Parts of it were not very believable, and much of Becky’s and Felix’s interaction was completely inappropriate for married people, imo. (Particularly for someone with Becky’s moral worldview!) And I agree that the ending would have made much more sense if they had ended up together.

However, I loved their humorous banter and the roles they ended up playing in one another’s lives. I was surprised that instead of being a love story of a housewife and an actor, it ended up being a rather beautiful love story of Becky and her husband. (But I did think it was strange that her husband remained such a flat character throughout the book.) I also laughed out loud and cried and cried for many pages toward the end.

I know Becky is a fictional character and she was portrayed as almost too perfect, but I must admit that she has inspired me to be a better wife/mom/homemaker, to be more open to people who are very different than myself, and to be more generous. Those three pies she made each Sunday still haunt me!

Maybe part of my frustration with the book was over the fact that despite how very well Becky and Felix hit it off, despite how their friendship grew and deepened over time, despite the fact that he’d been in love with her for years, despite the fact that Becky had carried him in her heart for years (because I do think it was more than a crush: it’s just that it wasn’t detrimental to her marriage {mainly because her husband was so understanding}) … despite all that, once they were both free, once he was courting her, we’re expected to believe it wouldn’t work between them?

So I don’t find it frustrating because I am disappointed that she didn’t say yes; I find it frustrating because the ending was blindingly inconsistant with the rest of the book. The book, start to finish, centers on Becky’s and Felix’s friendship. It’s not about her marriage, or his; it’s not even about her, all by herself: it’s about her and Felix. It (the story / their lives) was all building to that point.

I think that sometimes writers lose their nerve (and I’m including myself in that), and sometimes they simply don’t receive decent editorial guidance and support.

I tell myself not to be so picky *smile* but really, I wanted a happy ending: this was a bleh ending.

(And, you know, the whole marital boundary pushing issue: I’m projecting, I’m sure, at least in part. Mark would have been beside himself over me accepting a car-ride and dinner from, and then dancing with, a strange man — no matter how famous. Which brings me circling back to what I already wrote, about that being inconsistent with the character Hale was explaining to the reader that Becky was, so I’ll stop).

Thanks for listening to my rambles. *smile* I haven’t discussed books for a while. It’s fun.

I agree that some of Becky and Felix’s interactions felt contrived—the flopping-over-each-other laugh at the end I talked about earlier, and yes, the way they wound up dancing together in their first encounter: that did seem to be carrying things a bit far. If I came home from a meeting with a producer and told Scott I’d wound up meeting Colin Firth and having lunch with him, he’d think it was a great story. But if we’d danced together?…eh. That’d be a bit weird.

But I really did enjoy the repartee between Becky and Felix, and I think one of the things I enjoyed so much about the book is that it DID read like one of the goofy schoolgirl celeb-encounter fantasies Charlotte talked about having outgrown. I don’t think I’ve ever outgrown them. My posts about being convinced Nick Hornby and John Cusack would enjoy having pizza with us will testify to that! LOL.

Hope to return later with more thoughts, but I was supposed to get the (ahem) July carnival of literature up yesterday and it’s still sitting in drafts. Hello, August!

Two things will make or break a novel for me: plot, and character. The genre is immaterial – it could be romance or young adult fantasy or a classic – if the story and the populace intrigue and engage me: wonderful! But if the plot doesn’t hang together, or the character development makes me roll my eyes … forget it.

Contrived meetings in novels can work. Sometimes. But this? Eh. Becky just … bumps into him! and he takes her out to dinner! and offers invaluable advice on her contract! and dances with her! and they hit it off like crazy-cakes! Yay! Well, you know, aside from the fact that they’re both married.

Hale lost me right there, expecting me to believe that a woman with Becky’s sense of right and wrong vis-à-vis her marriage (which the reader is repeatedly told exists, though we really aren’t shown it {not the marriage, I mean the boundaries}) would get into a car with this man (a complete stranger – I don’t care what sort of deep-seated crush she has on him: I was shaking my head in such disbelief at this point that I had to put the book down for a couple of days). She then has dinner with him, and a dance with him … ! … Clumsy. Very, very clumsy. It is so completely inappropriate and out of character for the woman Hale claims Becky to be to do that. It just is.

That, and the fact that Hale explained and explained how out of character this was for Becky to do … but what she showed us was … Becky doing it. Hate that, in a book.

(See, this is why I no longer write reviews or teach writing. I’m a literary snob. And I shred poor plot construction. Look, if you {generic you} want your 2009 Minnesotan heroine to travel back in time to 1742 Hertfordshire in order to meet her One! True! Love! OfAllTime! And then! She’s swooped back to her own time and place {so sad}, but! time passes, it’s now 2011, and they bump into one another at a conference for dentists in Chicago!! Yay! Go for it. Just make me believe it).

She (Hale) could have had the two of them meet in a far more explicable manner – say, Felix could have been hired to star in her film; they could have then gotten to know one another over time, on-set; thus developing their friendship in a far more believable manner, respecting the boundaries set by their respective marriages, and so on.

It doesn’t really matter. As I say, it’s just that it was so unbelievable, and not in the space alien/time travel sort of way.

Still, I plugged on (and on). But, eh. What did you call her? A Mary Sue? I suppose. My main problem with Becky overall is that no matter what fantastical or sad things happen, no matter how many years pass, she doesn’t change (or grow). Not one iota. Very silly.

So the sad bits didn’t bother me: I simple wasn’t engaged enough. The ending made me throw up my hands. What on earth was the point of the whole book if not that they’d be together??!! I mean, it’s certainly common enough that after the death of a spouse/life-partner one goes on (sooner or later) to be with someone who was already a friend. Maybe it doesn’t happen a lot, but it’s really not unusual at all.

There definitely were parts of the book which engaged me, moved me, made me laugh — but then Hale would pull another untenable plot shift or characterization and I’d be shaking my head again.

I don’t regret reading it and maybe I should reread it sometime to see if I have the same reaction, but it certainly was a silly book.

Since I’ve gone on this long I may as well add that the bit that bothered me the most was how poorly Hale handled the marital boundary pushing. I think it could have been examined ever so much better.

Apologies for the length — feel free to nix it!

~ Beth