more pet peeves. I must be the world's pickiest reader.

Hello, my fellow genre fiction readers.  I haven't posted here in a long time because I haven't read any knock-your-socks off genre fiction in awhile, so it didn't really seem like it was worth the effort.  I've read half a dozen each by Eloisa James (my favorite was The Taming of the Duke) and Julia Quinn (favorite was Just Like Heaven), but none of them (even those two) made it to the level of "must-read."

But I read one this week (actually ended up skimming through it) that solidified two more pet peeves of mine, and you know I can't rest until I write out that kind of stuff.  So here I am.  The reason I call them pet peeves is because they are just personal taste-- if you don't have the same pet peeves, you might thoroughly enjoy this book, because it is full of snappy dialogue, charming characters, and has an interesting premise.  So even though normally I wouldn't use the author's name and the name of the book in a negative review, I'll give them here:  In a Fix, by Linda Grimes. 

So, in addition to my previous list of pet peeves, here are two more.

First of all, it drives me nuts when we are told that a character "must" act in a certain way or do a certain thing-- she doesn't have any choice-- when actually, she has plenty of choice and there are plenty of other things she could do.  If you're going to tell me that a character has to do something, there better be someone holding a gun to her head, or threatening the life of her first-born child, or something that is truly threatening.

For one thing, it makes the character seem weak.  In this story, the main characters have the ability to take on someone else's "aura"-- sort of like shape-shifting, but it's an appearance only.  After an explosive first chapter (literally), in the second chapter we are told that the main character Ciel "must" take on the aura of a certain person because her partner Billy--who is being a manipulative jerk-- tells her to.  But she doesn't have to.  She could take on another aura, one of her previous clients, or she could just be herself, or any number of other options.  It makes her look weak-willed, with a complete lack of creativity, because she can't think of any alternative except to just go along with what her partner tells her she has to do?

That's just one small example (very small), but since it's one of my pet peeves, it ticked me off before the story even really got started.  I'm not going to spend six or seven hours reading about a dumb heroine who can't even come up with a better solution than that to a simple problem.  It would even have worked if Ciel had always secretly wanted to take on this particular aura, or if she were intrigued by the idea, or something besides, well, my jerky partner said I had to, so I guess I'd better go along with it.

And secondly, and far more damning in my book, it quickly became apparent that there was going to be a love triangle.  I've had enough of love triangles (I'm looking at you, Janet Evanovich).  I flipped over to the end, and sure enough, she's with one guy at the end, but the possibility of getting together with the other guy is still wide open.  I'm done.  No, thank you.  The same thing happened when I tried the Mercy Thompson series--the first book was pretty good (even though she missed some details about Montana), but by the end, a love triangle was clearly being set up.  I declined to continue reading.

So In a Fix got posted on paperbackswap last night, and by this morning, someone had already claimed it, and I hope they love it.  But it didn't work for me.

Read anything good lately?  I need some recommendations.  I've read too much serious stuff lately, I need something fun.