Saturday, September 21, 2002

Good Time Girl, by Candace Schuler

After reading vampires, I was ready for something extremely non-dark, so I went for a Blaze title. I read Candace Schuler's Good Time Girl.

Blurb:
After getting a makeover from prim to improper, Roxanne Archer - now just Roxy - sets out to have a good time being bad. And she has her heart set on a good-looking, dangerous cowboy to do it with. Her first stop is a west Texas honky-tonk where Tom Steele, with all his dangerous laid-back rodeo cowboy charm, strikes her fancy. But what was supposed to be a one-night stand is so good, one night isn't nearly enough.

Tom can't believe his luck. This sexy, sassy woman wants to spend the summer with him, having mind-blowing sex, then go her own way — no muss, no fuss.

They both think they've got exactly what they want. For a while.
It was no good.Though I like the basic story (people who get together for just sex and end up wanting more), and that part was well done, the setting ruined everything for me. I found it tacky and stupid. I despised the characters for loving it, Tom for feeling everyone wants to be a cowboy and Roxy for dreaming about rodeo all her life. This was my basic problem. Their relationship wasn't perfect (that scene where he pulls her face-down across his lap and smacks her, eeuuw!), but I kinda liked it.

Plus, I had some little things that bothered be too, like Tom immediately calling Roxy "Slim". WTF?? I kept thinking of Eminem... "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?" Not very romantic. And he keeps thinking of her as "a long, tall glass of water". I swear, at one point, Schuler uses that phrase 4 times in as many pages.

I also hated it when they go to his ranch, and meet his neighbour and Roxy and she start "competing" for Tom by showing they are the best at domestic duties. That was such a sexist piece of shit! Of course, in the end she gives up teaching in a private school in Connecticut to raise a dozen kids in Texas. Argghh! My grade: C-.