Wild Ride

ooohh-kay.

Well. This isn't a bad book. I liked it ok, (maybe even better than ok) and it had brilliant moments. If I had a way to give parts of it two stars and parts of it five, I would. I really wavered between three and four, and ended up with four because I felt that persisting to the end was rewarding.

About 20% in I said "what are Jennifer Crusie characters doing in a horror novel" and I stand by that.

Lots and lots and lots of spoilers to come. I don't think I really write reviews, I write reactions.

The first thing to know about it, that I think is important, is that it isn't the genre you think it is. It has some romance in it, but it fails a lot of the genre romance tests including some that are important to me. But it isn't much like the previous Crusie Mayer joint works either. Not so much a suspense/thriller.

If I had to put a genre on it by the "feel" of the book, I'd say it was a supernatural psycholgical horror novel. Not necessarily a bad thing per se (although it is a genre I hate) but not what I was expecting.

If you enjoyed the Dogs and Goddesses book last year with Jenny & Anne Stuart and Lani Diane Rich this may work better for you, but I liked that a lot better.

SPOILERS here on out.

The eventual resolution of the romantic stuff for Mab didn't work. As far as I can tell, she never really had any interaction with the guy (probably a good guy) that she will end up with. it was almost like a gothic with an attractive guy who is not the eventual HEA hero.

Lots of unexpected WTF moments and I have a pretty high tolerance for them.

There were a lot of things that ended up feeling like rape to me. Not forcible rape, but rape by deception - if the person you are having sex with has been possessed, that person, male or female, is being raped, and the possesser is morally guilty of rape. Yes, this emphasizes that demons are NOT NICE, but it bothered me a lot.

In particular, I felt for Mab's mother - she had been raped by a demon - and I would wish for Mab to have understood her more after discovering that.

Mab's pregnancy totally squicked me, as did her acceptance of it.

I liked the secondary (I guess it was secondary) romance - that one totally made sense, although it was mostly somewhat more simplistic characters.

So why four stars - well, the main character is totally a Jennifer Crusie person, as are some of the secondary characters, and I'll forgive a lot for that.

The plotting is actually pretty decent once I got over what the plot actually was.

And the resolution was adequately triumphant and did some things that were more right - including three female characters off on a road trip to the Statue of Liberty (you have to work your way through the book for this to make sense.) ( )

I really like what Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer have done as a writing team. And I liked this book. However it took me a while to get into it because it was so different than the first two collaborations. It wasn't bad different, just really, really different.


SPOILER ALERT!







This story is set in an old amusement park, that turns out to be the "jail" for demons, including the Devil. Some of the workers/owners of the park are called Guardia and they keep watch so the demons don't get out. Since the current Guardia are all getting older, the younger people in the story start getting Guardia powers. There were several twists and turns and a lot of fun scenes with demons who escaped and need to be re-captured. There are some great characters here including Mab (short for Mary Alice Brannigan) and Ethan, two of the new Guardia.

I enjoyed the book once I got over the fact that it was "the same" as the first two. Not being the same can sometimes be a good thing, and in this case it was great fun! ( )

A fun, light read about an amusement park that is the keep of five very powerful demons. Five people protect the park (and the world). When one dies, their power is passed to another. Fun read. ( )

Upon the second reading, two years after its release, I liked this book much better. Much-much better! I’m bumping its rating too: from 3 stars to 4 stars. Although I’m still not exactly happy about the protagonists and bewildered by their strange pairings, I think that the depictions of secondary characters, especially the demon Fufluns, are superb, enriching the narrative considerably. And on the second reading, the story did become funny, or rather ironical. I smiled a lot and I enjoyed reading this tale. It’s different from the first two novels by the same authors, which might explain why I resisted its veiled charm on the first reading. But as soon as I opened my mind to possibilities, this unusual novel made me a convert.
************
The novel takes place in an amusement park with a paranormal twist: it is a demon prison. Predictably, the demons want to escape and wreak havoc on the world, and the park owners aka prison wardens want to prevent their escape. Also predictably, the two protagonists, thrust into the middle of this demonic trouble, want nothing to do with the supernatural.
Middle-aged Mab, a restoration professional, has been hired to refurbish the decaying park to its former glory. She enjoys making beautiful things but she doesn’t like people. And of course, she doesn’t believe in demons. Neither does Ethan, a wounded former Green Beret, who came home from a war zone to die. He drinks too much, sleeps in the woods, and keeps his service gun close to hand.
The premise is rich with possibilities, but the story doesn’t utilize them. The exotic milieu of an amusement park is wasted on the solemn tone of the novel; it should have been a comic caper. The romantic tangles are also convoluted, built along the wrong lines, as if they were prompted by a sly demon. Upon reading, the reader is left scratching his head: who was supposed to love whom? Why did they switch?
Furthermore, the heroes behave like ignorant children, without logic or foresight to guide them. They never inform each other of their actions, as if cell phones haven’t been invented yet. They let the bad guy Ray run amok and do whatever he pleases, although that might be a plot device, because it seems that Ray’s wicked deeds are the only things that propel the plot forward.
After two previous smash hits by the same authors – the witty [b:Don't Look Down|225024|Don't Look Down|Jennifer Crusie|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727250s/225024.jpg|1345586] and the deliciously hilarious [b:Agnes and the Hitman|384457|Agnes and the Hitman|Jennifer Crusie|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316125627s/384457.jpg|1734360] – I expected their third creation to be a brilliant escapade: a romantic comedy with a thriller flavor. Sadly, after reading the novel, I felt cheated. The novel is neither funny, nor spooky. The demons are unnecessary and the heroes are cartoonish, although at times the demons seem more alive than the humans. They are definitely smarter than humans. Maybe it should have been their story?

( )

This was a very enjoyable book! It was humorous and well written with fun and fast dialogue and plot. It isn't a deep read or a difficult one, mostly for those looking for a bit of escapism, but I definitely thought it worthwhile and am now interested in reading more books by both these authors together and by each of them separately.

BASIC PLOT (no spoilers):
The story is essentially about an amusement park that is a prison for five of the most dangerous demons, one of which includes the devil. The owners of the park are the Guardia, entrusted with keeping the demons locked safely away and, if they happen to escape, putting them back under lock and key. Of course they do escape and it's up to an array of wonderful characters to capture them again. But along the way many of the characters find out secrets they never knew... and true love.

NOTE TO PARENTS:
There is sex in this book and some language. It's nothing horrific or terribly explicit, but it's there and perhaps not appropriate for the under 16 age group.

Overall I enjoyed reading this and read it pretty quick, too (for me at least!). It's definitely an "escapism" read, nothing terribly thought provoking, but it does have some intriguing lines in it and some of the characters think/say interesting things, too. I liked the humorous and fast-paced style of writing. ( )