Customer Reviews

Faking It [With Earbuds] (Playaway Adult Fiction)

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I am a fan of Jennifer Crusie's books ~~ she is definitely an entertaining writer and this book is no exception! I was able to kick back and watch the sparks fly between Tilda, the main character and Davy, her romantic interest, fly like crazy. Both are con artists ~~ Tilda forges art for a living ~~ keeping up the Goodnight tradition and Davy's a con artist ~~ and they kept the pace up throughout the whole book.

They met up in Clea's closet ~~ Davy's there to recover the money she had stolen from him and Tilda's there to recover one of her Scarlet paintings and the book takes off from there. There is Nadine, the granddaughter, who is trying to figure out what her career interest is. There is Gwennie, the matriach of the family who longs to escape the art gallery and soak up the sun at a distant beach, drinking fruity alcoholic drinks. There is Eve who has a distinct second personality ~~ Louise, who performs at her ex-husband's club four nights a week. There is Clea, the amoral beauty queen whose husbands have died under mysterious circumstances and left her broke. On her third victim, she tries to snare him. Mason, the third husband-to-be, is also chasing after Gwennie ~~ and on and on. This book is a wonderful read ~~ light and funny and entertaining! I wouldn't have missed this book for the world!

Crusie is a fun writer that knows how to keep the reader's attention. This book is a sure bet!

5-2-03

Faking It is the story of Tilda, who is gradually sinking under the weight of her family's darkest secrets. When she meets con artist Davy in someone else's closet in the middle of the night, neither one of them is in a position to take the moral upper hand. From this is born one of the most entertaining relationships in contemporary fiction.

Faking It is the best of Jennifer Crusie's books so far. It has all the stuff Crusie fans love--lots humor, good sex, food, art, snappy dialogue, likable characters & good friendships. But it also has something that we've seen Crusie move toward in her latest two novels--a strong plot. This book would make an excellent movie. There are so many twists and turns in the plot that I was constantly engaged and could never get a step ahead of the story. Loved it!

Jennifer Crusie is a new author for me to explore. This was the second of her books I read (Bet Me, being first). In this story I was amazed at the world of Art Masterpiece and intrigue which I never really considered before. I enjoyed the dialogue and steamy sex scenes. There are many "laugh-out-loud" moments. The book took a few chapters to get into, but then I was hooked. Those of you just beginning to discover Jennifer Crusie, I suggest you read Welcome to Temptation first. It is not necessary though.

Although I love all of her books, this is one of the best I have read up to this point. I couldn't put it down.

This was the first of Crusie's books I've read and she's definitely got herself a new "regular." I enjoy the way she portrays Tilda's dry wit, and I loved the dialog between Tilda and Davy, especially during their closet encounters. While Tilda and Davy were presumably the main characters, I enjoyed the way Crusie shifts the point of view so that we get to know Gwen, Eve/Louise, Thomas, Simon, Mason, Clea, dear Steve, and especially Nadine (and poor Kyle!). Crusie's own wittiness shows through when Davy's nicknames for Tilda leak over into the dialog syntax, ie, when Davy calls her Vilma, her next piece of dialog is followed by "said Vilma." These little touches combined with a wonderfully convoluted storyline made this my favorite read of the year so far. A real hilarious page turner, especially at the very end.

I'd given up on this author several hardbacks ago. She started her career as a romance writer for Harlequin and was known for short, snappy, witty romances. Her work with Harlequin was all quite good. Then she converted to hardback fiction writing with a mainstream publisher. She still wrote romances but they were no longer short and snappy or even particularly witty. Even worse, there was always a murder tossed in so the publisher could tout her as a mystery suspense writer, an abysmal idea. With this book, she is gaining her own voice again rather than echoing the publisher's ideas of what is marketable writing. It is a screwball romance comedy reminding me of "Arsenic and Old Lace," an early Cary Grant & Frank Capra movie. The most important thing she gets right is that the heroine is an artist from a family of artists. Some readers are put off by these characters as being too weird to be real. Being an artist myself, let me assure you, these art types are absolutely authentic. The male half of the equation is men, and especially one man, Davy, who are con artists or thieves. They have been lured into being law enforcement consultants because they were so good on the wrong side of the law. Everyone is involved in some fashion with a woman who is temporarily in Columbus acquiring art and, perhaps, another wealthy art patron husband. She is suspect as a murderess, arsonist and thief but really she is just the plot mcguffin for everyone else in the novel. Crusie brings them all together in German Village, an artsy community in Columbus, Ohio, and lets them live in the same gallery building as they plot to foil the villainous woman. I enjoyed it a lot. I can't say it is great fiction. However, if you are looking for a good screwball romantic comedy, this will provide several nights of good entertainment.

I liked this book, which reprises some of the characters from Welcome to Temptation. However, compared to Welcome to Temptation, this book is a pretty little story. I mean, it's funny, it's warm, it's sexy, and it's worth it... but read Welcome to Temptation first. It's like Faking It is Britney Spears, and Welcome to Temptation is Madonna.

This book concerns the brother of the Dempsey clan, Davy, and his foray into a small Ohio town with its own art gallery. Characters include sisters Tilda and Eve, their mother Gwen, Eve's daughter Nadine, Nadine's father (and Eve's gay ex husband) Andrew, and a host of other eccentrics, including Davy's ex flame Drea Whipple Lewis who's hot on the trail of husband number 3.

Conflicts abound. Drea's latest "harvest" is more interested in Gwen. Davy and Tilda keep meeting in closets. Eve's alter ego, Louise, jumps Davy's friend Simon, who's averse to dating mothers (and not recognizing her as Eve, mother of Nadine). Of course, the omnipresent Crusie dog makes an appearance, this time in the form of Spot, aka Steve, a pooch Tilda rescues from a callous owner who adopted him just for the duration of her home decorating project. All of this action revolves around the central conflict of Tilda needing to recoup gallery forgeries that could damage the business's reputation forever.

Basically, the only REAL problem with this book is the same as Welcome to Temptation: THE CHARACTERS ALL HIT AT ONCE, AND IT'S REALLY HARD TO KEEP THEM STRAIGHT! This time, it was worse since Spot got a person's name after Tilda adopted him, and at times I'd FORGET him, and then it'd mention Steve... and I'd think, who's that? If this author would have her characters call each other by their roles... Mom... Dad... something like that, maybe it'd help.... Either that or a diagram. I am not a stupid woman, and this is for some reason a recurring problem for me with Crusie novels.

But the book is sweet if not sassy like Welcome to Temptation. If you like Crusie, you'll like this book.

Best-selling author Crusie is back again with a witty novel replete with steamy love scenes and a humorous look at the ups and downs of relationships. Matilda "Tilda" Goodnight is struggling to keep her family art gallery afloat as she is commissioned to paint murals for various private patrons.

Enter Davy Dempsey, con man extraordinaire, who wants the money that former lover, Clea Lewis, stole from him. As Davy rents an apartment from Gwen, Tilda's mother, he and Tilda hit it off from their first encounter in a closet. Tilda is at the home of Mason, a friend of her deceased father's, to locate a painting she forged years ago. And Davy is there looking for his money that Mason's squeeze, Clea, snatched from him.

Sounds zany-it only gets better with Tilda's sister, Eve, or "Louise", her alter-ego, that sleeps with Davy's fellow con-man and thief, Simon. And there is Ford a "hit man" who is after Davy upon orders of Clea. But Ford seems interested in Gwen, even though her teen-aged granddaughter, Nadine,discovered that he was under contract to take Davy out.

Ms. Crusie's latest is another in a long line of fabulous reads filled with quirky relationships amidst a roller coaster ride of plot twists and turns and spicy bedroom scenes. This one is definitely not to be missed.

There seems to be a big gender gap involving this book. It's clearly marketed toward women, and does contain several elements (e.g. fairly explicit sex from a female point of view) that would appeal more to women. Reading some of these other reviews, I notice a distinct lack of male readers willing to identify themselves and admit that they liked it. I have no problem doing so, because the book really is funny.

The humor is of a somewhat particular sort. It's not a book marked by realism; the characters and situations are deliberately stretched a bit to suit the plot, not to reflect reality, and much of the book's humor derives from the way the characters accept what to us seems absurd. The characters present a multitude of memorable quirks, the dialog is often brilliant, and the author has a flair for enlivening even the simplest narrative with a witty simile or allusion. From the slightly surreal first sentence to a final scene in which everything both flies apart and comes together, it's a good ride.

One final note: I hope nobody who complained about too many characters or two many nicknames never tried to read Tolstoy. Maybe Davy uses too many pet names for Tilda, but it's not really hard for anyone with an attention span to keep up.

I just read another book by Jennifer Crusie, "Getting Rid of Bradley", and I thought that that one was the best and funniest book I have ever read, until I read "Faking It". If a book can be better than five star, this one is it.

What this book is about is fun. Not complex characterizations, not suspense, not serious stuff. It's not even meant to be realistic. (It IS a little strange that all the Goodnight's tenants become part of the family.) But isn't that part of the charm of the Goodnights - all kinds of weird and crazy things happen to them, things that will never happen to the rest of us serious and responsible and normal people, because they really aren't serious and responsible and normal.

This is a REALLY funny book, Jennifer Crusie is a great writer. She writes great one-liners, and when I try to remember them to repeat it, I can't. I get the words wrong, the tone wrong - it doesn't come out right, somehow. But in this book, it's perfect!

I am a quick reader, and usually can finish a book in two-three hours, but Faking It took me three days. Not because it didn't pull me - I was walking around with it all day just waiting for that minute or two on hold that I could sneak another page, but because each word is saying something. If you skip a page or two, you lose the thread of the story, plus you lose out on some really good dialogue. So I had to read each word, and then go back and read the page again, just to make sure I got everything straight. This is actually NOT a bad thing, it's a sign of good writing, that she could make each word count. Some writers could spend thirty pages just describing one scene - and while that's not a bad thing necessarily, I think Jennifer Crusie is the more brilliant writer. And it happens that I really enjoyed this book in a way that I haven't enjoyed a book in a long time.

I did NOT think that there were too many characters, it made things more interesting. You just have to read more slowly to get everthing straight, and that's more pages of fun, isn't it?

My favorite scene in this book? The part where Davy is giving Dilly a lesson on salesmanship (is that what it was?) Dilly is a quick learner, and promptly turned the table on Davy.

If you have a sense of humor, like to laugh, and can suspend disbelief for a few hours, you will really enjoy this book. If you like funny, quirky characters, you will really enjoy this book. If you love brilliant dialogue, (and the book is mostly dialogue), you will really enjoy this book. But if you are looking for a serious book with complex, deep characters, or a book that is on the darker, or more suspenseful side, there are plenty of other authors for you to try. For the rest of us, thank you, Jennifer Crusie!