Customer Reviews

Loose Screws (Red Dress Ink)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In order to get away from my own personal drama, I deviated from non-fiction books after the holidays and picked up LOOSE SCREWS. Wow, I'm hooked. This book is so funny and real. Take it from a single woman with drama in her life too (but not THAT bad though). I like Karen Templeton's style of writing. She definately has a gift for not only drawing the reader into the plot but incorporating the reader into the story. She is a very polished writer and is an inspiration to me. I was so impressed by her style that I may even dust off my old writings and try hone my craft one day. If I could only find the time between episodes in my OWN life. (smile) Enjoy the book! I certainly did.

Ginger is a woman is 30 and getting married to the man she thinks is Mr. Right. Well after her fiance dumps her at the altar and she finds out a few days later that her boss is dead and then her too perfect sublet of an apartment is about to go too, Ginger wonders what a girl is to do.

During all of Ginger is dealing with getting a new job, a new place and trying to keep her cool. When talking with the police about her bosses death it is there she meets Nick a man she met years ago at her cousins wedding.

When Ginger has tried to everything she can to keep her life in check, she realize she is going to have to move back in with her mother and grandmother. There is where the story starts to pick up. Ginger's mother is a riot and her grandmother is there to give Ginger some advice that helps her out.

This was a cute and quick RDI read. Overall I really enjoyed this book and found it to be funny and a light read.

I love it when a book from which you expect no great shakes turns out to be great! Usually the Red Dress Ink books are light and easy reads, nothing taxing, and enjoyable for what they are - brain candy, fluff, bonafide chick lit. So when I encounter one that offers something a little bit more, I always get a tad bit excited....

Loose Screws begins with 30-year-old Ginger Petrocelli drinking herself into oblivion on her supposed wedding day. Being stood up at the altar doesn't do much for the self-esteem, and Ginger's missing fiancé didn't have the guts to dump her face-to-face. However, it seems that no one has seen Greg lately - well, within the past couple of days anyway - and a knock at Ginger's door brings her past rushing up to greet her. A police officer - a one-night stand deflowering from ten years ago - is on the other side of the door to inform Ginger not to leave town while they search for Greg.

But that's not the least of her problems. From that moment on, Ginger's life quickly down-spirals, and it's one pothole in the road after another. It doesn't help that the police officer, Nick, seems to be around at every turn, looking cute and intensely blue-eyed as ever. So what's with Greg and his no-show stunt? How will Ginger cope with everything now that life's been turned on its head? Read this book to find out!

Loose Screws is a step above your average girlie book. While still maintaining its feminine appeal, this novel doesn't make you feel more stupid for reading it. I really enjoyed the story, and the writing was many, many notches above high-school level. A fun, funny, crazy ride of a book. Karen Templeton did good.

I've read and enjoyed previous books by Ms. Templeton and was curious to see how she made the transition to Red Dress Ink. After reading Loose Screws I'd say she did just fine. I'd picked up and leafed through other RDI offerings, but none of them appealed to me. However, the cover of Loose Screws hooked me and after reading the first couple of pages I realized this book was worth taking home.

Ginger Petrocelli had it all: good job, great apartment in NYC, and was on her way down the aisle to say "I Do" to the man of her dreams.

In one fell swoop, it's all gone and the dream becomes a nightmare. Just when she thinks it can't get any worse, she finds herself forced to move back in with her mother and grandmother, is reunited with her 'first love' and finally comes face-to-face with the man who left her at the altar. Rather than doing her in, the situation enable her to grow stronger.

If you've skipped the RDI books in the past, you might want to re-think and get yourself a copy of Loose Screws.

This is the story of Ginger Petrocelli and her dysfunctional mother & friends, told by Ginger herself (Bridget Jones style).

Having been deserted at the altar by her husband-to-be, Ginger runs into bad luck time & time again (not to mention hunky policeman Nick!) that forces her to re-evaluate her life, lover & her career.
I laughed out loud many times reading this book, it is a thoroughly enjoyable romance. The characters are real, the story is enjoyable & sexual tension is great.
A must read for romance lovers.

The son of a Congressman, attorney Greg Munson fails to show up at the altar, jilting Ginger Petrocelli. Greg's family files a missing person report so NYPD investigates. Detective Nick Wojowoski visits Ginger to question her about her vanished fiancé, but she offers nothing except a memory. Nick and Ginger shared sex years ago, but though he would like to have another go she would not.

Greg calls his parents and Ginger to say he is okay and is not dead or kidnapped, but that he suffered cold feet at the last moment. Ginger moves on, emotionally stable, until she loses her Manhattan apartment that she sublets from Anne Murphy when the woman abruptly returns from Hollywood to do the soaps. The loss of her apartment is more devastating than the demise of her engagement. Because of costs to rent in Manhattan, Ginger moves in with her hippie mom and ethnic grandmother making for three generations of women struggling not to kill each other. Meanwhile Nick begins making inroads towards having a relationship with Ginger.

LOOSE SCREWS is a humorous relationship romp starring an engaging lead character struggling to sever herself from her blood relations. The story line is fun to read as Ginger feels like hiding in a bag when her mother blows off other people or her grandmother acts so old world Italian. Nick is a hunk who provides the romantic element to a warm relationship drama.

Harriet Klausner

Even though I like "Chick Lit" books tremendously, I will be the first to admit that many of them rehash the same kinds of conflicts, personalities, and angst. LOOSE SCREWS does, in fact, deal with our heroine being jilted and having her life fall apart. But Karen Templeton takes things to a whole new level by really pondering the deeper meanings behind a woman's choice. It's a look at feminism as it should be: embracing every type of woman and every kind of choice. The women in this book are diverse and fascinating. Frustrating and endearing. Flawed, but in the best of ways.

In "Loose Screws," Ginger was about to get married to Greg, the son of a Republican senator who seemed to have it all but unfortunately left Ginger at the altar. Humiliated, Ginger did not know why Greg didn't show up at their wedding and resolve to continue her life. Unfortunately, she had to give up her apartment as it belonged to her aunt who needed it back. Ginger also had complicated relationship with her eccentric mother and moving in with her was out of the question. On top of that, her boss is murdered and she lost her job as the company closed. In short, Ginger was having tons of misfortunes. To make her life more complicated, she kept bumping into Nick, the detective working on the murder case of her boss and whom she lost her virginity too years ago. Ginger was unsure of her feelings for Nick especially since Greg turned up eventually and became apologetic and wanted to get back together with her.

"Loose Screws" is well-written as compared to some of the chick lits out there. Karen Templeton adds insightful observations of life. She is especially skillful in dealing with the complexity of a mother-daughter relationship; each not understanding and knowing what the other wants. In fact, the theme of the book deals with Ginger who struggled with identity crisis, growing up not wanting to be "like her mother" but found out that she was more similiar to her mother than she realized. This is not a particularly humorous book but it does have its funny moments.

Once I stepped into Ginger's life I just couldn't step back out. I became intrigued with how many bad things could possibly happen to one person. She not only survived through each one, but with a strength that I found remarkable. It all starts out with Ginger being stood up at the alter. However her day goes from bad to worse when her ex-lover (of one time and the one who took her virginity) shows up at her door to question her for the disappearance of the man who stood her up. As if that day wasn't bad enough, they progressively get worse. Ginger handles most of them with a grace that I could only hope to have in such situations. Not only is she humorous, but her mother is a riot. Ginger's mother Nedra is what Ginger considers an impediment. However, she soon learns what the value of family is and how important it can be in your life.
While I didn't really take any life lessons from this book, I thought it was wonderful. It was such a fun and almost trashy read. It was a wonderful way to wind down a stressful work week and relax. This is the first Red Dress Ink book that I have read and if all of them are as fun as this one, bring on the rest!

The plot's cute: a woman goes through the three or four weeks from hell; everything in her life gets turned upside down, and it all manages to fall into some sort of order in the end. Ginger Petrocelli (half Italian, half Jewish -- did she stand a chance?) has a great job, a nice apartment, a NORMAL fiance -- who leaves her standing at the altar . . . and it all goes wacky from there. She ends up living with her mother and grandmother. She ends up with a corgi named Geoffrey. Can anything get worse -- or better?

Although everyone knows this is a romance novel disguised as fiction, that's no reason to ignore it. Even though the theme's a little trite and well-worn, the humor is worth it. Ginger is a witty narrator; the characters around her are interesting and wacky, and the whole book doesn't seem to be obsessed with her being secretly beautiful and not willing to admit it.

The views on mother-daughter relationships, while not entirely new or ground-breaking, at least ring true. Most children go through the whole "I'm going to be nothing like my mother" stage, in the end, to decide that there really were some good things about their mothers, and that they might like knowing that those same things were true about themselves.

For a little light reading with some interestingly quotable lines, this is well worth it. I've never read any other RDI books, but if the outlook on the world is similar, I might.