The Charm School by Susan Wiggs
I hate it when I have high hopes for a book and end up terribly disappointed. The reviews for The Charm School at Amazon are great: out of sixty-two only one is a 1 star and four are 2 stars. The rest are above 3 stars with most being 5.My only explanation for this is that these books were ONLY sold at a convention for the blind or the terminally insane? Honestly, no words can describe how bad and horribly mundane this book is. In all of 400 pages we get:
- a secret baby
- a dead but not really dead (because he comes back in the end) hero
- an ugly duckling heroine turned swan
- an evil step-brother
- a sub-plot on freeing slaves *yawn*
- boring sex high on pot (or something akin to it)
- hero with long red hair (ACKKKK! This is a no no in my book. These men always end up looking like clowns in my head. I can’t keep from imagining them wearing one of those big frizzy wigs Bozo the Clown puts on.)
- A virgin who lets the hero take all her clothes off and jumps in naked into a lake with him and all but shags him senseless—which was so out of character for both the hero and heroine. (I had to go back and make sure there hadn’t been a printing problem and I wasn’t reading a chapter from another book!)
- The ever oh-so-handsome-yet-dimwitted-guy ugly heroines always seem to fall for, who in the end—heroine having become a raving beauty—never ever recognize them, and then profess their undying love for and always ask for their hands in marriage. And, of course, the heroine finally sees them for the idiots they are and realize that they’ve loved the hero all along. *gag*
- And last but not least, a hero who has random sex with prostitutes any time he can he get his hands on one—and then goes and tells heroine. *head-desk*
And to think I bought all the books in Susan Wiggs’s “Calhoun Whatsis” series. There is no way in hell I’ll read the rest. And you know how much that says seeing as I’ll read anything no matter how bad.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Labels: for the love of rakes and rogues, romance baby
Harlot, I'm trying to make a point here. I want to be mean and ferocious *grrr* but all is for naught with those cutsey hearts in my post!
The shame. How can I show my head in public now that they know we like hearts in our snarky posts?????
1/12/2008 03:53:00 PM
Thanks for the warning.
Haven't read it yet, but it sounds scary. I'll take my hand off it.
Happy Reading!
Sanna
1/12/2008 04:19:00 PM
You had me at "long red hair".
I suppose I have seen a few hot guys with red hair, but I'll be damned if I can think of one.
Sorry you had to go through that. But thank you for the warning!
1/12/2008 05:34:00 PM
Well, ya gotta make your points more pointy.
The hearts stay. Hmph.
1/12/2008 05:52:00 PM
Come on Trollop, I read this and it wasn't that bad.
The hero boinking prostitutes did put me off and this book has the cheesiest ending I've read. Evah'.
1/12/2008 06:41:00 PM
Trollop, you crack me up. I do love your little book reviews.
Read this book. I liked the heroine for having the courage to improve herself and escape a life she hated. But beyond that, mehh.
1/12/2008 07:37:00 PM
Ha ha. Check out The Drifter and The You I Never Knew.
1/15/2008 05:23:00 PM
The Drifter by Susan Wiggs? I read that and IMHO it was a boring book.
1/15/2008 06:46:00 PM
Minionette, I'm not sure I'll be giving this author another chance. I think this is a first for me actually, I'll usually read more than one bad book by an author LOL
Thing is, this book didn't have one single thing I enjoyed. Not one :/ I swear she had to work really hard at making it so bad *cringe*
1/16/2008 12:41:00 PM
For those of you who remember my uber "love" for Outlander I have to say this:
I enjoy DG's writing. She's really good I think. And there were parts of the book I enjoyed like when Claire meets the Lockness Monster. I thought that part was pretty cool.
1/16/2008 12:43:00 PM
The Waterhorse part. I thought you would pick the part where Claire gets the strap. LOL! I think that's the part where Jamie offers Claire an insight into how his life has always been. It's also where Jamie realizes Claire's life has been very different to his.
1/16/2008 02:05:00 PM
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