I bet you all know why I wrote about this book.  Just look at the cover; it's easy to guess.  Just like The Sweetheart of Prosper County, there is a rooster on it.  I know a lot of people don't like romance novels or take them seriously, but they are my guilty pleasure.  So how could I resist a romance novel with a rooster on it?

When Amy Klasse loses her job at the local TV station because she's been replaced by a dancing chicken, she is lucky enough to receive a chivalrous offer from Jake Elliot, the local veterinarian, to be his receptionist.  However, the ensuing romance between them is anything but smooth.  When the very dancing rooster that stole her job disappears from the clinic where she now works, she's suspected of foul play (GET IT?).   Their romance evolves as they search together for a way to prove her innocence.

This book was a little hard for me to sit down and write about actually.  When I first started reading it and it was revealed to me that the leading lady was a virgin, I was all ready to jump down Evanovich's throat about being a female author who promotes society's virginity fetish in her work.  However, not wanting to make any rash judgements, I just kept reading.  About halfway through the book, I decided that the author must be trying to empower women who have made the choice to remain a virgin and wait for the right person to come along.

HOWEVER.

By the end of the book, I realized that the author had no intentions at all.  She's not promoting the virginity fetish, she's not empowering virgins, she's simply being entertaining.  She has an interesting writing style.  Not amazing (well, maybe amazing for a paperback romance author), just interesting.  After reading the book, I realize that she is a person who uses her gut to write; she embodies the feelings she feels and the feelings women everywhere feel in her writing simply by blatantly stating thoughts, no matter how small or random they may seem.  She lets her characters follow her emotions and her wants.  This makes for a good romance novel, one that speaks to lots of women and makes characters and situations identifiable, but the technique has its flaws.  Or rather, it has little graces that allow a bit of meaning, intentional or not, into an otherwise typical airport paperback.

What she has done with her technique, this being a romance novel and all, has created a female character who embodies many seemingly random traits that women everywhere might identify with, such as wondering if they're to flat-chested, being a virgin because the right person never came along, being engaged to someone they didn't love, not wearing makeup, loving children, having a secret sexy side etc.  They may not identify with all of the attributes of the main character, but it is just about guaranteed that they can latch onto at least one.  While this doesn't make for a deep and meaningful story, this is actually a pretty good strategy for a romance novel.

As far as this type of book goes, I was fairly impressed.  Her book was continually upbeat, witty, and charming, even in the face of the mystery of a rooster murder.   The intro to the book states that this was one of her earlier works and first appeared in a magazine, and I can see why it and other stories like it led her to success with her Plum series.  It is a sweet story that hinges on romance and good times all wrapped around a mystery story, like a love burrito filled with intrigue and sleuthing.  Although I've never read her Plum books myself, I must assume that they follow the same sort of style, being also romance/mystery books.  They're not deep, they're not dark, they're simply fun.  Foul Play is a good little story to read on the plane or at the reception desk that doesn't make the reader contemplate the mysteries of life too much, just provides some happy entertainment.

As I mentioned, the writer's technique of giving in to her feelings and the feelings that she perceives her readers have as well leads to a bit of meaning underneath all the steamy romance and entertainingly witty comebacks.  Her portrayal of the antagonist, Veronica Bottles, says a lot about society today, and what it says isn't really good.  The character comes from a place of hate; the writer hates society's beauty standards and she hates the girls that conform to them, or rather the perceived "perfect woman" that they have built.  Therefore, she has created Veronica as an embodiment of everything that seems to make things harder for the average woman in order that she may tear them down.  The character has big breasts, wears skimpy clothes, dons lots of makeup... oh, and she's dumb and overtly sexual.  Jake, who in this instance embodies the "male gaze," rejects and even laughs at Veronica and her traits outright in favor of the more unconventional beauty of the protagonist, validating female readers everywhere who feel inferior to women like Veronica.  Jake's rejection shows readers that Veronica is not the type of woman that good men want.  Veronica becomes a sort of running gag in the book, something to laugh at and to look down on, even when the character is vulnerable and suffering in a bad relationship.  Even her sexuality is ridiculed and vilified at every turn.  She is not a well-developed character at all, she is instead a scapegoat only.  Her feelings and personality as a character are unimportant; she is a shell and a representation of everything there is to envy or hate in today's world.

It is sad that a character like this exists, especially as a sort of little villain.  I do not think that Evanovich is a bad person for writing a character like that, rather that the society that made her feel that such a character was needed is a bad society.  Women shouldn't have to feel that there is a great and oppressive standard hovering over them their entire lives that everyone hates but can do nothing about except destroy symbolically in the pages of a book.  Veronica as a scapegoat should be unnecessary.

But she's not.  Her existence speaks to women and accurately captures their thoughts and opinions about beauty standards.  We all hate that girl we are told we should be.  Veronica is, sadly, relevant to the times.

Be that as it may, it is not necessarily right to hate each other, to hate other women who face the same problem we all do, because of an external force seemingly beyond our control.  Girl hate shouldn't exist, and we shouldn't hate Veronica (no matter what kind of silly shenanigans she gets into).  We cannot take out our feelings of injustice on other women who just so happen to fit society's ideal.  Girl hate has been ingrained into us, but we, especially as writers, can strive to end it.  We must remember that all girls are girls are human, no matter what they look like, and they all struggle with the same forces everyone does.  Rather than write scapegoats, we should write girls with souls.  We should write girls who are clearly human beings with problems and feelings, no matter how they look.  If there is to be a female villain, looks shouldn't be the only source of her villainy.

I said in my review of The Sweetheart of Prosper County that I enjoyed the book because it broke the stereotype of the busty girl being slutty or dumb, gave her a soul, and gave young girls struggling everywhere someone positive to identify with.  Sweetheart showed that all types of people are humans with emotions and cannot be judged by what's on the outside. Society's ills won't be solved by hating each other, but rather by accepting each other and uniting as a solid front against them.

In the end, I chose to give Foul Play three stars because it is a three star book of its type.  Rather than comparing it in my mind to masterpieces beyond its field, I compared it only to other romances.  There are better romance novels out there, but so far as the purely-for-fun, entertainment-only type, this one is pretty darn good.  It kept a little smile on my face the whole time, and isn't that what those kinds of books are supposed to do?  So if you like paperback romance and you're going to be stuck on the bus or the subway or a plane for an hour or so, I'd recommend this book for the job.

If you're interested, you can pick up a copy of the book (used or new) here.  Enjoy it!

Okay, so anyone who knows me at all can probably tell why I picked up this book in the first place: the incredibly adorable rooster on the front.  He is just so cute!  Look at his little earlobes! <3  But I digress... again, I was in search of YA lit with a powerful feminist message for an essay.  I was a little put off at first by the fact that the book deals with a girl's attempt to win Prosper County Sweetheart and ride in a parade to prove the world wrong, but somehow I just knew that it would have a little more to it than that... Or I was in love with that rooster, I don't know.

In Sweetheart, we meet Austin Gray, 15-year-old resident of a teeny-tiny Texas town.  Dean Ottmer has teased her mercilessly since the 4th grade, and when he makes fun of her flat chest at the No-Jesus Christmas Parade, she decides that it's time to make a real change in her life and prove the Dean Ottmers of the world wrong.  She's determined to become the Sweetheart of Prosper County and ride in the No-Jesus Christmas Parade herself, and the first step toward this goal is joining the Future Farmers of America (a real organization that I was at one point a member of myself) and raising herself a prize rooster for the fair.  Against the background of a very varied array of FFA members and her own mother's overprotective nature, she's going to make sure Charles Dickens the rooster makes it to the top and takes her with him!

There were so many things about this book that I liked, only a couple that I didn't.  For instance, I didn't always believe all of the characters as Southern teenagers or as teenagers at all.  But then again, when I thought about how their dialogue didn't always flow or seemed forced, I remembered what it was like to be a teenager and how I've been a bit peeved at books in the past for making teenagers sound incredibly smooth, saying things far too clever for that awkward time in life. 

But I do feel like there wasn't an excuse for the Elvis impersonating character to be forced.  When an author is trying to create a group of strong characters that send an important message, they all need to be equally compelling and strong.  Elvis could have been a powerful message about being yourself in the face of high school bullying, about moving on and doing what you love and being true to yourself, but he seemed to fall a little short while characters around him rose to the challenge of the message they were meant to deliver.  Don't get me wrong though; he wasn't all bad, he got a good bit of the message across, and I loved his shining moments at the fair.

I also didn't buy the noodling scene.  I get the idea of kids doing something dumb that could get them hurt, but it started out forced and ended in a deus ex machina way.  When the protagonist is in trouble in the middle of nowhere, here comes An Adult to save the day at exactly the right moment.  It was almost as if all the other gape-mouthed teenagers had merely stood by, waiting for this person to show up rather than doing what people would normally do.

But all that aside, it was a great book that has a lot to teach to its target demographic; perfect for readers in the 11-15 range and still very appealing to adults who like YA lit.  The characters in this book are stronger than the world around them, and they teach Austin and the readers about what it is to live life and live it in the face of adversity. 

Her best friend, Maribel, is a great example of Hispanic culture, and I definitely caught the message when (spoiler alert) her ice cream lost at the fair because it was too different (i.e. too ethnic).  Sundi, the reigning Sweetheart, instead of being taken down as that mean pretty girl, is elevated to the level of human being and proves herself to be a gentle heart and fierce friend.  While Austin is a message of strength for the "average," Sundi is a message of strength for the "above average."  Society at large is trained to judge a girl on her looks and assign traits to her based on looks or rate of development, something boys simply don't have to face while growing up.  Sundi's character is why this book was good for my essay: she challenges the pattern of judgement.  It's refreshing to see a book that gives personality and soul to girls like Sundi, revealing the fallacy of the girl-judging we are subjected to and even participate in.

Alright, all ranting aside, the book is clever, funny, and a pretty good glimpse into the world that tweens and early teens find themselves in.  It was able to both be an accurate representative of that world, as well as a teacher to its inhabitants of subjects that are addressed far too little in today's vapid and fantastical YA lit, all in just over 200 double-spaced pages.  It is a rare book that can be so effective in so few pages.  It also reminds us that teen fiction doesn't need fairies or vampires or magic.  Not to mention it harks back to the books I was reading when I was in early middle/ late elementary school about cute, cuddly animals that come suddenly into the protagonist's life and leave them changed for the good.

I give cute little Charles Dickens the rooster 4 big blue ribbons out of 5, but I do only suggest this book for its target age group or for people who are very open to the way teen fiction is presented.  If you just got done with Moby Dick and haven't touched a YA book since you actually were a young adult, this kind of writing might not be for you.  But if it is, you can pick up your own copy of The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill S. Alexander right here.   Happy reading!

Her romance with the senator's son also left a bit to be desired.  At points, I was sure that it had been developed simply so that (spoiler alert) he could dump her later for writing about such a big, bad issue.  I liked his father more than I liked him; maybe Skeeter's little life would have been more interesting if she'd met the actual senator first.

When Mike came back from Afghanistan, he brought all sorts of goodies with him, the things Soldiers' Angels sent that got shared and picked over by everyone.  In this box of goodies was a book called The Pact by Jodi Picoult.  I read the summary, noted that Lifetime had made a movie of it, and couldn't decide whether or not it would be a good read.  Having read it, I can say that it certainly captivated me and moved me emotionally after about the first half.

Two couples have been living next to each other for nearly 20 years, and their high school-age children, Chris and Emily, have been inseparable literally from the moment of their birth.  When they started dating at age 13, it was what everyone expected and wanted, especially their parents.  However, something was wrong with the picture.  Just before Chris' 18th birthday, the two of them attempted suicide, Emily succeeding and Chris living on.  Chris is immediately suspected to have murdered Emily, despite the very different story he tells about the incident.  Emotions run high, the two families cleave, internal conflicts abound in the separate households, and Chris is ultimately hauled to court to prove his guilt or innocence.  Nothing is ever the same again.

In the back of the book is a little article written by the author concerning how her book is frequently assigned reading in schools, presumably to address the issue of teen suicide, and how its appropriateness is frequently called into question.  However, while it was a pretty good read (I'll admit it, I kinda like Lifetime movies) and may seem like it touches on an important subject that teens should learn about, the author seems to have had trouble sorting out what her own book was really about.  Is it about parents that pushed two people to an incestuous closeness, like encouraging twins to date, making one of the pair unstable?  Or is it about childhood molestation and how it affects people when they grow older and begin to become intimate with someone?  I mean, ultimately it is about "suicide," but Emily's character, being poorly developed because of even the author's confusion about why she really wanted to die, can sometimes be hard to relate to (and that is not because she is a suicidal teen and readers may not be able to relate to that).

The author explicitly states several times, outside of dialogue like a looming fact, that the reason Emily wanted to die was because of the disturbing relationship her parents had pushed her into with Chris.  However, she throws in this tidbit about Emily having been molested, which I felt was not addressed fully enough because of my feeling that it was the true cause of her suicide.  It's almost like an afterthought, the way the author sprinkles in all these larger symptoms of the molestation, such as the fact that Emily can't stand the sight of herself, especially naked; the way she constantly mentions a nightmare that leaves her with unimaginable feelings when she wakes up; and how she is violently opposed to sexual acts, forcing herself to go through with it for the Chris' sake and the sake of her relationship.  She also paints a frightening "self-portrait" in her art class in which a therapeutic art expert is able to identify several signs of molestation.  It is clearly all the feelings springing from her trauma that cause her to want to escape into death, but for some unknown reason, the author is trying to convince us that it's something else entirely.  She doesn't seem to want her character to have developed in the way that she did to the point that she outright tries to deny what Emily became during the course of writing, but Emily is what she is; readers must simply look past the insisting of the author to see it.

Ultimately, it may offer a good message about what can happen after someone has left everything behind, about what goes on for the people around them whose lives are affected by their death.  It also may serve as a tool for addressing the fact that a teen's depression and longing to die are legitimate feelings stemming from legitimate problems.  It also seems that there is almost an unstated message that Emily could have been helped, and I believe this simply because if she was placed in a room with a decent therapist, her past and present issues may have been able to have been worked through with her by a professional.  Should Chris have told someone about Emily's suicidal feelings?  Perhaps, I can't say with any certainty.  However, the book does send a message about the importance of communication on many levels, of which that is only one.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars, because while I know there are way better books out there, it's a pretty good read.  I wouldn't ever consider it a waste of time to have read it.  Don't forget to pick up a copy at the Notes From Carcosa Official Online Store!