6 posts tagged “nora roberts”

I have a request for the men out there: please read this book. I need to know if the male characters in this novel are portrayed realistically or a figment of an overwrought female imagination. I just have such a difficult time with how her male characters speak and some of the things they do. They seem fairly flowery in their verbal communication, not something I've actually experienced with the males in my life.

 

Let's get this out of the way:

Recommendation: It's... okay. That's it. Not good, not bad; just okay. It was actually shaping up to be a fairly good novel about the relationship between the generations, living in the shadow of an icon and trying to rebuild your life from an illusion. I was okay with that.

Then she made it into a half-assed mystery novel.

She still has the verbal quirks that drive me nuts; I don't know why I keep reading her books and railing against this. It's like I'm insane when it comes to her. She creates fairly young characters (typically late 20s, early 30s) who speak as though they're in their mid to late 50s. It's completely possible that it's language that I don't encounter as much because I'm Canadian and I don't live in the same region she does but I'm fairly certain that she's giving them words she herself would say.

She's also continued her habit of adding "hip" references. Really, I could have done without half those pop culture references. They date the book so harshly; this is not a book you would be able to pick up in 20 years and place the setting in life at that time. It's frustrating because when she's good (ie, Blue Smoke) she's amazing. But when she's bad (don't make me list them all), she's... well, still not as bad as many out there but she's disappointing.

I think that bothers me more than just reading a bad writer; it bothers me that she is such an amazing writer who will rush or not edit a book properly to the point where the end product is a disappointing read.

And for me, that's kind of what Tribute was.

The story is about ... shoot, I've forgotten her name. Cilla? Maybe? Anyway, at 28, Cilla (we'll just call her this for now) is a washed up actress, her best performing years behind her. She was pushed into the spotlight when she was just a baby by her mother who wanted to bask in the reflected glory, she herself a mediocre actress/singer. Cilla is also the granddaughter of a true Hollywood legend, Janet Hardy, who's lovers and suicide almost eclipse her still-relevant career in movies.

In an effort to discover who she really is (I can't fault her for that), Cilla's tried varying things with varied failures but she's now found her true love: real estate, construction and renovations. She is able to buy her grandmother's home from her mother (it's a complicated and fairly under-developed relationship) and sets off to make this decrepit old house into her home and office.

Along the way, she meets her requisite hot next door neighbour, a graphic book artist/writer with, of course, an appealingly ugly dog (it's a running theme in her novels. As well as the very dumb dog) that is more developed a character than the one who "dunnit."

(Oh god, she's driving me to my own verbal quirks. Next I'm going to start making "funny" puns with "tribute" as the theme.)

Up to a certain point and outside of a few aforementioned verbal quirks, it's a fairly enjoyable story about a woman trying to find herself and her place in the world through trial and error and actual effort on her part that doesn't include whining to various strangers or pouring melodrama over herself like she was some kind of crazed banana split.

... did I mention I hate chick lit? To me, the only reason to have that "genre" is to justify giving book deals to women writers who can't actually write but have somehow banged out a novel with a woman who likes to shop as the central character, whether or not it's an actual story, sold to women who only buy them out of a sense of "girl power" which... ::cough:: I probably should stop before chick lit-ers sign up to have me killed too. 

Except one last thing: character development isn't a crime. And having her buy a different style of shoes isn't character development.

ANYWAY, before I have to buy myself some Kevlar, CIlla's a fighter, a person who's trying to keep herself going, even though she's mired in her past failures; a woman learning to believe in herself, in what she can do and who she actually is. She's discovering who her grandmother was, connecting to the family member who set the path for all her descendents, who's star still overshadows all those of her family.

To me? That's interesting. Why would you feel the need to tack on some half-assed mystery of "oooooh, who's trying to drive Cilla out of the house?!" or "Oooooh! Could Janet Hardy have been dun dun dun! KILLED by a man who was cheating on his wife and may have fathered a baby with Janet?!"

Really? Is that interesting? REALLY? Slit my throat and call me a water fountain, that is SO not interesting! It's another fucking story about a "shining light who's glow was snuffed out by a crazed person blah blah blah the fucking blah."

So, yes, it's an okay book. It's not her worst, it's not her best. My only request (except for the one above to the men in my neighbourhood) is... find me a guy like Ford please. He sounds awesome.

Now I'm kind of pissed off and need to listen to music.

 

And you can never get enough Henry Rollins!

Now maybe something a little sweeter. I love David Tennant:

 

In books, when they describe a character as having no discernible accent. What the hell does that mean?! It happens in Agatha Christie books, Nora Roberts book, all fucking books. Someone needs to explain to me what no discernible accent sounds like. Is it mine? Is it that hear everywhere accent? Because I could swear, if you drop me in London, they would probably say I HAVE a discernible accent, a weird cross of Canadian and American with odd British sounding words (I'm a little pretentious at times).

And with all the various accents throughout the UK, which one is not discernible?

Someone. Explain this to me.

Wow, this may recur as another post. I seem to hate a lot of things. Perhaps I'll do separate ones of things I love.

And yes, I'm bastardizing the Love/Hate posts most of you are doing.

 

Okay, I'm just going to cut to the chase on this one. Yes, I will be doing up a full review (see below) but if you're just curious whether you should make any effort to watch this if it shows up on your television or in your local video store: No. Emphatically NO. And if you end up watching it anyway... well, I told you so.

Now, on to the review:

I don't know what braintrust thought to cast Heather Locklear as a 30-something Reece who's running from herself and her memories but that person should be taken behind the shed and shot, just to put him/her out of his/her misery.

And mine. Definitely put them out of my misery. For god's sake.

And Jonathan Schaech as the mysterious and solitary writer Brody? Well... he... um... no. I mean, he looks pretty good but in a few scenes, he was out acted by the scenery.

So the basic story is this:

Reece Gilmore (who's name I am probably misspelling) becomes stranded in a small town, Angels Fall, when her car dies right outside of town. After discovering how much and how long it will take to fix her car, she enters the town with her meager funds and, by a stroke of good luck, finds a job as a cook in the local diner.

As she begins to settle in the town, she goes for a hike in the woods and witnesses a murder that, later, no one can find any evidence of, no body, no scene of the crime, no other witnesses.

Reece, with the help of Brody, begins to look in to this murder and someone, discovering the past she's running away from, tries to help her lose her mind. Again.

And while I'm mocking the story (just a little bit), I have to say that I really enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the motivations of all the characters, I loved Reece's strength and also how Brody become reluctantly drawn in to her search, and during that search, how they both fall in love. If you get a moment, give the book a chance.

Even Reece's backstory is fairly interesting. From the beginning, you can tell she's running from something and, of course, the first thought is that she's running from an abusive husband/boyfriend. Seriously, it's like a given. But this time, she's actually running from herself. Two years previous, on her last day at work in a restaurant before going on to become head chef at another, more prestigious restaurant, everyone in working that day was killed in a shooting spree. She survived but with survivor's guilt. The guilt eats at her to the extent that she starts to mentally break down. After the trial, she checks herself into a mental institution. After she is released, she cuts ties from her family and her surroundings and takes to the road.

I may have made the book sound slightly overwrought but it's good. The movie however? Was a freaking waste of time. I had to FF through a bunch of it just to get to the end but especially the ::sigh:: sexy scenes. Why would you cast two people who have no chemistry when standing next to each other? Why? Sure, when they're throwing glances, they've got a TON of chemistry but that only means that they have chemistry with either the camera or the cameraman.

I think the height of my distaste for this movie was during this scene where Reece and Brody are in the Sheriff's office, waiting to see if a woman that was recently found in the woods is the woman Reece saw murdered. Brody had just found an album of Reece's with her slain co-workers X'd out with DEAD written on them and INSANE written on her and he brings this up as proof that someone is trying to drive her insane.

In the book, this is the point Reece realizes that someone IS messing with her, that she would never desecrate the memory of these people who she did love with something so heinous.

In the movie? This is what we get:

"Oh, I did that." ::shrug::

Thanks, script writer. You suck. And thanks, Heather Locklear. We probably could have gotten a less wooden reading from the chair in that corner. Please go back to playing man-eaters.

And also, how fucking stupid do they think we are? They're playing up this one character as the "HE MUST HAVE DONE IT" to the point where it would have looked less stupid if they just had a giant flashing red arrow with "RED HERRING! WE WANT YOU TO THINK HE DID IT! LOOK AT THE WAY HE'S SKULKING AROUND! HE HAS LONG SCRAGGY HAIR AND HE'S A MANWHORE!".

I think they only decided to stay away from the subtle approach because that's too many words to fit on a red arrow.

Yes, he's one of the suspects in the book but he gets the chance for redemption and it's not just having sex with the cute waitress at the diner and asking her to marry him. What the fuck kind of redemption is that?! In the BOOK, he actually helps SAVE Reece and Brody from the murderer. THAT'S motherfucking redemption!

Why don't I learn? Why don't I learn that, even though people are buying her books because they're supposedly really good books and therefore have a built in audience, they decide to fuck up all the characters in order to make it easier for them to shoot? Well, I hope you're happy counting your money, NORA ROBERTS. Good job on the script consulting. I hope your messed up characters haunt you in your sleep.

Recommendation: Only watch this movie if you're doing it with friends, wine and food so that you can have a night of bad movies. HOWEVER, if you've never read a Nora Roberts book, watch this movie and let me know what you think. I'd like to know if I'm being overly harsh because I enjoy her writing or if the movie actually stinks this much. Thanks!

Okay, confession time... which, have you noticed I'm confessing something every time I turn around? I mean, soon I'll be confessing where I hid my last husband's dead body.

... I mean... nothing.

Sorry, weird tangent. Confession, right:I didn't actually watch this whole movie and this isn't going to be so much of a review than a rant. I may lose my mind during and/or throughout. I only watched about 5 - 10 minutes of the movie and it wasn't from the beginning. It pissed me off so much that I had to turn it off instead of spending my night cursing at the tv.

My biggest problem with this movie is this: why coopt the Nora Roberts brand is you're not going to follow her storyline? What the fuck is up with that? The scene I saw where this guy got blown up in a flower shop? NEVER HAPPENS IN THE BOOK. It was also freaking early in the movie and the closest scene to that one (in which NO ONE GETS BLOWN UP) is about 3/4 of the way through.

PLUS THE GUY DOESN'T DIE.

And the lead actress playing... crap, I can't remember her name. Reena, I believe. The character is supposed to be Italian but the actress looks Irish as the day is long! You may as well have thrown in Gabrielle Union as Reena and I would have bought it more. Plus GU's a better actress. I don't know why but I loathe Alicia Witt. I spent the entire running time of Urban Legends praying for her death.

Stupid Rebecca Gayheart. You had so many chances to poison her food and you had to come up with this ridiculous, overly elaborate serial killer scheme? You suck as a killer.

But here's this: Scott Bakula as John Minger. That's GENIUS. And I don't mean it as a sarcastic statement. It really IS genius. But where in the story was he ever Reena's partner? Hm? HM?! I ask you, USA Network!

I think the part that pisses me off the most is that the storyline, more than some of her other stories, had the potential to be a really GREAT movie. Some of her other novels are too internal and would have been difficult to show but this one? Visually, it would work well without having to worry about voiceovers or anything twee like that.

How do you fuck up a story that's so good? I shake my fist at you, Ronni Kern! ::shakes fist:: Go ruin your own stories and leave mine alone!