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A review by simplyparticular
Charlie All Night by Jennifer Crusie
3.0
I've enjoyed a few of the more recent Crusie books and have been checking out her backlist now that it is in eBook form. Unfortunately, I think she was still finding her way in her early books. What I enjoy about her more recent books is the realistic, humorous voice of her characters, primary and secondary. That humor is still in evidence here, but she's also trying to mix in suspense, and I think it results in just too much going on. As a result, character development suffers.
Allie is interesting - we meet her as she wakes up to her stupid decisions of the past, and she makes a few rash, uncharacteristic decisions that could go either way. Charlie is also interesting, but we don't get to delve into him as much as necessary to like him as a hero, because the suspense plot and ex-boyfriend take up too much of the story. In this case, the suspense provide the whole reason for the hero to meet the heroine, so it was integral to th eplot, but still a distraction.
The other usual formulas of Crusie are present - snarky best friend (this time a gay man, rare in romance), forlorn dog, tight knit circle of small town people. I'm assuming this was written for one of the category suspense lines., but it's just one of those books that I think it could have been so much better with some careful pruning and losing the suspense.
Allie is interesting - we meet her as she wakes up to her stupid decisions of the past, and she makes a few rash, uncharacteristic decisions that could go either way. Charlie is also interesting, but we don't get to delve into him as much as necessary to like him as a hero, because the suspense plot and ex-boyfriend take up too much of the story. In this case, the suspense provide the whole reason for the hero to meet the heroine, so it was integral to th eplot, but still a distraction.
The other usual formulas of Crusie are present - snarky best friend (this time a gay man, rare in romance), forlorn dog, tight knit circle of small town people. I'm assuming this was written for one of the category suspense lines., but it's just one of those books that I think it could have been so much better with some careful pruning and losing the suspense.