Book Review: Tell Me Lies

I've read a whole bunch of Jennifer Crusie books (and it took me a few years to figure out that her last name was not Cruise, like Tom) and some I like, some I don't. She's one of those authors who is a technically good writer (sentence structure, style, plotting), but I don't always like the way she puts a story together. And in this books, I went back and forth on whether or not I liked it.

This book was set in a small town, and it begins with a woman finding a pair of crotchless panties in her husbands car when she volunteers to clean it out for him. Needless to say, she's pissed. But she doesn't seem to like her husband that much, because apparently he cheated on her five years earlier and he convinced her not to leave him. Normally I would feel sorry for her, but she just stomped around annoyingly and then had sex with another guy herself. Hmm... that's classy.

I was going to stop at that point in the book because I was pissed. But it turns out her husband really was a piece of crap. Crusie also had a little mystery going throughout the book, and she actually did a great job with that. I didn't figure it out until almost before it was revealed to the reader, and it wasn't cheesy (relative to the cheese factor in the rest of the book.) And she wrote it just right so that I kept reading because wanted to know what happened. So good job, Jenny!

I also warmed to the characters as the book went on and grew more sympathetic for the heroine. I guess I could recommend the book.

Lindsey's Grade: B-