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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
I procrastinated reading this book, even though I'm a huge Jennifer Crusie fan, because this one sounded a bit 'meh'. But I was completely wrong. A great ghost story with a strong main character that is typical of Jennifer Crusie's fiction. This was a quick, fun read that was just a tiny bit tense at times, with not all the ghosts being of the friendly variety. I really enjoyed it and it is sure to become one of my Crusie favourites, along with Agnes and the Hitman and Fast Women.
I do not read many straight up romance novels; they're just not my style. I make an exception for Jennifer Crusie, who Katelyn introduced me to my freshman year of college (Welcome to Temptation). Her novels are light, funny and generally have a bunch of awesome pop culture references.
Maybe This Time is a bit different than her other books because of the fantasy element (or is it?). The ghost plot line left me a little cold (pun, haha, get it?). That was the overarching plot of the book, so you couldn't take it out, but it just didn't work for me somehow. I also had some trouble accepting North as a name. I mean, come on!
Jennifer Crusie fans will still want to read this one, but it isn't her best. If you haven't read any Crusie yet, I recommend Welcome to Temptation or Fast Women.
Maybe This Time is a bit different than her other books because of the fantasy element (or is it?). The ghost plot line left me a little cold (pun, haha, get it?). That was the overarching plot of the book, so you couldn't take it out, but it just didn't work for me somehow. I also had some trouble accepting North as a name. I mean, come on!
Jennifer Crusie fans will still want to read this one, but it isn't her best. If you haven't read any Crusie yet, I recommend Welcome to Temptation or Fast Women.
It's ok, not bad not thrilling. As a former workaholic I enjoyed the growth of the male hero. I also like that Crusie is not afraid to portray women who don't want to have children...and children who are love able without being cutesy.
3.5/5
The snappy dialogue is still there, but the second half of the book felt frantic in the pacing.
I am glad to have read it, but would definitely recommend other books from her.
Will still read the next one.
The snappy dialogue is still there, but the second half of the book felt frantic in the pacing.
I am glad to have read it, but would definitely recommend other books from her.
Will still read the next one.
That's not what I expected at all. I thought I was getting a zany, cozy mystery complete with wack-a-doo characters, and instead I get a haunting with a twist of romance... Interesting, to say the least. Well written, but not something I think I'll be reading again.
Finally, a solo title from Ms. Crusie! I've read some of her co-authored works, the only one I liked was Agnes and the Hitman which was excellent but I was glad to see Crusie doing her own thing again.
Maybe This Time is Crusie's re-telling of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I don't know this because I've read The Turn of the Screw, or because I was an English major, or a librarian. I know this only because Jenny told me. Well, not me specifically but the group of us that were at her book signing last night. It was pretty cool to hear how James had inspired Crusie but there were things about the story that she could not relate to (twenty year old virgin!) so she decided to write her own version and wha-la! We have Maybe This Time.
Jenny also said that Maybe This Time was a ghost story and not a romance. Wait! Romance folks, don't stop reading! While this is an excellent ghost story, it is also "classic Crusie." Long-time fans, you'll know what that means; newcomers, it means quirky heroines, hilarious hijinx, and a sexy hero. The only thing missing from this Crusie was a furry four legged character. This time around she's replaced (wo)man's best friend with....kids?!
Confession: I'm not a kid person. Sure I like some kids, usually a friend's kid. But I don't really enjoy kids. No offense to my lovely readers with little ones...I love seeing pictures of your cutiepies but am glad I don't have any or have to deal with kids on a regular basis. Wow, guess it's a good thing I didn't become a teacher eh?! So, when I see romance novels with kids in them I usually groan. But this was a Crusie so I didn't even think twice and Crusie, fantabulous writer that she is, totally sold me on the book's two kids, Alice and Carter. Although Carter is quite and withdrawn. I kept expecting to learn more about him. Especially after Andie, our heroine, had a discussion with her ex-mother-in-law about him. But nothing ever came of it. That was one of the only things the irked me about this book. Alice definitely gets the most attention. And, according to Ms. Crusie herself, we're going to get to see Alice star in her own book in the future!
Anyway, as far as the romance goes Andie and North are obviously still not over each other despite the ten years since their divorce. There's not as much interaction between Andie and North as I might have liked. The focus seemed more on Andie's relationship with the kids and trying to deal with those pesky ghosts. However, there's enough romance to keep those of us, who NEED romance, going!
Lastly, I have to say Crusie did a great job of building suspense where the ghosts and supernatural aspects were concerned. As I was reading I was thinking, "Wow, this is actually a little creepy." Which was something I wasn't expecting from a Crusie novel. But it's not nightmare worthy so those of you who don't care for scary stuff, it's not THAT scary!
Overall an excellent addition to my keeper shelf. Crusie, left to her own devices, never fails. If you haven't read any Crusie before, what the heck are you waiting for?!
Maybe This Time is Crusie's re-telling of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I don't know this because I've read The Turn of the Screw, or because I was an English major, or a librarian. I know this only because Jenny told me. Well, not me specifically but the group of us that were at her book signing last night. It was pretty cool to hear how James had inspired Crusie but there were things about the story that she could not relate to (twenty year old virgin!) so she decided to write her own version and wha-la! We have Maybe This Time.
Jenny also said that Maybe This Time was a ghost story and not a romance. Wait! Romance folks, don't stop reading! While this is an excellent ghost story, it is also "classic Crusie." Long-time fans, you'll know what that means; newcomers, it means quirky heroines, hilarious hijinx, and a sexy hero. The only thing missing from this Crusie was a furry four legged character. This time around she's replaced (wo)man's best friend with....kids?!
Confession: I'm not a kid person. Sure I like some kids, usually a friend's kid. But I don't really enjoy kids. No offense to my lovely readers with little ones...I love seeing pictures of your cutiepies but am glad I don't have any or have to deal with kids on a regular basis. Wow, guess it's a good thing I didn't become a teacher eh?! So, when I see romance novels with kids in them I usually groan. But this was a Crusie so I didn't even think twice and Crusie, fantabulous writer that she is, totally sold me on the book's two kids, Alice and Carter. Although Carter is quite and withdrawn. I kept expecting to learn more about him. Especially after Andie, our heroine, had a discussion with her ex-mother-in-law about him. But nothing ever came of it. That was one of the only things the irked me about this book. Alice definitely gets the most attention. And, according to Ms. Crusie herself, we're going to get to see Alice star in her own book in the future!
Anyway, as far as the romance goes Andie and North are obviously still not over each other despite the ten years since their divorce. There's not as much interaction between Andie and North as I might have liked. The focus seemed more on Andie's relationship with the kids and trying to deal with those pesky ghosts. However, there's enough romance to keep those of us, who NEED romance, going!
Lastly, I have to say Crusie did a great job of building suspense where the ghosts and supernatural aspects were concerned. As I was reading I was thinking, "Wow, this is actually a little creepy." Which was something I wasn't expecting from a Crusie novel. But it's not nightmare worthy so those of you who don't care for scary stuff, it's not THAT scary!
Overall an excellent addition to my keeper shelf. Crusie, left to her own devices, never fails. If you haven't read any Crusie before, what the heck are you waiting for?!
As usual, not a perfect book, but it remains one of my favorites
When MAYBE THIS TIME arrived on my doorstep, it was all I could do not to start reading it right away. I think I lasted maybe an hour or two before cracking it open. Having read all of Jennifer Crusie’s previous works, I, along with many others, I imagine, was nearly frothing at the mouth when I heard of a solo, non-collaboration book. I’m happy to report that MAYBE THIS TIME was as good as I had hoped it to be; while I was reading it, that was all I wanted to be doing. In fact, I stayed up half the night just to finish it (and then was up the other half because I thought there was a ghost in my hallway).
I’ll admit I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ghost part of the storyline. I’m on board with anything Crusie wants to write, but I like my romance a little more grounded than ghosts generally deliver. As someone who doesn’t generally believe in ghosts, I went into the book not believing; I thought sure it would turn out that there was someone playing a joke on the “big city folk” who had come to this small town to Save The Children. Without giving too much away, I will say that is not the case. I will also say that as someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts, Crusie managed to creep me out in the middle of the night. Thanks, Jenny!
One of my favorite romance tropes is when the hero and heroine know each other prior to the beginning of the book. I think things move along faster and are generally more believable when the characters have a history. Andie and North definitely have a history; they were married for a year, ten years ago. They met and married each other within hours—something that didn’t make any sense and didn’t ring particularly true to me, until I realized Andie and North were Dharma and Greg. Andie is a little less free-spirited than Dharma, but still a complete opposite to the staid, buttoned-up North. It was no wonder their marriage didn’t last more than a year, and even though ten years has passed, the spark that connected the two of them is still very much ignited. I loved watching Andie and North find their way back to each other.
I also liked the range of secondary characters that populated the MAYBE THIS TIME world. That is not to say, however, that I liked all of the characters. I hated Kelly, who seemed to be based on Nancy Grace. I wasn’t a fan of May, right up until I started actively hating her. Even Alice got on my nerves. But, the difference between me disliking these characters and disliking characters crafted by other less talented authors, is that I didn’t like Kelly, May, and Alice because I still wouldn’t like them if they were in line behind me at a store. They were real people, much more than characters on a page that just don’t ring true. On the contrary, they ring very true, and I didn’t find them likeable. They weren’t unlikable, however, because of poor writing; I think it was actually great writing that made them so awful. If that makes sense.
My one complaint, and this is less about MAYBE THIS TIME and more about Crusie’s writing, is that as I was reading, I felt as though these characters had the same dialogue tendencies that I’ve seen in her previous books. That is to say, while I thought the characters were full-bodied and well-drawn, I also thought that if you compared Andie or North with other characters from previous books, you’d find very similar speech patterns among the characters. I guess you could call it Crusie’s trademark wit, or snappy dialogue, but I found it distracting.
Overall, MAYBE THIS TIME made me want more Jenny Crusie books. I know she’s not interested in writing straight romance anymore, but this fan wishes she would reconsider! At any rate, I suspect I’ll be reading whatever she feels like writing for as long as she continues to write.
Originally posted at Romance Reader at Heart
I’ll admit I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ghost part of the storyline. I’m on board with anything Crusie wants to write, but I like my romance a little more grounded than ghosts generally deliver. As someone who doesn’t generally believe in ghosts, I went into the book not believing; I thought sure it would turn out that there was someone playing a joke on the “big city folk” who had come to this small town to Save The Children. Without giving too much away, I will say that is not the case. I will also say that as someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts, Crusie managed to creep me out in the middle of the night. Thanks, Jenny!
One of my favorite romance tropes is when the hero and heroine know each other prior to the beginning of the book. I think things move along faster and are generally more believable when the characters have a history. Andie and North definitely have a history; they were married for a year, ten years ago. They met and married each other within hours—something that didn’t make any sense and didn’t ring particularly true to me, until I realized Andie and North were Dharma and Greg. Andie is a little less free-spirited than Dharma, but still a complete opposite to the staid, buttoned-up North. It was no wonder their marriage didn’t last more than a year, and even though ten years has passed, the spark that connected the two of them is still very much ignited. I loved watching Andie and North find their way back to each other.
I also liked the range of secondary characters that populated the MAYBE THIS TIME world. That is not to say, however, that I liked all of the characters. I hated Kelly, who seemed to be based on Nancy Grace. I wasn’t a fan of May, right up until I started actively hating her. Even Alice got on my nerves. But, the difference between me disliking these characters and disliking characters crafted by other less talented authors, is that I didn’t like Kelly, May, and Alice because I still wouldn’t like them if they were in line behind me at a store. They were real people, much more than characters on a page that just don’t ring true. On the contrary, they ring very true, and I didn’t find them likeable. They weren’t unlikable, however, because of poor writing; I think it was actually great writing that made them so awful. If that makes sense.
My one complaint, and this is less about MAYBE THIS TIME and more about Crusie’s writing, is that as I was reading, I felt as though these characters had the same dialogue tendencies that I’ve seen in her previous books. That is to say, while I thought the characters were full-bodied and well-drawn, I also thought that if you compared Andie or North with other characters from previous books, you’d find very similar speech patterns among the characters. I guess you could call it Crusie’s trademark wit, or snappy dialogue, but I found it distracting.
Overall, MAYBE THIS TIME made me want more Jenny Crusie books. I know she’s not interested in writing straight romance anymore, but this fan wishes she would reconsider! At any rate, I suspect I’ll be reading whatever she feels like writing for as long as she continues to write.
Originally posted at Romance Reader at Heart
I think there is a rule - let's call it Georgie's rule - that states that if you come across a brilliant DIK of a book, the second book you read by the same author will be a let-down. Think of [b:The Proposition|720801|The Proposition|Judith Ivory|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1322341293s/720801.jpg|707043] (brilliant) and [b:Black Silk|1361044|Black Silk|Judith Ivory|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266782564s/1361044.jpg|1350826] (ho-hum), [b:The Rules Of Seduction|206084|The Rules Of Seduction (Rothwell Brothers, #1)|Madeline Hunter|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924475s/206084.jpg|199449] (sexy as hell) and [b:Lessons of Desire|577534|Lessons of Desire (Rothwell #2)|Madeline Hunter|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388443984s/577534.jpg|564480] (let me out), [b:Neanderthal Seeks Human|17673307|Neanderthal Seeks Human (Knitting in the City, #1)|Penny Reid|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1364347894s/17673307.jpg|24673151] (stop strangers in the street and quote bits) and [b:Neanderthal Marries Human|18875842|Neanderthal Marries Human (Knitting in the City, #1.5)|Penny Reid|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385014562s/18875842.jpg|26876634] (you see what I mean). So - I am sorry to say - it is with Maybe This Time in the wake of [b:Welcome to Temptation|33727|Welcome to Temptation (Dempseys, #1)|Jennifer Crusie|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312011677s/33727.jpg|2563621].
Don't think this is a bad book - it isn't. Crusie has a witty, tough writing style that is engaging, but still leaves space for some real emotions. The plot is straightforward (Andie's divorced husband persuades her to look after two children he has "inherited", along with their haunted house) - and you just bet Andie will rout the ghosts, win over the children and end up with her ex. She does.
The ghost story is handled well, and there's a cast of well-fleshed out secondary characters, particularly Andie's mother Flo. Andie's relationship with one of the children, Alice, was very deftly drawn.
It's just that the H/h relationship is very much down-played. There's a few pages together in Chapter 1, then no real interaction till half-way through the book. Both H & h are pleasant enough, but given their back-story (which, incidentally, isn't fleshed out nearly enough) I need something more to persuade me that the TEN YEAR separation can be overcome so quickly.
The balance between plot and relationship was skewed a bit too much for me - I either wanted much more of Andie & North, or to go back and reread [b:Welcome to Temptation|33727|Welcome to Temptation (Dempseys, #1)|Jennifer Crusie|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312011677s/33727.jpg|2563621].
Don't think this is a bad book - it isn't. Crusie has a witty, tough writing style that is engaging, but still leaves space for some real emotions. The plot is straightforward (Andie's divorced husband persuades her to look after two children he has "inherited", along with their haunted house) - and you just bet Andie will rout the ghosts, win over the children and end up with her ex. She does.
The ghost story is handled well, and there's a cast of well-fleshed out secondary characters, particularly Andie's mother Flo. Andie's relationship with one of the children, Alice, was very deftly drawn.
It's just that the H/h relationship is very much down-played. There's a few pages together in Chapter 1, then no real interaction till half-way through the book. Both H & h are pleasant enough, but given their back-story (which, incidentally, isn't fleshed out nearly enough) I need something more to persuade me that the TEN YEAR separation can be overcome so quickly.
The balance between plot and relationship was skewed a bit too much for me - I either wanted much more of Andie & North, or to go back and reread [b:Welcome to Temptation|33727|Welcome to Temptation (Dempseys, #1)|Jennifer Crusie|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312011677s/33727.jpg|2563621].
Crusie's acknowledgements at the beginning thanks the people who "beta read." Has this piece of fanish terminology become mainstream? Is Crusie a fan?
The first page before before the main story starts (I presume this has a name? What is it called?) says "This book is set in 1992. Because" and I kept on getting distracted by trying to figure out what the "because" was. At first I assumed it was because Crusie had written it then, failed to quite complete/sell it, and when she pulled it out in 2009 realized the plot wouldn't work if it was modernized, because everyone now has cellphones.
Then, as I was reading it, I decided that couldn't be it, because there's not a lot of "out of contact" obstacles that couldn’t be replaced with "out of service," so perhaps it's just that the musical references would have had to be updated, or else her characters made twenty years older, which perhaps makes the book less mainstream?
What does it mean for a review when you spend half your time talking about the authors' notes? Anyway.
This book, with the exception of the supernatural elements, reminds me of earlier Crusie more than her later stuff (which also supports my 'written in 1992 thesis') but perhaps that is just because this was not written with Bob Myer, as her more recent books have been.
ACTUAL BOOK-RELEVANT PLOT DISCUSSION FOLLOWS.
The romantic pairing in this book are a couple who divorced ten years ago when they discovered that their sexual chemistry was great, but they were bad at communicating with each other. In a less talented writer's hands, this would have resulted in my spending the entire book shrieking "TALK TO EACH OTHER," but with Crusie writing, the working out of their relationship comes not because they finally blurt out the missing piece of information they have been bone-headedly concealing all this time, but because they have since grown up.
They get together because he needs someone to look after a pair of children he inherits, and he hires her not because her ovaries qualify her, but because she is an English teacher and they need a tutor. (Also because he luuuuurves her.) The children are delightful, which I mean not in the saccharine Shirley Temple kind of way, but rather they delight me by being dysfunctional in the way real children are, doing such things as having screaming fits when you try to feed them waffles.
If "supernatural romances" are not your thing, you may enjoy this one anyway, as the ghosts have strong individual personalities, like all Crusie characters, and it is their personalities that motivate them.
This book completely lacks a dog, and I didn't care while I was reading it, so that's certainly a strong endorsement from me.
Two things detracted from my enjoyment of this book: The character of Kelly, evil girlfriend, was so straight-up "ambitious woman is evil bitch" that she was like Miranda Priestly without any style or magnificence.
And at one point, a ghost possesses someone to initiate a sexual encounter, and when someone calls this rape, it is dismissed because the woman being possessed would have initiated the sexual encounter anyway.
I don't usually see much point in arguing which impossibly fictional phenomenon are or aren't rape; it seems a distraction from the actual fact of rape. But in this instance, it super-bothered me how easily the fact that it was at very least "rape-like" was swept aside.
The first page before before the main story starts (I presume this has a name? What is it called?) says "This book is set in 1992. Because" and I kept on getting distracted by trying to figure out what the "because" was. At first I assumed it was because Crusie had written it then, failed to quite complete/sell it, and when she pulled it out in 2009 realized the plot wouldn't work if it was modernized, because everyone now has cellphones.
Then, as I was reading it, I decided that couldn't be it, because there's not a lot of "out of contact" obstacles that couldn’t be replaced with "out of service," so perhaps it's just that the musical references would have had to be updated, or else her characters made twenty years older, which perhaps makes the book less mainstream?
What does it mean for a review when you spend half your time talking about the authors' notes? Anyway.
This book, with the exception of the supernatural elements, reminds me of earlier Crusie more than her later stuff (which also supports my 'written in 1992 thesis') but perhaps that is just because this was not written with Bob Myer, as her more recent books have been.
ACTUAL BOOK-RELEVANT PLOT DISCUSSION FOLLOWS.
The romantic pairing in this book are a couple who divorced ten years ago when they discovered that their sexual chemistry was great, but they were bad at communicating with each other. In a less talented writer's hands, this would have resulted in my spending the entire book shrieking "TALK TO EACH OTHER," but with Crusie writing, the working out of their relationship comes not because they finally blurt out the missing piece of information they have been bone-headedly concealing all this time, but because they have since grown up.
They get together because he needs someone to look after a pair of children he inherits, and he hires her not because her ovaries qualify her, but because she is an English teacher and they need a tutor. (Also because he luuuuurves her.) The children are delightful, which I mean not in the saccharine Shirley Temple kind of way, but rather they delight me by being dysfunctional in the way real children are, doing such things as having screaming fits when you try to feed them waffles.
If "supernatural romances" are not your thing, you may enjoy this one anyway, as the ghosts have strong individual personalities, like all Crusie characters, and it is their personalities that motivate them.
This book completely lacks a dog, and I didn't care while I was reading it, so that's certainly a strong endorsement from me.
Two things detracted from my enjoyment of this book: The character of Kelly, evil girlfriend, was so straight-up "ambitious woman is evil bitch" that she was like Miranda Priestly without any style or magnificence.
And at one point, a ghost possesses someone to initiate a sexual encounter, and when someone calls this rape, it is dismissed because the woman being possessed would have initiated the sexual encounter anyway.
I don't usually see much point in arguing which impossibly fictional phenomenon are or aren't rape; it seems a distraction from the actual fact of rape. But in this instance, it super-bothered me how easily the fact that it was at very least "rape-like" was swept aside.