I recently read a pair of books, each a little off from my norm. Mad Drew: Beyond Coffeedome was a very fun read, humorous and zany– everything lampooned seemed to have been exaggerated for effect. Given the size of the whoppers, it’s a little scary that it just felt like exaggeration. The core is that drew is called up to go to work… which is something that he doesn’t quite believe when it’s presented. Once he’s there, he falls into the hands of management and makes wry observations about company life. The book was good throughout; drew makes no effort to redeem his character or make him more sympathetic. The situation’s absurd… but clearly believable. A lot of the side rants are fun. Jennifer had to put up with my laughing as I read through it.
The Sleeping Beauty Proposal was interesting. It’s a modern, low key romance, with strongly drawn characters. I wolfed it down quickly; it was compulsively readable. The heroine’s struggles were low key but real, and all of the characters she interacted with were well drawn. I was frustrated when the author had our typically perceptive heroine miss obvious clues to further the plot, but sometimes the clues that had been telegraphed to the reader turned out to be red herrings. The rivalries and bog of settled life were well portrayed. In the last few chapters the author gets silly, resolving all of the outstanding issues, slathering cash and rewards on the central characters, and more. It wasn’t enough to undermine the book as a whole, but it undermined the low key beginning that I’d enjoyed so much.