TEST
It’s never a good sign when I’d rather do housework than read. I dislike housework, and I’m grateful for any excuse to avoid it. It doesn’t take much to keep me occupied, either, since I’m one of those compulsive readers who can happily peruse a cereal box for half an hour. So when I found myself repeatedly putting down I’ve Got You, Babe in order to fold laundry, I realized how very dull the first part of this book is. However, a sense of grim duty forced me to persevere. And to my surprise I eventually found the dishes stacking up in the kitchen sink while I read the last third of the book.
Vanessa Tower teaches Art History at Seymour College. She thinks of herself as a sort of refugee from the nineteenth century and is such a nice girl that the worst epithet she can think of is “louse,” yet the moment she spots Christopher “Crash” Dunmoor all she can think about is how sexy his chest and shoulders look. Repeatedly. Endlessly. Evidently Crash’s appearance is a cross between Fabio and Harrison Ford, because Vanessa simply can’t stop thinking about his attributes.
Crash is a bad boy. We know this in the first chapter because of his manly nickname, although the baddest thing we see him doing is roofing his cabin. (In my opinion people named “Crash” shouldn’t go onto roofs. Is that tempting fate or what?) As the story progresses, we find out that Crash teaches sky-diving for a living. He’s fond of all sorts of reckless, macho sports, such as white-water rafting and scuba diving. And of course, like all bad-boy romance heroes, he drives a Harley.
Vanessa happens to be an expert on the paintings of Thomas Dunmoor, Crash’s grandfather, who died some time before. Thomas’ widow, Eugenie, is ill and in the process of drawing up her will, and she’d like to leave the entire collection of paintings (worth over $2.6 million) to Crash. However, Crash had a falling out with his grandfather years ago, and he wants nothing whatsoever to do with the paintings. The devious Eugenie manipulates the situation, forcing Crash to attend Vanessa’s class on Thomas Dunmoor’s paintings. If Crash gets an A in the course, showing that he cares about the subject, he’ll get the paintings. Otherwise, they’ll go to Seymour College. This predictably puts Vanessa in an extremely awkward situation.
The situation isn’t improved by Crash’s attitude. He spends most of the first class making subtle sexual ploys that unnerve Vanessa, and in the second class he shows up with a lawn chair and a quart-sized cup, rattling noisily with ice. Crash is, to put it simply, annoying. Yet Vanessa spends both class periods ogling his muscles again.
In fact, we’re asked to believe that Crash is so incredibly sexy that a roomful of serious-minded college women is abruptly transformed into panting nymphomaniacs by his presence. These sensible young women, clad in loose-fitting, comfortable clothing and bent on applying themselves to the study of Art History, are all wearing microskirts and painted-on leather pants by Crash’s second class, and when Vanessa shows slides in the dark they all try to cop a feel. (To Crash’s credit, he’s somewhat appalled by their behavior.) This rather flimsy, silly plot device makes it necessary for Vanessa to tutor Crash, one on one.
At this point the reader might expect the book to get more exciting, but alas, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, the relationship between Vanessa and Crash isn’t especially well depicted, and the plot isn’t terribly compelling either. Most of the first half of the book consists of variations on Vanessa contemplating Crash’s fabulous physical characteristics. She isn’t attracted by his personality, his interesting career, or his intellect – she’s more interested in his pecs and glutes. Oh, and those big manly shoulders. After a while this single mindedness got quite dull. There’s a fine art to writing mental lust, and the first half of this novel lays it on much too heavily, without delving into any real emotional connection between the main characters.
I was, however, more impressed by the secondary characters. Vanessa’s best friend, Shelly, is a midriff-baring, navel-pierced rebel who’s being pursued by Giff Smiley, a scion of an aristocratic Boston family who’s so nerdy he wears starched jeans. (Ouch.) At first Shelly appears to be the standard man-hating woman, but as the book progresses we begin to sympathize with her fear of men. Unfortunately, this subplot isn’t well integrated into the book, since it has little to do with the main storyline, and as a consequence it feels awkwardly grafted on. And the lack of resolution at the end of Shelly and Giff’s story left me hanging. A better use of a secondary character involves Eugenie Dunmoor, Crash’s charming old grandmother, who is delightfully funny, particularly when she waxes rhapsodic about the superior anatomical features of the Dunmoor men, or when she dances the tango with her IV stand.
As a matter of fact, there were some quite amusing moments. Vanessa’s repeated perception of her hormones as clucking chickens pecking relentlessly at her made me chortle. And the scene where Crash sees the “granny underwear” she’s donned in hopes of silencing those darned clucking chickens was funny as well. But in the first part of the book, those moments were drowned out by the entirely too frequent descriptions of the lust running around in poor Vanessa’s mind.
Vanessa’s extreme sexual repression was a big part of my problem with much of the book. The first love scene is unique, to say the least, and Crash’s technique is, well, interesting. But the next day Vanessa is so distressed by her “slutty” behavior that she actually hears voices criticizing her, from her Aunt Tabitha to, believe it or not, her computer. It’s hard to believe a twenty-first century woman could be so painfully repressed, especially since Vanessa’s spent the first half of the book endlessly salivating over Crash.
The last third of the book, however, is a big improvement, since it abruptly introduces what all romance novels need – conflict. Vanessa has to deal with the consequences of sleeping with a student, particularly a student upon whose grade hinges the fate of the collection of Thomas Dunmoor paintings. In addition, we begin to gain insight into both of the protagonists’ behavior as they come to grips with the tragedies of their pasts, and as a result they finally begin to be fleshed out. It’s really quite unfortunate the first two-thirds of the book are so hard to wade through, as the last third kept me reading with something approaching enthusiasm.
Overall, I’ve Got You, Babe would have been far better had there had been more conflict and less repetitious mental lust in the first two-thirds of the book. I can’t describe the first part of the book as anything but tedious, but toward the end the plot really started to roll, and I was glad I hadn’t put the book down in disgust, as I was frequently tempted to do. I’ve Got You, Babe turned out to be an extremely uneven but ultimately somewhat entertaining read.
Grade: C-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 11/11/02
Publication Date: 2002
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.