An Incurable Insanity by Simi K. Rao (+ Giveaway!)

Incurably melodramatic.

About An Incurable Insanity by Simi K. Rao: Her heart fluttered when she heard the sound of the key turn in the lock. She quickly adjusted her maroon silk sari with the yellow border, the one that had caught his eye, and waited eagerly for his footsteps.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… Yes, exactly seven steps before he stopped, hesitated for a few moments, then removed his shoes one by one and arranged them neatly side by side on the shoe rack.

She smiled. He had been mindful of taking his shoes off every day now. “I am not used to it, but I will if you want me to. It’s probably a good thing to do anyway.”

As he settled down, he would pick up the TV remote and, without looking at her, would say in his smooth baritone, “So how did you spend your day, anything interesting?”

Shaan Ahuja found himself bowing to tradition and agreeing to an arranged marriage to the beautiful Ruhi Sharma. He went through the motions but had no intention of carrying through on his vows. His last foray into matters of the heart with an American girl had left him scarred and unwilling to try again. Thoroughly disillusioned and disgruntled he wasted no time in making his intentions clear to Ruhi on their wedding night. But, he was completely unprepared for what his new wife had in mind.

My two cents

Ahh, love. What a crazy thing and what things it makes us do. Across cultures, love is a constant. But what if two strangers are thrown together in marriage? Is love possible in an arranged marriage? Is it possible to learn to love someone within its bounds while honouring tradition?

An Incurable Insanity touches on these questions, showing the journey of a young couple brought together by the Indian tradition of arranged marriage. The beautiful and much-loved Ruhi agrees to marry her father's friend's son, US-educated Shaan, secretly excited at marrying such a handsome and accomplished man. Her hopes are dashed when Shaan reveals that he is in love with another.

Once in the US, they live a farce of a married life. But as they get to know each other they find themselves drawn to each other and only after a protracted love-hate courtship do they decide if they are truly meant to be together.

I liked: 

I was intrigued by the premise of this book as I really wanted to find out how an arranged marriage could play out. I looked forward to how this would explore cultural differences of the concept of love. Is having the independence, the choice to love someone a heavily Western concept? Is there merit in the longstanding tradition of arranged marriage in certain cultures? What happens when an arranged marriage enters into yet another culture, as is this case for this Indian couple that immigrates to America?

The beginning also held promise and I was initially amused by the emotional push and pull, the frustration of being thrown into circumstances unwanted by both. I found Ruhi sweet and rather endearing, and Shaan's obliviousness just plain odd.

A third into the book, I wanted to stop. But for the obvious reason that I always give books the benefit of the doubt, and I dislike reviewing books I did not finish, I kept going.

Uh-ohs:

I mentioned that I enjoyed the beginning but about a third into the book that I felt things weren't really progressing. Why?

The two main characters say one thing but want the exact opposite. We get to see their thoughts in italics, and how conflicted and frustrated they both are. Ruhi secretly loves Shaan already but pretends to hate him. Shaan is getting attracted to Ruhi but pretends to not care. It's a yes in italics but a no in action. Then those italics run one after the other and I am secretly seething at having to keeping tabs of who said what.

The love-hate, push-pull, yes-no, hot-cold theme was wearing thin; it was no longer amusing, it was getting tiring, annoying, exasperating. The romance felt juvenile, like two teenagers bickering. How I wished these two would just be able to read each others' thoughts (like me, the reader) instead of stubbornly refusing to talk to each other openly ... just because ... well, I have no idea why.

I felt the dialogues were corny and overly melodramatic. Corny: calling each other these silly nicknames (if you're a 50 Shades of Grey fan, it will probably make you smile). Melodramatic: descriptions and emotions to the extreme, hot or cold, black or white.

The main characters never really clicked with me and felt contrived. For example, Ruhi started out naive and sweet. Then she started swearing and it seemed that she morphed into different character altogether ... where did that come from? The other woman, Des, was a caricature of "the other woman": flat, predictable and no backstory or insight into why her viciousness with Ruhi.

This story and its characters drove me slightly crazy, and not in a good way.

Verdict: If you love over-the-top and melodramatic romances, you may enjoy this one. If you're interested in a different cultural milieu for your romance, the melding of Indian and American cultures in this romance may hold your interest.

I personally found that while the premise of a storyline based on an arranged marriage held promise, the romance was frustrating and tedious to read about.

About Simi K. Rao

Simi K. Rao was born in India and has been living in the United States for several years. This book is her first foray into writing. The inspiration for the story came from what she has seen transpire among and within the immigrant community. Some of the experiences included are her own; some have been garnered from friends and casual conversations with acquaintances. She also writes poetry, is an avid photographer, loves to travel, and is a practicing physician. She currently lives in Denver with her family.

To learn more about the author and her work and read excerpts from An Incurable Insanity, please check her blog www.simikrao.com.

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I received a copy of this book from the publisher via TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

Giveaway!

Thanks to the publisher I have 1 copy of An Incurable Insanity up for grabs!

(Choice of either hardcover or Kindle copy - US only,
or Kindle copy - International) 

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Print Length: 376 pages

Publisher: Tate Publishing (October 8, 2013)

The Marriage Mistake by Jennifer Probst

Amazon.com: Paperback | Kindle

Reading The Marriage Mistake is ... a mistake.

The book in one sentence: A sexual chase ending in an arranged marriage.

Synopsis of The Marriage Mistake by Jennifer Probst: Carina Conte has had a crush on her brother Michael’s best friend, Max Gray, since she was a teenager. Now she’s earned her MBA and come to work at Michael’s new venture, America’s fastest-growing bakery empire. But some things never change: her family still treats her like a child. With three drop-dead gorgeous siblings, she’s still the ugly duckling of the bunch. And Max, the company’s new CEO, still barely notices her.

Max knows Carina Conte is strictly off limits. But hot-blooded lust wins out at a conference when the two share a scorching one-night stand—and are busted by her mother! Now, forced by old-world Italian tradition into a marriage he’s not ready for, Max is miserable—and Carina is furious. Her new husband is about to realize that hell hath no fury like a woman transformed.

My two cents: This isn't my usual fare but I do enjoy some chick lit once in a while. The reviews seemed rather good and I needed something different. But reading The Marriage Mistake was, for me ... a mistake. Don't even think of picking it up lest you want to waste precious time on a piece of badly written fluff.

Granted I had never read any of the others in the series (this is the third book), but even as a standalone it doesn't work on so many levels. Why?

• I won't go into the story because the lack of it really should've triggered some warning signs. It's a classic "can't have it, but can't not have it" and the tension became weary and overdrawn out. 
• Ah Carina, Carina. Transformed from a once lovestruck silly girl to a woman fully aware of her sexual prowess. From innocent to savvy businesswoman. What a caricature -- totally unnatural, totally schizophrenic, and totally unlikeable (I think it was the shorts with the high heels that did me in). Sorry, Carina, I just couldn't buy into your character. 
• Do. You. Like. Dramatic. Sex. Scenes? Well, go for it then. But if I have to read "Own. Possess. Claim." (page 104) or some variation thereof, I think I am going to puke. 
• What is it about getting what you want? Max finally gets Carina in bed but remains unhappy. Carina finally marries Max but is unhappy. What a miserable feeling throughout the book!
• Side rant: Another Gray? Sheesh, when will people stop with the Shades of Grey references?

Verdict: Sexy mindless fluff with unnatural characters, stilted writing, and sex scenes designed to divert. Sorry, I don't know understand the raves about this one!

I received a copy through Goodreads First Reads.

The Marriage Mistake by Jennifer Probst

Amazon.com: Paperback | Kindle

The Long Stitch Goodnight by Amanda Lee

Ain't no Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot in this one, sorry.  

About The Long Stitch Goodnight by Amanda Lee: Although she's taken an interest in Irish embroidery, Marcy Singer can't help but abandon her needlecraft when handsome local brewer Todd finds himself accused of murder. Both Todd and his friend Blake's fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and neither is talking about what happened. Marcy is determined to stitch together some luck from more than a few four-leaf clovers and prove that the culprit was someone else...

My thoughts

I love a good  mystery. I got started with Nancy Drew and moved on to Agatha Christie (who I think is an absolute genius).

And mysteries that are a mash-up with another genre, sure ... bring it on! I like oddball combinations - I always come away with great appreciation for something new and unusual. I welcome the unexpected. And I also am a bit of a crafter at heart, so bringing these two elements together sounded fun! So when I saw The Long Stitch Goodnight by Amanda Lee, a cozy mystery, was up for grabs in Goodreads First Reads, I wanted to give it a whirl.

This is the third book in the Embroidery Mystery in the series. I haven't read any of the past books so I don't have the benefit of knowing the characters. The titles are quite witty -- The Quick and the Thread, Stitch Me Deadly, Thread Reckoning -- they put a smile on face, and I guess they also upped the expectation on my end.

But as much as I tried, I couldn't get past that the embroidery aspect has absolutely no connection to the mystery. How disappointing. The only connection was that Marcy Singer owned an embroidery shop and it went on and on about Mountmellick embroidery. I kept waiting for the connection. It never came.

I could probably have looked past that if the mystery side was good, but that was so lackluster that I actually laughed at myself for even expecting it. The "mystery" was a version of a closed door murder:  two men who could not possibly have committed the murder, holding the "smoking" gun. Marcy goes out and tries to find out whodunit; her sleuthing skills didn't exactly impress me - she was pretty straightforward about finding ways to talk to people. And sadly, I wasn't blown away by who the culprit was!

I think I will stick to Miss Marple (of Agatha Christie fame). She's an old cat, loves to knit, and is a lovable nosy Parker. I guess you could say she's a "cozy" sort of person, so my version of a cozy mystery would be anything Miss Marple-y. Sorry Marcy Singer, you don't do anything for me. I needed some meat to this mystery and I came away really disappointed.

Verdict: A quick fluffy read which did not satisfy the mystery-lover in me. A cozy mystery that wasn't very cozy, or very mysterious.

I received a copy of the book through Goodreads First Reads.

The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr

Of a love-crazed librarian, stink bombs, sexy conductors, and everything else in the kitchen sink. 

About The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr: Behind a french twist and sensible clothes, forty-year-old librarian Alison Sheffield hides an extravagant nature. But after last night, even her most proper attire can't disguise the signs-the pink cheeks, the extra-poufy hair, the bounce in her step. Alison Sheffield is in love. The heart-palpitating, nausea-inducing, silly, inexplicable, absurd and pointless kind of love found in a romance novel. And for once in her life, what Alison needs to know she can't find in any reference book-she can only live it...

My thoughts 

I swear that the librarian chuckled when she saw that I checked The Dewey Decimal System of Love out. An omen of things to come?

The book in one sentence: Librarian Ally Sheffield, celibate for 15 years, suddenly falls head over heels for a married orchestra conductor and stops at nothing to catch him.

I borrowed this because I saw one of my Bookmooch friends have it up for mooching. Strike one. Then that memory of the chuckling librarian. Strike two.

This is a horrible book (I don't even know why I bothered to finish it (though I sort of flipped through it in a few hours). I hated it because:

1. The story is nonsense. There are, among other things, stink bombs, homeless men, a mystery, a romance, a handsome and mysterious man, a wife who wants to kill her husband, a best friend who is a stay-at-home mom, a miraculous transformation from ugly duckling to princess. Oh, and did I mention this involves a librarian? To boot, a librarian who "looks half her age of forty" (oh, goody for her!)
2. The librarian character is a total stereotype. Ally has been celibate for 15 years. She wears high-necked non-revealing clothing. She wears her hair up. Yes, she wears glasses. Ho-hum.
3. The use of the Dewey Decimal System has little to contribute to the story. So what if Ally has memorized the system? Gah, she's a librarian! I actually was expecting some delightful twist to the use of this device but nada.

Verdict: Thank goodness this book is over. Thank goodness it's out of the house.

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Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

About Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner (from Goodreads): Kate Klein is a feisty, charmingly insecure Connecticut housewife who trades in a life of late-night karaoke sing-a-longs and West Village brunches with her best friend Janie for a world of mini-vans and Mommy and Me pilates classes. Life in Upchurch, Connecticut, heats up when Kate discovers picture-perfect wife and mother Kitty Cavanaugh dead on the pickled maple hardwood floor of her recently remodeled kitchen. A former chronicler of celebrity gossip, Kate takes it upon herself to solve the mystery of Kitty's murder and the disappearance of Lexi Hagen-Holdt, another Upchurch supermom. Along the way, the mysteries and disappointments in Kate's personal life begin to unravel, including her marriage to the kind-yet-uptight Ben, and her unresolved crush on Evan McKenna, a former neighbor with whom a one-night tryst ended in disaster. Thrown in for comic relief, and perhaps to show the depth of Weiner's talents as a writer, are Kate's twin boys and adorably sophisticated 5-year old daughter Sophie ("Sophie was sitting on the toilet, applying lipstick and waiting her turn..."). 

Goodnight Nobody is chock full of plot twists and turns which can be overwhelming and superfluous. However, Weiner's charm and grace are usually enough to rescue readers from these moments of confusion, and reaffirm our commitment to this endearing contemporary voice. 

Supershort thoughts

Weiner is obviously a talented writer. But the storyline is like Stepford Wives meets heavy dose of reality. I didn't quite get it.

Don't bother.

Prime Cut by Diane Mott Davidson

Synopsis of Prime Cut (Goldy Culinary Mysteries, Book 8) by Diane Mott Davidson: A caterer's nightmare... Caterer Goldy Schulz is convinced things couldn't get worse. An unscrupulous rival is driving her out of business. An incompetent contractor has left her precious kitchen in shambles. And she has just agreed to cater a fashion shoot at a nineteenth-century mountain cabin with her mentor and old friend, French chef André Hibbard. A dash of cold-blooded murder... Together Goldy and André struggle in a hopelessly outdated kitchen to cater to a vacuous crowd of beautiful people whose personal dramas climax when a camera is pitched through a window...into the buffet. Then Goldy's contractor is found hanging in the house of one of her best friends. A second murder follows and Goldy must somehow solve a mystery and prepare for a society soirée that could make--or break--her career. A recipe for disaster... It's a mystery that involves the dead contractor's unwholesome past, a food saboteur, the theft of four historical cookbooks, and an overzealous D.A. who has suspended Goldy's detective husband, Tom, from the force. What Goldy discovers is the perfect recipe for murder. And she may be dessert!

My take

A horrible combination - Agatha Christie meets Anthony Bourdain. Geez, who can think about eating (granted, a gourmet meal) when a murder happened in the very room you're preparing it in? No job? Second mortgage? Down to the last savings? ... and you still prepare a meal fit for kings? What is the logic in this? Though Diane Mott Davidson seems to be the only author writing in this genre. A nice idea but it somehow didn't fly in this book.

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Echoes by Danielle Steel

Back blurb of Echoes by Danielle Steel: Against a vivid backdrop of history, Danielle Steel tells a compelling story of love and war, acts of faith and acts of betrayal...and of three generations of women as they journey though years of loss and survival, linked by an indomitable devotion that echoes across time.

For the Wittgenstein family, the summer of 1915 was a time of both prosperity and unease, as the guns of war sound in the distance. But for eldest daughter Beata, it was also a summer of awakening. By the glimmering waters of Lake Geneva, the quiet Jewish beauty met a young French officer and fell in love. Knowing that her parents would never accept her marriage to a Catholic, Beata followed her heart anyway. And as the two built a new life together, Beata's past would stay with her in ways she could never have predicted. For as the years pass, and Europe is once again engulfed in war, Beata must watch in horror as Hitler's terror threatens her life and family--even her eighteen-year-old daughter Amadea, who has taken on the vows of a Carmelite nun.

{yes, isn't this long ...?}

For Amadea, the convent is no refuge. As family and friends are swept away without a trace, Amadea is forced into hiding. Thus begins a harrowing journey of survival, as she escapes into the heart of the French Resistance. Here Amadea will find a renewed sense of purpose, taking on the most daring missions behind enemy lines. And it is here, in the darkest moments of fear, that Amadea will feel her mother's loving strength--and that of her mother's mother before her-as the voices of lost loved ones echo powerfully in her heart. And here, amid the fires of war, Amadea will meet an extraordinary man, British secret agent Rupert Montgomery. In Colonel Montgomery, Amadea finds a man who will help her discover her place in an unbreakable chain between generations...and between her lost family and her dreams for the future--a future she is only just beginning to imagine: a future of hope rooted in the rich soil of the past.

With the grace of a master storyteller, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, creating a bold, sweeping tale filled with unforgettable characters and breathtaking images--from the elegant rituals of Europe's prewar aristocracy to the brutal desperation of Germany's death camps. Drawing us into a vanished world, Echoes weaves an intricate tapestry of a mother's love, a daughter's courage...and the unwavering faith that sustained them--even in history's darkest hour.

My take

I have never read Danielle Steel and most probably will never again. I chanced upon this book and figured that she must be doing something right if she sells so many books. I spent this Saturday with this book in hand. And I can't get the time back. Why I'm writing about this ... to warn you not to cave when you see "America's #1 Bestseller" splashed on a cover. Bestsellers do not equal good books.

Besides, you've read the synopsis. That's it. Nothing else. I felt like I had stumbled upon one old issue of Mills and Boone's or maybe one of those silly Harlequin romances. Less trashier maybe, but trying extremely hard to weave romance and history into what could be a highly emotional read. Unfortunately it fails miserably. Sorry Ms. Steel, I'm not buying into your empire.

Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella

Back blurb of Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella: Everyone's favorite shopaholic is back! Becky Bloomwood is about to get some incredible news—she has a long lost sister. But can her very own sister really... hate shopping?!

My take

Sophie Kinsella fans are wont to kill me if I say anything terrible about this book, as the Shopaholic series is so popular.

But, as luck would have it, I didn't exactly hate this book. Not at all. In fact I found myself laughing crazily at Becky Bloomwood and her antics. Like who could pass off being "enlightened" and actually run across hot coals barefoot, when all that's on her mind was some half-priced jewelry? Or who would think to entertain a bunch of kids by taking off her bra one-handed without removing her top?

I think that every girly-girl can somehow relate about the penchant for impulse buys. But Becky is larger-than-life but oh-so-relatable. She is superficial, self-obsessed, and definitely has no control over how she spends. What she wants, she buy, at all costs, even lying to a man she supposedly loves. The depiction of Luke, Becky's husband, as a total pushover, disgusts me. Maybe the larger-than-life-ness of Becky is what makes laughing at her so much easier. Maybe we just won't admit that given the chance, we all secretly hope to indulge that shopping devil in us all.

I'd liken reading anything Sophie Kinsella to choosing a fastfood hamburger meal over a gourmet meal. Which isn't that bad once in a while but a regular diet of Kinsella would definitely leave me hankering for something better.

Find out, heaven forbid, if you're a Becky Bloomwood.