Hero: Davin Wesley
Heroine: Jill Morgan Storm
Grade: 2.75 out of 5
On Jill Morgan Storm’s fortieth birthday, she declares she is through with love. A conviction well justified, considering her first husband didn’t leave her for another woman; he became one! More recently, her love affair came to a screeching halt when her lover dumped her for a young undergraduate. To make matters worse, the teeny-bopper stole Jill’s “well-seasoned” frying pan, and when you’re a sous chef, that’s no small offense; it’s a major felony.
When financial obligations threaten her son’s dream of attending art school, Jill and her friends devise a foolproof plan to audition candidates for a new husband. The search for Mr. Right is on.
There is one problem, however. His name is Davin Wesley, an annoying third-grade schoolteacher, who relentlessly plagues her days, haunts her nights, and propels her libido into overdrive. She knows he is absolutely, undeniably wrong for her. So why, then, does Mr. Wrong take her breath away, curl her toes, and give her a hot flash every time she sees him? More importantly, what will she do if Mr. Wrong is actually Mr. Right?
Holly put up a post a couple of days ago about the little things in a book that can make or break a story. This book flashed into my mind as I was reading that post because a lot of what she was saying in that post reflected my feelings for this book.
As a whole, I enjoyed the story that was being told here. The storyline was good, the plot was well developed and the characters were rich and I really did enjoy this book. I loved Davin Wesley, I loved Stephen Storm and I loved each and every single one of Jill’s friends. The one person that kept chipping away at my enjoyment of this story was the main character Jill Morgan Storm herself. There was so much about her character that drove me right up the wall. You see, this story is about a woman named Jill Morgan Storm and the craziness that is her life. She’s got two broken relationships. Her first broken relationship was when her first husband and babby daddy left her to become a woman. Yes, you read that right…her husband left her to have a sex change and become a woman. You can only imagine the kind of pain and humiliation Jill went through with that whole break up but then she’s also got this second relationship where her professor boyfriend leaves her for a much younger woman.
She just can’t win, right?
On top of her relationship worries, she’s got a 17 year old son who is getting ready to go to college which is going to cost her some money since she doesn’t think he’s going to qualify for any scholarships with the kind of grades he brings home and then she’s got a father who’s in prison. She’s got a mother who is trying to set her up with every Tom, Dick and Jerry and then there are the problems her friends are going through. We see Jill being there for them and supporting them throughout this story and I really thought she was a fantastic friend. So this story revolves around all of these things that make up Jill’s life. She’s got a head chef position that should be hers but is not, she’s got this survey that she’s sent out to a bunch of long time married people in hopes to find the answer to making a marriage stick and the answer that she finds in all of the surveys is to marry a salesman and she sets off to find herself a salesman to marry.
There are a lot of things she’s working with in this story and it was interesting to see all of these things come together but as much as I enjoyed the storytelling, Jill got on my nerves.
The crux of my problem with Jill can be summed up in a sentence right out of the book, it reads:
Imagine my surprise -not- when my score came back with the mental maturity of a thirteen year old girl.
This is exactly how I saw her throughout the entire book and even at the end of the book. I didn’t feel as if she’d grown enough, learned enough to fully deserve everything that she got at the end. My feelings toward Jill started at the beginning and kind of just flew all out of control as the story continued. There were times aplenty that I had to put the book down because I couldn’t believe that this woman was 40 flippin’ years old. She reminded me of my 15 year old niece.
Her whole hot and cold attitude that she had going on with Davin really ticked me off time and time again. I don’t understand why Davin kept coming back after the first time that she went off on him about him helping her. There is nothing more that I hate than an ungrateful brat who can’t just say thank you and be done with everything and more often than not, Jill was the ungrateful little brat that I wanted to smack upside her head.
It was a whole bunch of those little things that only Jill did that got on my nerves so much that by the end of the book when everything started falling into place for her, I got good and pissed because I didn’t feel as if she was remorseful enough with Davin and I didn’t feel as if she deserved to get off that easy with Stephen’s whole college fund thing. I guess after spending the entire book wanting Jill to wake up and start acting her age when the end finally came around, I was disappointed that she didn’t turn out to be the woman that I thought she could have been and I’m sad to say that I didn’t see how she deserved a wonderful guy like Davin. I just couldn’t see it and because of the disappointing end that felt way too rushed for my liking and every little thing that Jill said and did that made my eyes roll into the back of my head, I couldn’t give the book a higher grade than the one I gave.
This book is available from Independent Publisher’s Group. You can buy it here.
The fact that the word ‘not’ is even in that quote shows the immaturity of the heroine. My pre teen doesn’t even say ‘not’ anymore.
LOL.
I’m curious as to what made you read this book, Ro. The blurb is rather boring–to me anyway.