A review by susanatwestofmars
Courting Trouble by Lisa Scottoline
2.0
Wow. This turned into a dumpster fire.
First off, I want to know how someone with student loans for years and years to come can afford multiple pairs of Blahniks. And to rent a car and a house for the holiday weekend at the last minute. And live alone. And open her wallet at every turn, even though she makes a comment early on about debt.
I mean, yeah, sure, it's easy to see how she wound up in so much debt (although other than her credit card and those school loans, which iirc don't even come up until the end, making them feel tacked on and not something organic to the character at the start of the book), but it's kind of a Shopaholic series mindset, and it's totally not one I get. I don't have a lot of patience or sympathy for people who spend their way out of financial trouble.
If only Anne had stopped with the foolish behavior with the money stuff. But she doesn't, although it did lead to an interesting discussion between me and another editor about two tropes in fiction that feature prominently in this book.
The first is "The cops told me not to do it but I'm going to do it anyway and just not tell them." There are SO many problems embedded in this idea.
And yet Anne doesn't just thumb her nose at the cops, she thumbs her nose at her boss and her coworkers, who she quickly decides aren't just coworkers but are her girlfriends, too. This isn't how you treat a friend, Anne! (How quickly we go from liking a spunky heroine with a fun voice to absolutely loathing her.)
The second trope is "I'm going to confront the killer but not tell anyone what I'm doing or who the killer is." And... okay, we sort of have a pass for Anne here because she did tell people who the killer was...
HELLO. THE MAN IS A KILLER. HIS GOAL IS TO KILL YOU. ARE YOU TOO STUPID TO LIVE?
(Apparently. Or would be, in real life.)
So Anne runs off half-cocked, in her Blahniks, and thinks she's smarter than everyone. Ugh. Shudder.
And the men? Her client's a lech, her ex is a killer, her romantic lead joins her in doing stupid things that should really get them both in deep shit, the plaintiff's husband is physically abusive without a care, the cops initially don't want to do their jobs and don't do anything to help, the deputy or assistant or whatever police commissioner is passive and ineffective but glad to soak in the glory the women engineer, the doorman stares at everyone's breasts.
Is there a male in this book who ISN'T a loser?
Just... UGH.
Mary's parents are stereotypes thrown in because... WHY?
Was there really a safe house, or was that thrown in as a convenient last-minute plot device that got pulled out of thin air? Because that's how it felt.
And the ending goes on WAY too long. Again UGH. Those last 25 pages got skimmed and still bored me. End it already. Put me out of my misery. Oh, and don't open the door to healing in a toxic relationship at the very very tip of the Are We Finally There Yet? end. This does so much harm to anyone involved in a real-life toxic relationship with a parent who is pushed and pushed to fix things and make it right. That's an entire other rant for another time, but suffice it to say that it's not the heartwarming second chance authors want it to be. Toxic is toxic and an epiphany about how bad you acted for years and years may be real and it may not be real, but the person who suffered because of your bad behavior doesn't need to open themselves up to further hurt in the name of a heartwarming reconciliation engineered by others. An epiphany doesn't mean the toxic person has done the heavy lifting to change -- if they are even capable of it. It just means they're saying the words that people around them want to hear, and they only want to hear them out of hope to make things okay, not because they understand the situation.
UGH.
This is one of those books that makes me mourn for the time I spent reading it. Lost time. Time I can't get back. Time I can't spend on something as good as the early pages of this were.
First off, I want to know how someone with student loans for years and years to come can afford multiple pairs of Blahniks. And to rent a car and a house for the holiday weekend at the last minute. And live alone. And open her wallet at every turn, even though she makes a comment early on about debt.
I mean, yeah, sure, it's easy to see how she wound up in so much debt (although other than her credit card and those school loans, which iirc don't even come up until the end, making them feel tacked on and not something organic to the character at the start of the book), but it's kind of a Shopaholic series mindset, and it's totally not one I get. I don't have a lot of patience or sympathy for people who spend their way out of financial trouble.
If only Anne had stopped with the foolish behavior with the money stuff. But she doesn't, although it did lead to an interesting discussion between me and another editor about two tropes in fiction that feature prominently in this book.
The first is "The cops told me not to do it but I'm going to do it anyway and just not tell them." There are SO many problems embedded in this idea.
And yet Anne doesn't just thumb her nose at the cops, she thumbs her nose at her boss and her coworkers, who she quickly decides aren't just coworkers but are her girlfriends, too. This isn't how you treat a friend, Anne! (How quickly we go from liking a spunky heroine with a fun voice to absolutely loathing her.)
The second trope is "I'm going to confront the killer but not tell anyone what I'm doing or who the killer is." And... okay, we sort of have a pass for Anne here because she did tell people who the killer was...
HELLO. THE MAN IS A KILLER. HIS GOAL IS TO KILL YOU. ARE YOU TOO STUPID TO LIVE?
(Apparently. Or would be, in real life.)
So Anne runs off half-cocked, in her Blahniks, and thinks she's smarter than everyone. Ugh. Shudder.
And the men? Her client's a lech, her ex is a killer, her romantic lead joins her in doing stupid things that should really get them both in deep shit, the plaintiff's husband is physically abusive without a care, the cops initially don't want to do their jobs and don't do anything to help, the deputy or assistant or whatever police commissioner is passive and ineffective but glad to soak in the glory the women engineer, the doorman stares at everyone's breasts.
Is there a male in this book who ISN'T a loser?
Just... UGH.
Mary's parents are stereotypes thrown in because... WHY?
Was there really a safe house, or was that thrown in as a convenient last-minute plot device that got pulled out of thin air? Because that's how it felt.
And the ending goes on WAY too long. Again UGH. Those last 25 pages got skimmed and still bored me. End it already. Put me out of my misery. Oh, and don't open the door to healing in a toxic relationship at the very very tip of the Are We Finally There Yet? end. This does so much harm to anyone involved in a real-life toxic relationship with a parent who is pushed and pushed to fix things and make it right. That's an entire other rant for another time, but suffice it to say that it's not the heartwarming second chance authors want it to be. Toxic is toxic and an epiphany about how bad you acted for years and years may be real and it may not be real, but the person who suffered because of your bad behavior doesn't need to open themselves up to further hurt in the name of a heartwarming reconciliation engineered by others. An epiphany doesn't mean the toxic person has done the heavy lifting to change -- if they are even capable of it. It just means they're saying the words that people around them want to hear, and they only want to hear them out of hope to make things okay, not because they understand the situation.
UGH.
This is one of those books that makes me mourn for the time I spent reading it. Lost time. Time I can't get back. Time I can't spend on something as good as the early pages of this were.