THIS BOOK WAS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS.
(I was promised ridiculous and then I got it.)
The premise is this: Berni, a New York socialite, dies of a heart attack, and ends up in Purgatory. She hasn’t led a bad life compared to some, but she doesn’t have enough credit to make it to heaven without performing some good deeds. She’s assigned Nellie Grayson, a good, kind doormat of a heroine, who’s got a terrible family, food issues, and is in dire need of a fairy godmother.
Instead, Nellie gets Berni.
Nellie lives in Chandler, Colorado, in 1896, with her spoiled little cow of a sister, Terel, and a greedy, stingy turd of a father. Nellie does all the cooking and most of the cleaning, and, due to her family being terrible and her having the responsibility of managing the house and raising her sister since she was 12, she has a binge eating disorder. She’s described as being fat, and according to Berni, that’s where all her problems are.
(She’s like, 160 pounds, but it’s never stated how tall she is, so that could be a significant amount, proportionally, or it could not. The point is, everyone in town agrees that she is overweight.)
So into the Grayson house comes Jace Montgomery. He’s been working on a business deal with Nellie’s father, and her father has been talking up his beautiful daughter who is good and kind and lovely and would make a FANTASTIC wife for Jace. He meant Terel, but once Jace lays eyes on Nellie, he’s instantly smitten. Nellie doesn’t know what to do with this turn of events. It’s just so WEIRD for her.
Berni is informed that her task is to help Nellie, and she has magic to do so, including the power to grant wishes. Berni, being a (former) New York Socialite who is afraid of fatness, isn’t interested in doing that much to help Nellie, and vaguely says, “Well, Nellie can make three wishes and everything will work itself out.”
Things do not work themselves out.
The core romance is pretty simple – guy meets girl, girl can’t understand why guy is interested, girl’s family conspires to keep girl from leaving them to their own devices. What Devereux does here is give you a book that sets you up for frustration and then gives you satisfaction. When you’re going, “OH MY GOD, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS, WOULD YOU JUST DO A THING,” there’s a character (Berni) who is A, making the same mistake and B, also in a position to do something about it.
I am not that interested in Nellie and Jace. Yes, Nellie’s family makes me profoundly sad, and her sister is a piece of work, but ultimately I didn’t feel any tension. What made this fun was Berni and her growth:
“I give her wishes (but I’m not gonna go to the effort of telling her that she has wishes)!”
“Oh, that didn’t work? Okay, I’ll fix her most basic problem- she needs to lose all that weight! That will totally fix EVERYTHING.”
“….why didn’t that work? I don’t understand.”
(Also, while all of this isn’t working the way Berni envisioned, she’s occasionally taking time to magic herself up a year’s worth of People magazines because a girl’s gotta keep up on the Sexiest Man Alive even if she’s dead.)
I really appreciated the commentary on weight – yes, through the power of magic, Nellie suddenly becomes skinny, but NONE of her problems are solved (and none of her clothes fit, which is another expensive problem to fix). Her problems weren’t caused by her weight; her weight was caused by her problems which are primarily the toxic, terrible people around her (and until Berni learns how to person, she’s one of those toxic people).
It’s annoying that we can’t have a heroine who is plus-sized and remains so (still a rare unicorn, almost never seen in the wild) but Devereux does make it plain that, “Well, you’d just be fine if you lost weight” isn’t an answer.
If it isn’t clear by now, this is a Cinderella story where the fairy godmother has actual learning and growing to do, too. That part was fun, and very silly, and the Cinderella motif was ladled on heavily. There was a ruined gown that gets replaced by a truly pimped-out dress. There was a magic wand. There was comeuppance for Nellie’s stupid family. It was emotionally satisfying, if not terribly complex, and I enjoyed it immensely.
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This was one of the first Deveraux’s I read and I immediately lent it to my sister as soon as I had finished it. It is truly ridiculous and it’s still fun to reread.
I loved it near the end when Berni is trying to get Jace and Nellie together and thinks about the sexiest words in the world and comes up with ‘we have to get you out of those wet clothes’.
Rose Lerner’s Sweet Disorder has a plus-size heroine who stays that way. And it’s fabulous: she’s a writer of Improving Tales for Youth in an English village in 1812, and there’s an intricate plot involving electoral politics and a hilarious quilting bee in which her square has a scene from her favorite Gothic novel. (Involving decapitation.)
This sounds like a fun read, but I don’t know if I could get over the bad theology of the premise (good deeds to get out of purgatory into heaven – “Jesus Points” as one of my friends calls this idea)… seminary has spoiled me for pop-culture theology!
Truly ridiculous and truly fun. A classic.
I read this back in the day when it came out and I was always sorry Nellie couldn’t have just been left alone as Jace thought she was amazing before the weight magically came off. (As I recall his Mom was an Opera singer and the heroine of a previous book so he was used to his Mom’s Opera Diva lady friends who carried a bit more weight than the average gal and he thought that was sexy!) It was a different attitude and very charming. Plus if I am being a stickler, at that time a woman (of almost any height) weighing 160 pounds was not something that was going to be considered a problem the way a New York socialite of the 1990’s would consider it.
I read – okay, devoured – this one several years ago, and loved it in all of its craziness (personally I think Jude Deveraux is at her most entertaining and addictive in the books that are loaded with crazy sauce). This post brought back happy reading memories for me.
I think Jace’s parents were the main characters in Mountain Laurel?
I haven’t read Deveraux in a couple of years – I kind of got out of the habit when I couldn’t get into the Edilean series – but this post is inspiring some rereading.
Great review, Redheadedgirl!
I read this book and, yup, “ridiculous” describes it well. Of course, I feel that way about just about everything this author ever wrote. Except one, don’t remember the title. I suspect it was somewhat autobiographical. A newly divorced write moves to New York City’s Upper East Side. I remember thinking she must have great alimony to afford an apartment there, let alone anywhere in NYC. The heroine trots her front door to explore her neighborhood and Devereaux really got it right. I recognized the neighborhood. But then I read a book by her in which a spoiled British heiress shares a horse and finger with a native American and I was so put off, I’ve never read anything by her again. Especially as by then I had discovered writers who told actual stories without depending on crazy sauce elements to pull off the book.
Deveraux wrote a short story anthology a few years later (I can’t remember the name, sorry!) and one of the stories featured Jace and Nellie’s son. If it makes you feel any better, Nellie makes a brief appearance and, though it is twenty-five years later, she’s gained back the weight and still living her best life.
“Nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their comeuppance.”
*Always*
@Mary Star – Evie from The Mummy. Nice!
@Christine thank you! I took inspiration from the delightful tagged section 😀
*Loved* The Mummy. So much sass! I would also totally watch an alternative version where Evie and a post-regenerated, pre-putative afterlife Imhotep parse each other’s hieroglyphics.
Hasn’t she written something 30 books about various Montgomerys? They all read the same to me.
I love Jude’s books….Wishes was one of my favorites…but my very favorite is Knight in Shinning Armor.
I love Jude Deveraux’s books. My all time favorite is Remembrance. I still read it every year and it still brings tears and laughter.
I really enjoy how worked up people get over books. Remember Ms . Devereux is a feeling person–she writes from her heart. I often laugh gut busting hard when reading her fight scenes. It’s so fun! I love her research and her flare for absolute “absurd” situations–just like what real life hands us. She is often who I read when I need to relax and enjoy a good book.
Part of the critique was about the heroine being plump and remaining so. About the same time I read Wishes, I read another book by the author, Laura Kinsale , in which the heroine is plump, admired for her plumpness, is intentionally fattened up when she lost weight while a castaway on an island, and winds up with a retired sailor with ptsd. Truly one of the most romantic stories I’ve ever read.
Loved this one. My favorites are the Velvet series. First books I ever read
If you want a plus-sized heroine who gets all the goodies while staying where she is, try the Corinna Chapman mysteries by Kerry Greenwood. HEAVENLY PLEASURES, EARTHLY DELIGHTS…mmm. Handsome guy, chocolate muffins…did I mention that she’s a baker? I think there’s a small, Satanic Kitten of Doom in the second one, too.