As Abbey told you already, we actually HAVE been reading all of these books, we just never got around to actually telling anyone about them.
The problem? Once I'd read a blog worthy book (OMG I can't WAIT to write about how ridiculous Jeff was NOT to realize Meg was THE ONE for that entire book! So obvious!!!!) I would be so elated and excited about it that I would immediately A. send it to Abbey to read, and B. read whatever book I just received from her or Amazon in my haste to read more amazing stories.
Abbey did the same with her gems. Suddenly we were just reading and reading and reading with no desire to stop and write about these books. We could bother with that later.
Well, it's later folks. As Abbey told you, we're nearly through all of our books, reading nearly 40 books apiece with just a few more to read on our lists to complete books 1-42, plus the ever-successful Super Editions.
Anyway.
This will be my first installation in the hopefully recurring "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" sessions of books. Because this is my first try, I didn't want to waste my novice attempt on my GOOD pick, At First Sight, which I literally cannot WAIT to re-read for highlights. It was SO GOOD. But that's for next time.
This time, I decided to highlight my BAD pick. A god-awful eye-rolling disaster of an unbelievable plotline, filled with ridiculous "secrets," a bratty, whiny main character, and love that happens literally overnight.
UGH.
Please bear with me as I attempt to create my general outline for what will hopefully be many more of these installations.
Book Title: He's Not What You Think (If you think this book is going to be good, then this book is also not what you think)
Author: Randi Reisfeld (who btw did not write any other love stories for this series- we can all breathe a sigh of relief about that)
"I want to find out everything I can about Danny. But he's hiding something. I just wish I knew what it was......"
Synopsis per back of the book:
Jessica Graham is miserable. She has to spend three precious summer weeks at a boring resort with her father and his nasty new girlfriend. But when she meets a mysterious waiter at the resort's restaurant, things start looking up. Danny Jordan seems like the perfect guy . . . if only he weren't so secretive. He refuses to talk about his family, and often disappears on the weekends -- without any explanation.
Jessica is determined to learn Danny's story. But he seems equally determined to hide the truth. How can she be with someone she can't believe in?
Cliff notes per me:
Jess has to go and stay with her father at a resort for the summer, since her mother is taking classes so she can go back to work and finally start supporting them after her parents' divorce. Jess finds this SO SELFISH, how dare she try to improve their lives and make her spend three whole WEEKS with her dad and his STUPID girlfriend. After throwing a huge hissy fit, she loses the battle but is told she can bring her bff, Cami, along if she wants, all expenses paid. So Cami agrees, weirdly, on some random trip to this beach resort with this other family that nobody likes, and off they go.
Jess is so whiny and annoying that when they are told that breakfast is served each morning at 8am, she and Cami almost go into hysterics thinking about getting up at such a god-awful hour. Now listen, I'm as sleepy-inny as anyone else, probably more than most, but seriously you're at a resort getting a free breakfast- go eat and then get back into bed, what's the big effin deal?? Anyway, they make it up in time anyway and that's where the magic happens.
Someone spills some juice on the table and it's like the crisis of the century, and some random waiter comes to the rescue....but then some of the juice starts going STRAIGHT TO HER DRESS!!!!!!
"Aaah! Watch out!" I cried. I jumped out of my seat, bumping into him a bit.
"Sorry about that," he said in a low voice. (Sidebar- half of everything anyone says is "in a low voice." What exactly does the author think this actually means?? People randomly use low voices way too much in this book to make any flippin sense. It's absurd)
I turned to face him for the first time-- and looked straight into a pair of the biggest, deepest brown eyes I'd ever seen. I caught my breath. With those dark eyes, strong cheekbones, and slightly curling lips, the face in front of me was handsome, but more than that too. It was as if those eyes, looking directly at me through those thick, dark lashes, could actually speak to me-- as if they were communicating directly with something deep inside me.
Suddenly I couldn't move. Couldn't speak, couldn't do anything. The rest of the world had disappeared. The restaurant and everybody in it had faded into the background, and the two of us were frozen in place.
So. This girl is quite dramatic. And believe it or not, those two sentences are some of the wordiest conversations they have this ENTIRE BOOK. He literally does not say anything to her at all, ever. And yet, only like 10 pages later, she's in LOVE. Ok, that was overstating a bit. The clip you read came from page 43, and she doesn't say she thinks she's in love until aaaallll the way to page 71. What happened in between these pages?
The go to a movie, where they don't talk at all.
Then they take a walk to a gazebo, where she complains about her dad and he really doesn't talk at all.
They make out, heavily, and then he takes her home where he can barely grunt out a goodnight.
And there you have it folks. She's in LOVE! And can you blame her??? What a dreamboat!! But she's worried because she barely knows ANYTHING about him, I mean he is SO SECRETIVE it's very worrisome but not too worrisome since she is definitely in love so does anything about him actually really even matter? Probably not.
They end up seeing each other again after a few days, where he gets very defensive that she's been ignoring him and that she must be ashamed because he's just "the help" and she's soooo rich and snobby. She stutters around a retort and says he's the one who's been ignoring HER, and where has he been anyway??? He says he had some stuff to take care of and they go to his bungalo where she's not allowed to be. She is concerned because he is SO SECRETIVE and she can't get him to tell her anything about himself at all. He combs her hair, mentions his two sisters that she doesn't think about again whatsoever, and tells her that his mom is dead. Then they make out and she goes home.
Later, she asks him to the big 4th of July shindig, since he has the day off coincidentally and they'll have a great time. Again, he has "some stuff to take care of" and can't make it. WHY IS HE SO SECRETIVE?! I mean, he's such an amazing and perfect guy, as you can tell, but it's just so HARD to trust him when he's just running off and not telling her anything about himself!! (Except that he has two sisters she doesn't know anything about and he obviously is at least half-orphaned.....this girl is seriously so stupid. She honestly never thinks about these things again)
So, Jess/Jessie/Jessica and Cami decide to hide in the back of Danny's truck and follow him to his mysterious destination- where he is bringing a duffel bag and a guitar, highly suspicious. They find themselves at a DETENTION CENTER OMG HE'S A CRIMINAL THIS WAS HIS BIG SECRET!! They decide he must be in juvenile detention which to them is a form of jail that still allows him to go work at a resort and live there the entire summer without hesitation on anybody's part. But then they see him with ANOTHER GIRL who looks suspiciously like the sister he described and Jess has forgotten all about so they decide he must be cheating. They easily find a ride home and she goes to bed, heartbroken.
Later she decides to confront him and finds that SAME GIRL in his bungalo and she and Cami decide to get even and have him fired for having guests over when she was clearly told he couldn't have anyone there. Cami drops the info to the front desk and they go to a rave, which Danny knows they are attending because earlier that day they were discussing it loudly while Danny walked by and Jess through all his towels in the pool. She is very mature.
At the rave, shit goes down and Danny suddenly appears to save her even though she's been the biggest B of all time to him for no known reason that he knows of yet. He tells her that even though she's hurt him he doesn't want anything to happen to her because she means soooo much to him.
She tells him that's nice but you're an A-hole I saw you cheating on me with that other chick thanks for saving my life but I don't appreciate it because I hate you.
He decides to explain.
GET READY. HIS BIG SECRET IS COMING!!!!
First, he tells her about how the detention center is actually an orphanage and that he and his sister both live there. He's on a work-release program so he can earn money to help get him ready for when he has to leave the home at age 18.
WHAAAAAT?! His parents are DEAD?! And that's his SISTER?! WHAT sister?! We had NO CLUE WHATsoEVER that he A. had at least one deceased parent and B. had a SIBLING! What a TWIST!
But wait- there's more. I'll let Danny tell you about it.
"After my mom died, everything fell apart. My dad tried to keep the family together, but it was too much for him. He had a bunch of bad luck, lost a couple of jobs, got in some trouble. That's when they came to take us kids away."......."Scott and Lila went to foster homes pretty quick," Danny explained. "They were still young and cute. But Lisa and I were older, thirteen and fourteen already. Nobody wanted us. So we went to Beaverkill Juvenile Facility."
Okay.
This is where I need to stop and have a real rant for a second.
I don't know much about foster homes/juvenile facilities/orphans, etc, but I do have a few concerns with his story.
A. if your dad is not dead, you are not technically an orphan.
B. Foster homes don't really get to CHOOSE who they take in, do they? He says his brother and sister were young and cute so they got "fostered" right away, but him and his sister weren't wanted so they had to go be orphans. He's talking like the foster families get to come to the center and pick and choose their favorite kids, like adoption. Is this really how it works? I don't think so.
C. How did this dumbass B not suspect ANY of this from the start?? He tells her his mom is dead, he has multiple siblings, won't tell her where he lives, and makes at least one comment about needing to earn as much money as possible before age 18. She maybe couldn't have pieced everything together, but he gave her some pretty solid clues that maybe he didn't have a traditional home life.
Lucky for him, she is incredibly understanding, especially when he tells her that's his sister back at the bungalo and that he was hiding her there because she was being abused by one of the employees at the orphanage place. OH NO! Cami told the resort all about the unauthorized visitor in his bungalo and now she will be found and returned to the home and everything will be all her fault. But after 5 seconds her guilt subsides because, even though they arrive at the bungalo to find the cops there to take the sister back to the home, Jess remembers her annoying stepmother is actually a lawyer who helps families JUST LIKE THIS and she swoops in to save the day.
This is where the real joy comes in.
1. They place the sister at a foster home, conveniently located very close to the resort, that the stepmom is very familiar with and thinks will be just perf.
2. They track down the dad and other siblings RIGHT AWAY and GREAT NEWS dad's in rehab so that def means they can all go back to him asap. Especially since he clearly wants them back.....??? Nobody seems to even check with him and maybe he was too doped up still to even realize what they were asking him, who knows. But either way, he's about to get his 4 kids back that he couldn't handle anytime before this, woo hoo!
3. The case against the abuse from the orphan worker is VERY HIGH PROFILE for no apparent reason and he gets convicted in like 5 minutes so yay he's gone forevs!
4. Jess is very sad that now that everything is working out for Danny, the summer is about to be over and they will have to say goodbye, since she has to go back to Florida, a million miles away from this beachy northeast resort town of Beaverkill. Boo hoo.
BUT WAIT!
Ugly stepmom, who Jess now adores, has arranged for Danny's dad to do CONSTRUCTION WORK!!!!!! ("That makes sense," mused Danny. "That's what he used to do before....well, before everything fell apart." Crazy, right, that they would find him a job that lent itself to his prior work experience)
"Through my contacts I was able to get him places with the Dade County Development Project."
My jaw fell open. "Dade County?" I repeated in astonishment. "You mean Dade County in Florida?"
Danny turned to me. "Is that close to South Beach?:
"South Beach is IN Dade County," I said breathlessly, my eyes brimming with tears. I suddenly knew that Janie [stepmom] hadn't been looking for just any job that would get Mr. Jordan and his family back together. She'd taken all that extra time to find one near me.
AND THEN
"As for you, Danny, I don't see why you couldn't finish up your last year at South Beach High."
OMG YOU GUYS. That's HER school! He and his whole entire family are moving all the way to Florida and centering their whole lives around Jess and their ridiculous "love story." Isn't that wonderful?!
The End.
A Summary of My Finishing Thoughts:
1. This girl is SO STUPID. How can she fall in love with this guy SO fast without knowing the first thing about him? Girls in love stories do fall in love rather quickly, but they know at least one date's worth of things about the guy before they jump all in. they never actually went on a date in this entire book.
2. Danny's drama just made no sense to me. From we can't get fostered because we're thirteen so we'll just be orphans instead, to my dad can get out of rehab and get custody back of all four of the kids he lost no problem, in a totally different state....it was all just absurd.
3. The climax of the book was just beyond ridiculous and had me switching between rolling my eyes and sighing and laughing out loud and waking up my sleeping husband next to me. WHY would any lawyer EVER make decisions for an entire family based purely on the relationship of two teenagers that had only even known each other for like 3 weeks?? It's just insane and any lawyer who would do that should be disbarred immediately.
4. I love that she tried to have Danny fired, got his sister caught there illegally and almost got her sent back to be molested by some creeper Danny was trying to save her from, and yet she never even thinks about this again. Did she ever tell Danny? Certainly not that us readers were aware. So isn't this relationship starting out on a big fat lie? He doesn't seem to question how the cops miraculously found her there- although, seriously dude, did you really think your place of residence wouldn't be the first place they'd check for your sister you JUST visited?? Think about it, dum dum. But I just love how Jess feels absolutely no guilt over this whatsoever since she went and got Janie to help them instead- so that must have made up for it and her conscience can be cleared.
All in all, the implausibility of Love Stories in general cannot be ignored, but some can be more easily overlooked than others. And usually, when they're extra ridiculous, they are also HILARIOUS and can at least provide some humor in an otherwise intolerable story.
Unfortunately, He's Not What You Think did not provide anything but eye rolls and absurdity. While Abbey read this book long before I ever did, she still remembered how awful it was:
- So stupid indeed.
- Stupid. In. Deed.
