AAR

[Diana]

Okay, I'll jump in here with two major gripes. One, she was a moron for just giving him the money. I might have bought it if she hadn't been a CPA with four years of college education in finance. A moron.

Two, the mothers. Heather's mother could not have been any more clueless and insensitive. Her crimes? The ambush when Heather returned from Vegas, showing up at the bar and getting drunk, showing up uninvited at Tony's apartment bearing a gift with strings, pressuring and embarrassing her adult daughter at every opportunity. Heather actually states that the ONLY thing that has made her mother happy is her marriage. Not her education or her professional success. Heather's relationship with her parents was dishonest and dysfunctional, so the idea that she'd pretend to be happily married to placate her parents struck me as idiotic as well as self-destructive. Heather was a doormat for Tony and for her mother. That kind of self-sacrifice is to be admired in a heroine? And then there was Regina's mother who was a stereotypical bossy bitch -- a cardboard character.

I've kept up with Graves and really enjoyed her books up until this one. I actually liked Hot Wheels way better. At least it was honest with honest characters.

I have to wonder where contemporary authors are getting the models for heroine's mothers. Lizzie Bennett's mom? I'm the mother of a 30-year-old daughter and I don't behave like a sitcom character from 60s or 70s. And I don't know anyone else who bullies and devalues her daughter. I'm seeing way too many of these anachronistic mothers in contemps. Authors! You so wrong us.
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Diana