Y Read? Y Not: You Had Me At Goodbye

Today is Reading on the Beach's A-Z Wednesday, with Y the starring letter. Every week bloggers are invited to spotlight a book starting with the letter of the week. You show the cover, tell the title, give a synopsis, and post a link. Just to be annoying, I like to actually read (sometimes just finish) the book on that day, so I include my little review. Makes things more interesting. Then I sign up on her page to see what everyone else came up with.

Last week I read an X book, but never got around to posting. That comment challenge is eating up all my internet time. Hey, I can count the comment when I register this book! I should have thought of that last week. Anyway, this week's book is You Had Me At Goodbye, by Jane Blackwood, a fun romance about a couple hiding out in a refuge in Martha's Vineyard for a summer. Both were promised the same cottage for the summer, so after trying to kick each other out, they end up sharing. Luckily the "cottage" is three stories tall, so there is plenty of room.

They fairly quickly become friends and enjoy bantering together, but then find that their joking relationship makes it hard to be understood. One of their first jokes is him offering to have a summer fling with her, so when he (and she) really want that fling, neither can take the other seriously. It's a nice twist on the basic misunderstanding idea -- there is a reason they can't just talk, and it's because they've defined their friendship against taking that talk as sincere.

Nothing is all that deep, but the characters are interesting. Kat's escape is from her ex-fiance and the loss of her business; Larry (Lawrence, to everyone but Kat) needs to write a new book but finds he has nothing to say. They have lots to tease each other about, and it was fun to watch. There was also enough extra information in their backgrounds to keep things interesting, and I like the pace of the viewpoint changes from Kat to Lawrence and back. The rich visiting friends were kind of silly, but I don't expect much from tertiary characters. B.

I found this book as part of a personal library challenge -- I'm trying to read a book from each shelf of my library. I'm in no rush -- I'm aiming at a bookcase a month, so 3-5 books, depending on where in the library I'm at. In case you are wondering, I'm on B in the fiction section, where I started. I'm trying to pick from a variety of genres, to stretch myself a little.

PS: Last week's book was Christopher Bennett's X-Men: Watchers on the Walls. It's very sad that I kept this X book around for weeks and weeks, read it last Wednesday, and then fell asleep

without posting it. It was interesting to me because I don't know much about the X-Men besides the movies, and these seem more based on the comics (with one funny reference to the movies, postulating some crazy world where Wolverine was tall). However, I disliked the plot contortions necessary to drive the correct moral lessons home -- the people with the silliest moral positions turn out to be right in all respects. Humph. Only recommended for dedicated X-Men fans. C.