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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
When I finished this book, I really struggled with what rating to give it. In the beginning, the dialogue felt incredibly dated, and the set-up was laughable. ("I'm too SMART to have a baby with the BRILLIANT men I've dated because then our GENIUS BABY will be a FREAK, so I need to seduce a BIG DUMMY.") There were plenty of cringe-worthy lines (including a joke about a "cereal killer" and the hero being a "yeller") that almost made me abandon the book. However, Phillips actually did a nice job developing both her plot and her characters once Jane and Cal left Chicago for the South, so by the time I was done, I felt more affection than annoyance for them.
Good banter, but overall a strange book. Maybe showing it’s age a bit. Also a lot of seemingly non-consensual stuff, which didn’t work for me.
An oldie but a goodie! I read this back in high school and had the urge to read it again. It was just as addicting as the first time reading it (maybe because I haven’t read it in over a decade?!?)
challenging
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
This book contained a fairytale romance – NOT!
I mean the set up in many romance books requires a stretch of imagination, and is sometimes downright bizarre, but can any beat this for offending anyone with any sense of right and wrong?
Chauvinistic Footballers ask Slutty Waitress to find a classy hooker to be their team mate’s birthday present. Slutty Waitress goes to her parent’s home, stumbles round their next door neighbour’s place looking for decent coffee. Next door neighbour is Genius Professor who happens to be crying her eyes out over the fact she wants a baby. TV gets turned on showing an interview with Birthday Footballer. Genius Professor says she wants to find someone like Dumb Footballer to father her child because she doesn’t want her baby to have two geniuses as parents and grow up to suffer the way she did (hand me the tissues now!). Slutty Waitress gets Genius Professor to dress up and act as a Hooker to seduce Dumb Footballer so she can get impregnated by him. Although Dumb Footballer (not so Dumb after all), knows something is up and Genius Professor is not actually a Hooker, he sleeps with her anyway. And it gets better …. Genius Professor finds out that she didn’t get pregnant after all so she turns up at Dumb Footballer’s hotel room and they go a second round. To cut a long story short, she ends up pregnant this time, he finds out and is mad (don’t blame him), forces her to marry him and be mean to his parents so they don't get attached to her. He is also ridiculously ageist, telling her to lie about her age and annoyed with the fact she wears glasses.
You may well wonder what the hell came over me to get me to even read this far?
I just had to find out how this book is voted number #5 in the ‘Best Contemporary Romance Ever’ list (seriously, nearly 400 people voted for this book!!!!!!) and #3 in ‘Sports Romances’ list.
SERIOUSLY?!??!
And the end was just as horrendous as the beginning.
I mean the set up in many romance books requires a stretch of imagination, and is sometimes downright bizarre, but can any beat this for offending anyone with any sense of right and wrong?
Chauvinistic Footballers ask Slutty Waitress to find a classy hooker to be their team mate’s birthday present. Slutty Waitress goes to her parent’s home, stumbles round their next door neighbour’s place looking for decent coffee. Next door neighbour is Genius Professor who happens to be crying her eyes out over the fact she wants a baby. TV gets turned on showing an interview with Birthday Footballer. Genius Professor says she wants to find someone like Dumb Footballer to father her child because she doesn’t want her baby to have two geniuses as parents and grow up to suffer the way she did (hand me the tissues now!). Slutty Waitress gets Genius Professor to dress up and act as a Hooker to seduce Dumb Footballer so she can get impregnated by him. Although Dumb Footballer (not so Dumb after all), knows something is up and Genius Professor is not actually a Hooker, he sleeps with her anyway. And it gets better …. Genius Professor finds out that she didn’t get pregnant after all so she turns up at Dumb Footballer’s hotel room and they go a second round. To cut a long story short, she ends up pregnant this time, he finds out and is mad (don’t blame him), forces her to marry him and be mean to his parents so they don't get attached to her. He is also ridiculously ageist, telling her to lie about her age and annoyed with the fact she wears glasses.
You may well wonder what the hell came over me to get me to even read this far?
I just had to find out how this book is voted number #5 in the ‘Best Contemporary Romance Ever’ list (seriously, nearly 400 people voted for this book!!!!!!) and #3 in ‘Sports Romances’ list.
SERIOUSLY?!??!
And the end was just as horrendous as the beginning.
Well, dang! I had a lot of things to do today, so my intention was to get up early and get cracking on my to do list. But I started reading Nobody's Baby But Mine yesterday, and I couldn't stop. I had to finish this book. It was such a fun little book to read. But I have to admit that this is one of the more conflicted five star reviews I've ever given. Slight spoilers ahead.
I know a lot of people adore Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars series, so I've read lots of glowing reviews of various books in the series. But I never decided to pick one of them up to read them. Maybe they seemed a bit more chick lit than I'm interested in reading. I don't know. I just wasn't interested. But this book was a kindle deal of the day, and I thought it was worth the $1.99 to check it out. I loved it! So much.
But ...
I have to admit that the premise for this story is just awful. Uncomfortably awful. I spent a good portion of the first quarter of this story feeling close to icky about what was going on, questioning whether I wanted to stick with the story or toss it out as unreadable for me. This is the story of a genius woman who hasn't had much experience in good relationships and who is desperate to have a baby of her own. There are a few options in the world for women who find themselves in this position, but in the fog of her own desires Jane makes the most bone headed and selfish and disgusting choice ever. She decides to trick some unsuspecting soul into fathering the child without telling him about it. That poor soul is the aging head quarterback of the Chicago Stars, Cal. Cal seems like the perfect choice because Jane is desperate that her child not end up brilliant like her. She wants an average baby because she believes her intelligence created heartache and struggles in her life. She wants her baby's father to be an idiot, and Cal seems like the perfect representation of a dumb jock. Circumstances create the perfect opportunity for her to put her plan in place, so she lays her trap, and voila! she's pregnant! Everything will be perfect now.
Or will it?
It turns out that most men are not so happy about being trapped into fathering children. Cal is furious. Jane's plan was that he would never know about this child. She didn't expect anything from him. She just wanted this baby to be hers and no one else's. Cal's not in favor of this. Cal's solution (here's the spoilery part) is INSANE. He decides that the best way to handle this crisis is to manipulate and threaten Jane into marrying him. His plan is for her to stay married to him until the baby is born and then to get a divorce. He plans to take an active role as a parent, destroying her plan to use him and lose him so that she can raise the baby all by herself. Why is this a good plan? It makes no sense to me at all. But for purposes of the story it helps to make the last 75% of the book possible as the two of them head to Cal's rural Carolina hometown to stay for a few months during the off season. Cal is furious. He absolutely hates Jane with every fiber of his being for what she has done to him. Jane is feeling a good portion of guilt (for good reason!) and her own amount of hatred toward Cal. They are a mess, and when they aren't totally ignoring each other they are fighting like cats.
And that's when the story suddenly heads into amazing territory.
Seeing the transformation of Cal and Jane's relationship was so satisfying. These are two GOOD people who kept making stupid choices. But under all their stupidity was goodness. They were funny and strong and intelligent. They ended up being exactly the sort of people that each one of them deserved. SEP's writing was delightful, mixing the right amount of swoon worthy moments with sweet moments and funny moments. I found myself chuckling so many times during this story, and I don't often do that as I read. I loved how she got me to care deeply about these characters and interested in them getting their HEA. After making such a horrible first move in this story I was able to find a way to forgive Jane in the same way that Cal does. He can see her in a way that no one else has been able to see her before. I loved that. I loved the secondary story of Cal's parents and their troubled marriage and how that went along in tandem with Cal and Jane's struggles. I loved Annie and her not-so-craziness. I loved Kevin and his transformation from a seeming "villain" of this story into more of a savior. I think I'd love to read a story with him as the lead. I loved it all.
The last chapter? LOVED IT! So beautiful. So satisfying. So perfect.
This is a fun book. I think I'm going to have to check out more of this series. I can see why there are some one star reviews out there. The premise of this story is bad enough that it might be hard for many people to get past Jane's initial awful and immoral plan, but I was able to move past it to see how these two good people deserved each other and their happily ever after, despite the bad choices that got them together in the first place. If you are a reader who can't think that you could move past such a decision, this probably isn't the book for you. But I give it five stars. It was amazing.
I know a lot of people adore Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars series, so I've read lots of glowing reviews of various books in the series. But I never decided to pick one of them up to read them. Maybe they seemed a bit more chick lit than I'm interested in reading. I don't know. I just wasn't interested. But this book was a kindle deal of the day, and I thought it was worth the $1.99 to check it out. I loved it! So much.
But ...
I have to admit that the premise for this story is just awful. Uncomfortably awful. I spent a good portion of the first quarter of this story feeling close to icky about what was going on, questioning whether I wanted to stick with the story or toss it out as unreadable for me. This is the story of a genius woman who hasn't had much experience in good relationships and who is desperate to have a baby of her own. There are a few options in the world for women who find themselves in this position, but in the fog of her own desires Jane makes the most bone headed and selfish and disgusting choice ever. She decides to trick some unsuspecting soul into fathering the child without telling him about it. That poor soul is the aging head quarterback of the Chicago Stars, Cal. Cal seems like the perfect choice because Jane is desperate that her child not end up brilliant like her. She wants an average baby because she believes her intelligence created heartache and struggles in her life. She wants her baby's father to be an idiot, and Cal seems like the perfect representation of a dumb jock. Circumstances create the perfect opportunity for her to put her plan in place, so she lays her trap, and voila! she's pregnant! Everything will be perfect now.
Or will it?
It turns out that most men are not so happy about being trapped into fathering children. Cal is furious. Jane's plan was that he would never know about this child. She didn't expect anything from him. She just wanted this baby to be hers and no one else's. Cal's not in favor of this. Cal's solution (here's the spoilery part) is INSANE. He decides that the best way to handle this crisis is to manipulate and threaten Jane into marrying him. His plan is for her to stay married to him until the baby is born and then to get a divorce. He plans to take an active role as a parent, destroying her plan to use him and lose him so that she can raise the baby all by herself. Why is this a good plan? It makes no sense to me at all. But for purposes of the story it helps to make the last 75% of the book possible as the two of them head to Cal's rural Carolina hometown to stay for a few months during the off season. Cal is furious. He absolutely hates Jane with every fiber of his being for what she has done to him. Jane is feeling a good portion of guilt (for good reason!) and her own amount of hatred toward Cal. They are a mess, and when they aren't totally ignoring each other they are fighting like cats.
And that's when the story suddenly heads into amazing territory.
Seeing the transformation of Cal and Jane's relationship was so satisfying. These are two GOOD people who kept making stupid choices. But under all their stupidity was goodness. They were funny and strong and intelligent. They ended up being exactly the sort of people that each one of them deserved. SEP's writing was delightful, mixing the right amount of swoon worthy moments with sweet moments and funny moments. I found myself chuckling so many times during this story, and I don't often do that as I read. I loved how she got me to care deeply about these characters and interested in them getting their HEA. After making such a horrible first move in this story I was able to find a way to forgive Jane in the same way that Cal does. He can see her in a way that no one else has been able to see her before. I loved that. I loved the secondary story of Cal's parents and their troubled marriage and how that went along in tandem with Cal and Jane's struggles. I loved Annie and her not-so-craziness. I loved Kevin and his transformation from a seeming "villain" of this story into more of a savior. I think I'd love to read a story with him as the lead. I loved it all.
The last chapter? LOVED IT! So beautiful. So satisfying. So perfect.
This is a fun book. I think I'm going to have to check out more of this series. I can see why there are some one star reviews out there. The premise of this story is bad enough that it might be hard for many people to get past Jane's initial awful and immoral plan, but I was able to move past it to see how these two good people deserved each other and their happily ever after, despite the bad choices that got them together in the first place. If you are a reader who can't think that you could move past such a decision, this probably isn't the book for you. But I give it five stars. It was amazing.
emotional
medium-paced
hopeful
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes