I would say 2.5 hearts to be fair.
Girl likes boy who kinda likes girl but has commitment issues. But then girl acts cute and talks his ears off and boy figures, what the hell, let's go for it. Basically, the plot of any real life romance enacted in the halls of junior high.
He: A partner in a company that arranges adventure tours for the rich and famous. He's the type of guy who goes kayaking and rock climbing with his buddies on the weekends.
She: A newbie wedding planner hired by his company to plan the adventure wedding of a famous Hollywood couple. She's the kind of girl who's idea of exercise is going to the mall and buying things with her Little Gold Card. Cute, chatty and kinda annoying.
Conflict: He's a commitment-phobe. That's it. That's the entire conflict - that he won't commit.
Apart from a vague annoyance at this chick for being such a helpless piece of fluff, I had a few specific issues with the story:
1) She is supposed to be 34 years old and doesn't have a proper job and lives with her parents. Ok, there was a dot com bubble, times were tough for everyone. Her lack of proper career, I can overlook. What is impossible to overlook is how she acts like an air head, yammers on about shopping like a 16 year old who's watched too much Sex in the City and flies off the handle when he doesn't call her the second after they Do It. Really? Did I just time machine myself to high school? I wanted to grab her shoulders and give her a good shake and yell "Be Cool, woman"
2) I can't believe this supposedly professional company hired such a noob - a woman who has never actually planned a wedding before - to plan one for a high maintenance Hollywood couple? Most of the time she seems rather ineffectual and useless and needs the H to swoop in and do some rescuin'. Un-cute.
3) There was a dog in the story but he was rudely used as a prop to show how sensitive and responsible the H could be. It's not spoilery to say that poochie has to be taken to the vet and the H comes to her aid by taking them. Her thankfulness seems a tad out of proportion - I mean, he just drove her and the dog to the vet - it's not like he performed mouth-to-mouth on the dog to revive him from almost certain death, right? Also, the other question that arises is why the heck doesn't SHE just drive herself to the vet?
Anyway. I may be oversensitive to the use of animals and babies as props to show the alpha-dog H's gooey caramel center. I just think that dogs are people too and if you're going to have them be a character, they need to add to the story in an awesome way like the dogs in Kristan Higgins books or the direwolves of the House of Stark.
No comments:
Post a Comment