Soft Core: Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me
When you get down to it, what is pornography but a wish-fullfilment fantasy? Usually, it's "boy fucks girl" without any of the foreplay. But there are other wish-fulfillment fantasies than just sex. For teen-age boys, there are super-heroes and sword-swinging barbarians. And for women, there are Romances
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...I am still interested in more detailed thoughts about specifics. Ie, what'd you think of that first date? And of the final consummation scene?
The first date?
"What?" Cal tried to find his place in the conversation. "Oh, the sports and sex thing? Not at all. This is the twenty-first century. We've learned how to be sensitive."
"You have?"
"Sure," Cal said. "Otherwise we wouldn't get laid."
What's not to like? Witty dialogue is so damned rare in my experience ...
And the final (anti) climactic scene cracked me right up; it was like something out of a Marx Brothers movie, delightful farce.
The non-epilogue was fine. It wasn't necessary but (unlike, say, the last chapter in that Harry Potter travesty of a series-ender) it was a brief and breezy way to tie up a few loose ends.
Liza, Bonnie: both good supporting characters, not carbon-copies; Crusie's very good with the sub-plots. I thought Shana could have had a bit more room, I'd have liked her to play a larger role in the book than simply something to prove to the reader that Cal was in fact a Good Guy.
Nothing likeable about Cynthie; what's to like about shallow, stupid and selfish even if she genuinely (might be) in love?
I agree that the plot complications / evil exes reliance does the book no favours.
Not as literature, maybe, but as Romantic Comedy (which this is; it's not pure Romance), you have to have the complications. But the plotting exes were a little hard on my credulity.
Man, I wish they'd make Bet Me into a movie!
Better hope Hollywood doesn't do it; the Dream Factory seems to have forgotten how to write dialogue. (Have you managed to watch The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard yet? And rush to get The Philadelphia Story - I'm utterly convinced you'll love it.)
And speaking of which, I really doubt they'd have the balls to cast a woman with some actual extra flesh in the lead role.
But yeah, it could be a very fun film. Mind you, we've got the book, so who needs it?
...and I never got the sense that Min really hated her body; she was dieting more for her mother/etc than because she had really internalized the idea that her figure was inadequate....).
Agreed. She was yielding to societal pressures, which made the (Absolutely Gorgeous) Cal's attraction to her all the more appealing (and Cal himself, of course), not to mention giving the narrative some dramatic tension.
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