*wibble*

I have now seen Return of the King for the second time.

This is definitely a movie that really needs to be seen on the big screen. *sigh* They're going to make so much money off me.

( RotK wibbling )

Gaffney, Patricia - Wild at Heart

Apparently Gaffney is known for writing about joy and happiness, although the first book I picked up by her (To Have and to Hold) was dark and angsty and a very atypical romance. This one is as well, but on the opposite end. Actually, I'm not sure if it's officially romance or women's fiction, although I think it's a romance.

It's a romance betwen Sydney Darrow and Michael, the Lost Man of Ontario, who spent years in the wild raised by wolves and sundry wild creatures. I thought Gaffney did a particularly good job with Michael (the Lost Man), making him naive about certain things but not exactly innocent, and it was particularly fun reading about his thoughts about the family that kind of adopted him. The whole PC-be-nice-to-animals bit wasn't overdone or hammered into my head, although I thought the zoo incident was obvious from about a mile away. I did appreciate that Michael went on trial for damages and that ultimately his impulsive act to free the animals ended up hurting as many or more than helping.

I'm also trying to stop picturing Sydney Darrow as Sydney the Spy Barbie and Michael as Vaughn. I watch too much TV.

I also liked that Sydney wasn't a TSTL (too stupid to live) heroine. She feels older, even if she might not be. I think I like romance heroines that don't flounce around and have "tempers" (aka cute bits where they flail their fists and look adorable to the hero). Sydney is a quiet person, tired from her husband's death a year or so ago, and not so much anti-social as reluctant to get too involved. I also liked Michael, making them one of the rare couples in romance novels in which one person or both are not raging lunatics/completely angsty/traumatized at birth. Or all three at once. There aren't the normal power plays between the feisty heroine and the swaggering alpha male -- instead, Sydney is old enough to know she can't have Michael because of the difference in their respective classes and old enough to try to avoid an illicit relationship. Michael's not so good about that, but it plays as being more his ignorance of societal rules than any sort of desire to push Sydney around.

I found Sam, the kid brother, could get a little too cutesy at times, although mostly he acted like a normal kid. I particularly liked Sydney's other brother Phillip, a bit debauched and bored with life. He's kind of lost his sense of innocence and his sense of self, and as he helps educate Michael in the ways of the world and prostitution, Michael helps awaken an optimism or a rose-colored view of the world that Phillip had lost.

The end of the book is almost unbelievably happy, although I wasn't suspending my disbelief so much that it was cracking. It's hard to be mad at Gaffney for doing the happy ever after because she makes them very warm and fuzzy and almost earned, or at least deserved, which is more than I can say for most romances.

Crusie, Jennifer - Anyone But You

Older woman romance! Not only, but older woman and man ten years younger than her. I'd probably rec this book because of that factor alone, but luckily, it's also a pretty good book.

However, I didn't like it quite as much as the other Crusie's. While I did enjoy the fact that Nina was forty, recently divorced, inspired interest and was interested by a thirty year old guy, the book got a little repetitive at times dealing with that issue, which is pretty remarkable, considering how short the book is! It's one of Crusie's older category romances, this one for the Harlequin Love & Laughter title. The good is that it's funny and the atypical heroine and hero, both of whom I like. The bad is how Nina simply cannot get her mind around dating/having sex with a guy ten years younger than her. I appreciate that this is something she is concerned about, but I guess what got to me was that she kept using the exact same reason every time. She sounded a bit like a taped recording after a while. And there was a rather odd plot twist in the end concerning Alex doing something incredibly stupid for money.

So, good in general, but not really Crusie's best effort, IMHO.

ETA: I forgot to mention great dialogue, and some very funny moments. Best advice to guys: "Never wear Daffy Duck shorts to seduce a woman. You want her gasping in awe when she looks down there, not wondering how old you are." It also continues the tradition of making me really love her secondary characters, this case being Max, Alex's half-brother. Max is kind of washed out, not sure what he's doing with his life, but smart, and I kind of wanted him to get his own happy ever after.