C
Genre: Paranormal, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Mina Lobo. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Paranormal Romance category.
The summary:
When a psychic gives Tensley the chance to erase her biggest regret and replay her life with the one who got away, who would have thought a simple “do-over” could go so terribly wrong—and feel so right?
TAKE IT…
When Tensley Tanner-Starbrook gets the chance for one life “do-over” from a well-intentioned but bumbling psychic, she goes for it. But that change turns everything else upside down. Instead of a buttoned-up corporate executive, she’s now an entirely unbuttoned exotic dancer. And she’s face to…face with the one man she’s never been able to get over.
TO THE MAX
Detective Max Hunter has come a long way from high-school bad boy, and with everything on the line, nothing can stop him…except seeing his first love dancing in the club he’s been assigned to investigate. Torn between getting her far away from the place and needing her help as an insider, he knows only two things for sure: Tensley’s stirring feelings he thought long ago buried, and a relationship with her would be career suicide. Yet, maybe, just maybe, this was a love meant to overcome the past.
Here is Mina Lobo's review:
My review takes a quasi-newspaper article type format, with each section being worth a point.
Who/Why
Tensley Tanner-Starbrook is a (relatively) successful gal who works for her (domineering bitch of a) mom. Tensley (still) harbors a deep love for high school boyfriend, Max Hunter, and a violent hatred of the gal who (seemed) to have stolen him, Rhonda-the-Skank (it’s got a ring to it, right?).
Tensley and Max split after Ten caught him locking lips with Ms. Skank in senior year of high school and wishes SO MUCH she could go back in time to sock it to the…well, skank who done stole her man. The book opens with Tensley visiting a (clichéd and dangerously inept) psychic recommended to her (for some reason that I don’t recall being disclosed in the narrative) by her good pal Kate, Madame Claire, who makes it possible for Tensley to have a “do-over.” Tensley’s highly dubious but less so when she emerges from Mme. Claire’s into a shock of brilliant light and an alternate reality that came about after Tensley ostensibly went back in time and knocked out R-T-S’ lights.
Max Hunter, meanwhile, bereft of his beloved Tensley by his own hand (but not in the way Tensley thinks, and no, that’s not a euphemism for wanking off) and determined to shake the bad-boy-rep garnered in high school, becomes a detective. A detective who’s undercover as a nudie bar devotee. A detective undercover at the nudie bar in which Tensley finds herself stripping. Which woulda been hawt if it wasn’t so awkward. Nah, he (and she) found it all pretty hawt.
I’m into the paranormal scene and enjoyed the premise. I feel Daniels developed the heroine and hero’s characters well, and I found them both sympathetic. So a full point here.
What’s Happening and Where
So, like, Tensley’s alternate life sucks—she earned herself a police record for assaulting R-T-S and now she’s a stripper with a dick boss AND she’s dating his loser son (who seems like an amiable enough formulaic thug). Meanwhile, seeing/being with Max hurts like a gazillion Band-Aids being ripped off your forearm at once and yet she wants him as much as ever.
For his part, Max just wants to make good for his boss (and for the younger Max who’d repeatedly been told he’d never amount to anything). Seeing Tensley again proves challenging as it awakens all the old feelings of love and regret that he’s desperately tried to put behind him. Anyway, he’s there to do his job—catch Tensley’s boss at whatever illegal activity he’s up to (and the man’s so stereotypically repellant, you just know he’s up to something). Tensley comes to the conclusion that the only way to get back to her old/real life is to learn some kinda life lesson by helping Max out. Sure, I’ll buy that for a dollar.
I’m not sure where in the world this takes place, but something about the vibe of it makes me think of the sad grittiness of Degrassi High (like, the newer ones, where Snake and Spike grew up, got married, and had kids and whatnot). So let’s say Toronto, why not. It obviously doesn’t matter; this story’s a curious mix of originality and cliché, where the author builds a believable world (sorta) that could be set anywhere for its stock characters (apart from the heroine and hero). Minus .25 for the fuzzy blandness.
How Things Happen
Pacing was more or less OK, though it slowed now and again as the author went off on some needless tangents (for example, a rather longish bit in which we see Tensley figure out how to tend bar at the strip club one night). The narrative was humorous, if a bit lackluster. I enjoyed reading it on my commute to/from work but didn’t reach for it beyond that. Minus a quarter of a point.
WhatTheFuckery
So we go from Tensley’s “normal” life to her stripper world fairly quickly at the start of the book. She exits Madame Claire’s, flash of light, and then boom, she’s very nearly naked and on a stage in front of assorted riffraff and lowlifes. She’s got about 10 seconds to adjust to this abrupt switcheroo and then,
“Tensley’s body began to move of its own accord. Hips thrusting from one side to the other in time with the music.” Moments later, “…she was down on her knees, thrusting her crotch toward the audience, her back bending like Gumby…”
Two things happened for me when I read that:
1. I immediately pictured Jim Carrey as Tensley, mugging a striptease, and
2. I grew incredibly annoyed.
Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m not a big Jim Carrey fan. I dunno, this idea of her body knowing exactly what to do while she’s all, “WTF just happened here?” irked me quite a bit. It took me out of the story and I closed the book and nearly didn’t pick it up again. I mean, she was completely disoriented from her sudden time/space rift whatsit, and being ogled by a bunch of gross dudes—she didn’t think to run off stage? She didn’t go into hysterics? But resume the book I did, initially only because I’d signed up to review it for the RITA Reader Challenge, but then because I got over my annoyance and got into the story. But I’m deducting half a point for nearly being put off the book altogether.
Overall Feeling & Final Score/Grade
Be Careful What You Kiss For was a light, entertaining, sometimes sexy read, with a premise fellow lovers of paranormals can get into, though the liberally applied clichés and abrupt world changes (the ending, while satisfying, seemed rushed to me) dimmed my pleasure in it. I’m shaving off another quarter point, which leaves the book with 3.75 points out of 5 or a grade of C.
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I enjoyed the review but I am curious, do a lot of people use a method similar to this to determine what grade they would give a book? Or is this just a device to create a format for this review? I only ask because I know when I finish reading a book immediately what grade I would give it (within a plus or minus) based on my enjoyment level/emotions. I can enumerate and examine why I felt that way but I couldn’t determine the grade based on a point system the way I would if I were reviewing say a camera or a car. I would be interested to know how others feel.
In terms of the review, it was extremely thorough and I appreciate that, as I really got a feel for the book without having every plot point given away. The part with the muscle memory or whatever one wants to call it probably wouldn’t bother me as much as the idea that one tussle with the “skank” was enough to shift the heroine’s whole life from relatively successful woman to stripper who dates thugs.
Thank you for the review, I appreciate the time and thought you put into it.
I really enjoyed this review. I’ve never seen the point system, but it’s cool. I thought this review was really well done. I too would be thrown from suddenly sitting with the psychic to being a stripper for the first time.
I also enjoyed Christine comment particularly
“The part with the muscle memory or whatever one wants to call it probably wouldn’t bother me as much as the idea that one tussle with the “skank” was enough to shift the heroine’s whole life from relatively successful woman to stripper who dates thugs.”
Great review! A lot of fun. I sort of want to read it now. Especially with different grades and different reviews.
Funny review! Paranormal is not my jam but I’d read this book for the review alone. I liked the format and totally understood the point system. I hate those gushing reviews for a B- or C book. It’s like $&@!
Get to the point. This review was original and funny!! The book sounds funny too. Who wouldn’t want a HS do over?
Thanks for reading, all!
@Christine: this is a system I developed for myself. Like you, I normally come away from a book with a feeling (or mix of feelings). For the RITA Reader Challenge, I decided I needed to devise some sort of rubric for converting what I felt/why I felt it to a letter grade. I thought that would also help me best express the things that worked/didn’t work for me.
I like your points system!
There is something about the stripper thing as you showed it here that makes me kneejerk uncomfortable. I would have probably put the book away, too.