Jennifer Crusie

Crazy being the operative word.

Quinn is coasting through her life, trying to get through each day with a minimum of fuss, dating the local hero/coach of the high school where she teaches art, because it's easier than turning him down. Until one day a student brings her a stray dog she falls in love with and Bill tells her she can't keep it. That's the day Quinn snaps and decides to take her life back, causing a domino effect in the lives of those around her that is both hilarious and show more disturbing.

While Crusie writes incredibly entertaining, witty, funny chick-lit, she's frequently featured an ex-boyfriend/husband that's just a little bit...obsessive. Unhealthy mentally. But here, in Crazy for You she outdoes herself. While a lot of her other books have just a subtle touch of the creepiness factor, this one oozes creepy. For chick-lit, I found it to be extraordinarily uncomfortable. Still excellent, funny, and steamy, but damn that man creeped me out!

I like this one better than Bet Me because that creepiness, that profoundly disturbing obsessiveness gives the story a much edgier feel - still definitely chick-lit - that makes the story much more compelling. If you read psychological thrillers at all, this one is going to feel like puppies and marshmallow fluff, but if you stay on the more mentally stable side of fictional characterisations, you might find this read an entertaining way of pushing your personal envelope. show less

Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer are back?!?!?! Hot Damn!

And this is exactly what I hoped for -- great characters, family drama, hijinks, and small town politics. I loved it. Things I particularly loved:

1: Liz setting boundaries with loved ones. This is a beautiful thing to see, and it's modeled in current ways of speech, which I also really appreciate.

2: Liz's peripatetic life also seems very on the nose for young people nowadays (god I feel old) -- working out of her car, freelancing -- I show more wish that wasn't the way things are, but I love that she acquires a fairy godcelebrity.

3: I think the cops should ask Bob to be their marketing manager and trainer. Vince definitely softens my feelings towards them, although the gun scenarios are terrifying. I really appreciate that he flat out talks about not stopping women and minorities unless there's a real safety issue because he knows that they have something to fear.

4: I love the quirks -- Liz's adoration of diners and vintage t-shirts -- so great.

Anyway, delicious, as always. Welcome back! show less

I was never a huge fan of Jennifer Crusie's collaborations with Bob Mayer ([b:Agnes and the Hitman|384457|Agnes and the Hitman (The Organization, #0)|Jennifer Crusie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388277284l/384457._SY75_.jpg|1734360], etc.), but after not hearing from her for more than a decade, I was willing to take whatever I could get. Lavender's Blue features some of the old Crusie magic, with small town Ohio setting, wacky secondary characters, show more rapid-fire dialogue, and an ugly dog. The FMC reluctantly returns to her hometown after 15 years of deliberately avoiding it. Secrets are revealed, new boundaries are established with her alcoholic mother, and someone is murdered (the last part is typical only of the Crusie/Mayer books, not her solo releases).

But sadly, the book didn't make me squee like [b:Bet Me|854757|Bet Me|Jennifer Crusie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1316129534l/854757._SY75_.jpg|1616066], [b:Welcome to Temptation|33727|Welcome to Temptation (Dempseys, #1)|Jennifer Crusie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312011677l/33727._SY75_.jpg|2563621], or other Crusie gems. There are too many secondary characters, and I was frequently confused about their relationships to the MCs and relevance to the story. The FMC, Liz Danger, becomes uncomfortably dependent on being rescued from danger by the MMC, who happens to be a policeman. When did Crusie's tough, wisecracking heroines become damsels in distress? For God's sake, her name is Liz Danger - let her live up to it!

The fact that MMC Vince Cooper (chapters written by Mayer) is a cop who shoots out the tires of a teenager's car because he won't stop talking lands a little differently now than it did during Crusie's heyday of the 1990s and early 2000's. Mayer obviously tries to make his policeman more "woke" - Vince states that he doesn't pull over women or minorities unless they are a safety hazard, and his BFF is a beautiful Black woman with whom he served in combat (Sassy Black Friend cliche alert!). He is a little more emotionally open than some of Mayer's previous heroes, but a cop is a cop, and that's a red flag for me. Obviously YMMV.

I will read the rest of the trilogy, because I've missed Crusie's unique voice, but I will feel a bit guilty about doing so. show less

An enjoyable novel – a mix between a romantic tale, a ghost story, and a murder mystery, spiced with a pinch of humor.
Recently I read a blog post by the author, Jennifer Crusie. She complained that her juice was gone, and only skills remained. After reading this book, I must respectfully disagree. The juice is still flowing, even overflowing.
The story follows the protagonist Andie into a load of troubles. First, she is still in love with her ex-husband, the workaholic lawyer North she show more divorced ten years ago. Second, he asked her to take care of his two young wards – the orphaned children of his dead cousin – at least for a month… or two… or whatever it takes… and she can’t say ‘no’ to North. Third, the children live in the middle of nowhere, in a haunted house, and the resident ghosts of the house have their own agenda.
As Andie dealt with the belligerent ectoplasms, endured an old, cantankerous housekeeper, and tried to keep in line a horde of uninvited houseguests, I couldn’t close the book. I swallowed it in less than two days, and every minute of reading was soaked with tension and punctuated with laughter. It’s amazing how the author managed to combine the two contradictory ingredients into a delightful whole.
The contradiction also applies to Andie, a lively, caring young woman, thrown into the middle of the ghoulish derring-do by her love for her ex and her compassion for the two lonely children. With her finely-tuned common sense, Andie knows that ghosts don’t exist. Shouldn’t exist. But she also knows these particular ghosts are real. She can see them, talk to them, and she is sure they are dangerous. If she wants to help the kids, she must take the ghosts seriously.
The ghosts also continuously drive the action, which isn’t simply fast-paced. It runs helter-skelter, with a new obstacle arising every several pages. The dialog is quick and witty. The descriptions are kept to a minimum, but the moody, four-hundred-years-old house, transplanted from England together with its ghosts by an eccentric great uncle, rises from the pages to haunt the readers’ dreams. And the multitude of quirky characters are all surprisingly real and utterly diverse, especially the ghosts. A wonderful read.
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