but how do you think Sam would have reacted after finding out that Annie stalked him for months before meeting up with him?

Oddly enough, this movie really worked for me. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have awesome chemistry and the dialogue is quick and witty. By the time You’ve Got Mail came around, the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks pairing was a little more than nauseating and headache inducing for me, but in Sleepless in Seattle, they were a brilliant team. The soundtrack is great, the acting was wonderful, and Bill Pullman’s character Walter is thankfully gracious and still adorable even when Annie is dumping him for another guy. I was so happy that he doesn’t turn out to be an 80′s Movie Sociopathic Douchebro who promises retaliation for being dumped, but instead wishes Annie to be happy. When Annie tells him over a romantic dinner with a view of the Empire State Building that she is in love with someone else and about to meet up with this guy at the Empire State Building, Walter just says, “So he could be waiting for you… right now… on top of the Empire State Building?” and Annie says, “I don’t know… maybe. Probably not. But I have to know.” Walter tells her, “Look, Annie, I love you. Let’s leave that out of it. I don’t want to be someone you’re settling for. I don’t want to be someone anyone settles for. [...] Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations into it, isn’t it?” Awwww, Walter. Sure, he’s allergic to wheat, strawberries, penicillin, pollen, nuts and wool, but does that preclude him from being deserving of a grand romance? Stupid Annie. It’s a good thing Sam is a great guy– great father (sure, his 8-year-old son gets on a plane and flies 3,000 miles away to meet a strange woman in a strange city he’s never been in the off-chance she could make a good wife for his father — and SAM DOESN’T FIND OUT ABOUT IT IMMEDIATELY AND LOCKS UP THE LITTLE BASTARD IN HIS ROOM TILL HE’S 18 — seriously, WHAT?!?!), good brother, and apparently, a good husband, plus he’s got a water-front home in the Pacific Northwest, so you know he’s probably got money, but seriously?!?

And this is why you shouldn’t over-think your favorite rom-coms and ruin it for yourself forever. Anyway, Sleepless in Seattle is a great movie to watch when you can’t sleep (snerk!) at 1am and you’re feeling lonely and wanting something to cheer you up while you stuff your gullet with Ritz crackers over-loaded with canned cheese. Verdict: Classic and fun, just don’t think about it too much or it’ll piss you off.