Fast Women
by Jennifer Crusie
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New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Crusie returns with her most hilarious, sizzling novel yet.Nell Dysart's in trouble. Her divorce is 18 months old, she's been sleepwalking through life, and the best job she can get is with a detective agency that specializes in relationship work. Determined to turn her life around, Nell flings herself into making McKenna Investigations a better place.On day one, she uncovers an embezzler. On day two, she turns up bribery. On day show more three, she has sex with the wrong man. On day four, she steals a dog. On day five, her boss tries to fire her . . . And fails miserably. Because even Gabe McKenna has to admit that no matter how much he hates the confusion she's brought into his life, Nell shares his passion for making things right. It's not long before they share another passion, one they can't ignore - even in the face of distractions like adultery, blackmail, arson, murder, and really bad business cards. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
It's hard to choose, but I think this might be my favorite of all of Crusie's books. The sheer number and complexity of the relationships between the characters, the way that Nell and Gabe learn how to deal with their past and express what they need from each other, and the gradual unraveling of the mystery all add up to a terrific, satisfying reading experience. And the sex ain't bad, either.
I've been talking up Agnes and the Hitman lately, and it got me in the mood for a re-read. I wanted something slightly less madcap than Agnes though, so I went with Fast Women.
I've read this book at least half a dozen times - it's one of my favourite Jennifer Crusie books - and it never gets old for me. Its three female leads are all extraordinarily three-dimensional; their marriages extraordinarily realistic; their coping strategies extraordinarily commonplace. I love the interaction between the women, and between the women and their men. What keeps this book from becoming a dreary, depressing drama is the humor that is constant throughout; these people are struggling, but they keep it in perspective.
Add to all of this a delicious show more murder mystery and for me it was, and still is, love. The mystery is so well plotted, that even when you know how it's going to end, Crusie leaves you surprised at the end.
Chick-lit isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy some dramedy with strong female characters, tossed in with a murder mystery, I don't think you can go wrong giving this a try. show less
I've read this book at least half a dozen times - it's one of my favourite Jennifer Crusie books - and it never gets old for me. Its three female leads are all extraordinarily three-dimensional; their marriages extraordinarily realistic; their coping strategies extraordinarily commonplace. I love the interaction between the women, and between the women and their men. What keeps this book from becoming a dreary, depressing drama is the humor that is constant throughout; these people are struggling, but they keep it in perspective.
Add to all of this a delicious show more murder mystery and for me it was, and still is, love. The mystery is so well plotted, that even when you know how it's going to end, Crusie leaves you surprised at the end.
Chick-lit isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy some dramedy with strong female characters, tossed in with a murder mystery, I don't think you can go wrong giving this a try. show less
I generally enjoy Jennifer Crusie's romances, but Fast Women never hit its stride. Nell is sad most of the time. Even when she starts becoming empowered, she comes off more bossy and annoying than strong and self-confident. Without a likeable main character to root for any enjoyment I got out of the romance was completely one sided.
Nell had the potential to be great. Once she finally started getting angry, she became a whole other woman. And then, unfortunately, instead of settling into a likeable combination of confident and fun, she became grating with her incessant need to have everything exactly to her liking. Gabe, Nell's boss and love interest, is her exact opposite in most ways, but his rigid need for things to stay the same, show more much like Nell's need to change things, crosses the line from quirky to obnoxious rather quickly.
A decent mystery makes the book readable, while Gabe's partner Riley completely steals the show. Instead of caring about whodunit or whether Gabe and Nell can make the relationship work, I only really cared about what Riley was doing. He was easygoing, fun and carried almost the entire book. Now, had the book been about him I probably would have loved it.
Fast Women was hard to get through simply because the two characters I should have cared about most were the ones I wished would just go away. Secondary characters like Riley, Game's ex-wife Chloe and Nell's friend Suze make the book as good as it is and Fast Women is worth a read is only to meet them. show less
Nell had the potential to be great. Once she finally started getting angry, she became a whole other woman. And then, unfortunately, instead of settling into a likeable combination of confident and fun, she became grating with her incessant need to have everything exactly to her liking. Gabe, Nell's boss and love interest, is her exact opposite in most ways, but his rigid need for things to stay the same, show more much like Nell's need to change things, crosses the line from quirky to obnoxious rather quickly.
A decent mystery makes the book readable, while Gabe's partner Riley completely steals the show. Instead of caring about whodunit or whether Gabe and Nell can make the relationship work, I only really cared about what Riley was doing. He was easygoing, fun and carried almost the entire book. Now, had the book been about him I probably would have loved it.
Fast Women was hard to get through simply because the two characters I should have cared about most were the ones I wished would just go away. Secondary characters like Riley, Game's ex-wife Chloe and Nell's friend Suze make the book as good as it is and Fast Women is worth a read is only to meet them. show less
After Nell Dysart divorced her husband of 22 years, she lost her appetite for everything. Because her friends, Suze and Margie, are worried about her, she gets a job as a secretary at Gabe McKenna's detective agency. Of course, Gabe's biggest clients are also all the men who are or once were in Nell and her friends lives, so it's not like she's getting too fresh a start. Gabe's agency starts looking into a blackmail case involving those men, and things start getting very complicated.
This makes it sound like the book is mostly about Nell and Gabe, but it's not. There's Riley, Gabe's partner in the agency, who's been pining over Suze for years. Of course, she doesn't even know he exists, and she's married. Things start getting rocky with show more her husband (Jack) because he wants her to stay home and look pretty and not go out, get a job, and have a life that doesn't involve him in every aspect - by the way, Suze was once "the other woman" when Jack was married to his second wife. Then there's Margie, who's dating a guy named Budge. Margie drinks a lot because Budge wants her to marry him and that's not what she wants to do. Technically, she's still married to her husband, who left years ago and may be dead, but if she declares him dead then she won't have a convenient excuse for turning down Budge. Also, back to Nell and Gabe, it's not like things are going perfectly for them either. Nell and Gabe fight a lot (and have a lot of make-up sex, but that's not the point) because they're both stubborn as hell. Gabe doesn't want any changes in his life and his agency, and Nell wants to redo everything at the agency and sees any sort of giving in as allowing him to use her as a doormat. Remember, however, that Nell is the secretary, and really, truly should be getting Gabe's approval and input before changing things and replacing furniture instead of railroading over him.
Granted, I haven't read many Jennifer Crusie books (I think this is my fifth one), but I'm used to her books being funny, romantic, and frequently heart-tugging and exasperating at the same time. I'm not used to her characters being annoying, rigid, and generally unlikeable, which is how I viewed the characters in this book most of the time. Basically, Riley came off as the most emotionally healthy character, and he was the one dealing with his feelings for Suze by dating/sleeping with anything female (like an undergrad, or Nell). Gabe's resistance to change was understandable, at first, but it got really annoying when he continued to resist even the changes that made sense. Nell acted like a bulldozer in Gabe's agency, and (because of her divorce) she was left with the impression that giving in a little is the same as letting yourself get walked on. Suze is a doormat who thinks she needs a man in her life in order to be complete, and she feels this so wholeheartedly that she's willing to give up having a life of her own in order to have a man around. At first I thought Margie was a bimbo, but it turns out that she was just a perpetual drunk with no tact.
None of these characters started to feel like people I'd actually want to get to know until maybe 50 pages before the ending of this 400 page book. This wasn't the enjoyable, relaxing reading experience I was expecting when I plucked a book with "Crusie" on the cover off of a public library bookshelf. In her dedication, Crusie wrote "For Valerie Taylor, because she tells me when my scenes are boring, my syntax is twisted, and my characters are jerks..." Apparently, Ms. Taylor had her work cut out for her if this is the characters after they were made to be less like jerks, and maybe she should have also been working on telling Crusie to make her characters less like wet washcloths.
I don't think romance novel couples have to be perfect and have perfect relationships in order for them to be fun to read about. I do like for there to be something pleasant about their relationships, though. In addition, it probably didn't help (for me, anyway) that all or most of the characters were older than the usual romance novel age, which means they were old enough to be my parents. For example, I think Nell's son was a little over 20.
So, if I disliked the book this much, why did I keep reading it?
- Jennifer Crusie wrote it, so I was hoping it would get better.
- Some of the information about china that Suze, Nell, and Margie were talking about sounded interesting, even if I think Crusie could've edited those bits down more. The Walking Ware and Running Ware sounded like fun, though.
- Marlene, the dachshund, was interesting. My family has a dachshund, and, even though he doesn't flirt and act abused for biscuits, he does flirt for belly rubs.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less
This makes it sound like the book is mostly about Nell and Gabe, but it's not. There's Riley, Gabe's partner in the agency, who's been pining over Suze for years. Of course, she doesn't even know he exists, and she's married. Things start getting rocky with show more her husband (Jack) because he wants her to stay home and look pretty and not go out, get a job, and have a life that doesn't involve him in every aspect - by the way, Suze was once "the other woman" when Jack was married to his second wife. Then there's Margie, who's dating a guy named Budge. Margie drinks a lot because Budge wants her to marry him and that's not what she wants to do. Technically, she's still married to her husband, who left years ago and may be dead, but if she declares him dead then she won't have a convenient excuse for turning down Budge. Also, back to Nell and Gabe, it's not like things are going perfectly for them either. Nell and Gabe fight a lot (and have a lot of make-up sex, but that's not the point) because they're both stubborn as hell. Gabe doesn't want any changes in his life and his agency, and Nell wants to redo everything at the agency and sees any sort of giving in as allowing him to use her as a doormat. Remember, however, that Nell is the secretary, and really, truly should be getting Gabe's approval and input before changing things and replacing furniture instead of railroading over him.
Granted, I haven't read many Jennifer Crusie books (I think this is my fifth one), but I'm used to her books being funny, romantic, and frequently heart-tugging and exasperating at the same time. I'm not used to her characters being annoying, rigid, and generally unlikeable, which is how I viewed the characters in this book most of the time. Basically, Riley came off as the most emotionally healthy character, and he was the one dealing with his feelings for Suze by dating/sleeping with anything female (like an undergrad, or Nell). Gabe's resistance to change was understandable, at first, but it got really annoying when he continued to resist even the changes that made sense. Nell acted like a bulldozer in Gabe's agency, and (because of her divorce) she was left with the impression that giving in a little is the same as letting yourself get walked on. Suze is a doormat who thinks she needs a man in her life in order to be complete, and she feels this so wholeheartedly that she's willing to give up having a life of her own in order to have a man around. At first I thought Margie was a bimbo, but it turns out that she was just a perpetual drunk with no tact.
None of these characters started to feel like people I'd actually want to get to know until maybe 50 pages before the ending of this 400 page book. This wasn't the enjoyable, relaxing reading experience I was expecting when I plucked a book with "Crusie" on the cover off of a public library bookshelf. In her dedication, Crusie wrote "For Valerie Taylor, because she tells me when my scenes are boring, my syntax is twisted, and my characters are jerks..." Apparently, Ms. Taylor had her work cut out for her if this is the characters after they were made to be less like jerks, and maybe she should have also been working on telling Crusie to make her characters less like wet washcloths.
I don't think romance novel couples have to be perfect and have perfect relationships in order for them to be fun to read about. I do like for there to be something pleasant about their relationships, though. In addition, it probably didn't help (for me, anyway) that all or most of the characters were older than the usual romance novel age, which means they were old enough to be my parents. For example, I think Nell's son was a little over 20.
So, if I disliked the book this much, why did I keep reading it?
- Jennifer Crusie wrote it, so I was hoping it would get better.
- Some of the information about china that Suze, Nell, and Margie were talking about sounded interesting, even if I think Crusie could've edited those bits down more. The Walking Ware and Running Ware sounded like fun, though.
- Marlene, the dachshund, was interesting. My family has a dachshund, and, even though he doesn't flirt and act abused for biscuits, he does flirt for belly rubs.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less
I quite liked this one, as it was frothy and fun but still somehow realistic—Crusie is good at setting up relationships between both the main and the secondary romantic couples which don't rely on external forces to create angst and drama, but rather at showing how repeated patterns of behaviour can ruin relationships without any outside help. I also liked the fact that Crusie is always happy to show her female characters taking genuine pleasure in their food, but not in a neurotic way, and that...more I quite liked this one, as it was frothy and fun but still somehow realistic—Crusie is good at setting up relationships between both the main and the secondary romantic couples which don't rely on external forces to create angst and show more drama, but rather at showing how repeated patterns of behaviour can ruin relationships without any outside help. I also liked the fact that Crusie is always happy to show her female characters taking genuine pleasure in their food, but not in a neurotic way, and that her heroine is into her forties. There was one thing which niggled at my subconscious, though, and which made my eyebrows rise when I realised what it was: one character with a walk-on part was African-American, and I think in all the Crusies that I've read so far, she's the first character who hasn't been white. Hrm. How much of that is a function of setting (I'm not from the US, but the impression I've gotten is that the Mid-West, where these books are set, is terribly white?), I wonder, and how much is, well, good old white obliviousness? show less
Crusie expands her usual chicklit screwball romance here to include some mystery elements, but the whole thing remains pretty frothy.
When divorcee Nell Dysart takes a "temporary" job in the offices of McKenna Investigations, the last thing she's looking for is a new romance. So of course sparks fly between her and her boss, mostly because she wants to "fix" things he thinks don't need fixing.
Great fun, hot sex, and an occasional dead body on the plus side; a complicated set of family connections on the minus. Still an entertaining read.
When divorcee Nell Dysart takes a "temporary" job in the offices of McKenna Investigations, the last thing she's looking for is a new romance. So of course sparks fly between her and her boss, mostly because she wants to "fix" things he thinks don't need fixing.
Great fun, hot sex, and an occasional dead body on the plus side; a complicated set of family connections on the minus. Still an entertaining read.
I really loved this book, Crusie turns so many romantic tropes on their head. Good sex does not equal true love, and true love does not mean no relationship problems. The villains were a bit hard to keep track of, and the timeline was equally slippery, but the lovely main characters and their classic Crusie wit more than made up for any bumps in the road.
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ThingScore 75
Fast Women was not too bad, the main protagonists had some issues, but it was entertaining. I couldn't find the ebook for fast women so I sent it into 1dollarscan to scan it.
added by JakeyJake
Author Information
58+ Works 30,644 Members
Jennifer Crusie was born Jennifer Smith in Wapakoneta, Ohio in 1949. She received a bachelor's degree in art education from Bowling Green State University, a master's degree in professional writing and women's literature from Wright State University, and an MFA in fiction from Ohio State University. Before becoming a full-time romance author, she show more was an art and English teacher. Her first book, Manhunting, was published in 1993. Her other works include Strange Bedpersons, What the Lady Wants, Charlie All Night, Anyone but You, The Cinderella Deal, Trust Me on This, Crazy for You, and Maybe This Time. She has received several awards including the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Contemporary Single Title for Bet Me and the RITA Award for Best Short Contemporary for Getting Rid of Bradley. She wrote several collaboration novels including Don't Look Down, Agnes and the Hitman, and Wild Ride all with Bob Mayer, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes with Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart, and Dogs and Goddesses with Anne Stuart and Lani Diane Rich. She also wrote a book of literary criticism on Anne Rice, published under the name Jennifer Smith. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Fast Women
- Original title
- Fast Women
- Original publication date
- 2001-05-01
- People/Characters
- Nell Dysart; Gabe McKenna; Riley McKenna; Suze Dysart
- Dedication
- For Valerie Taylor
because she tells me when my scenes are boring,
my syntax is twisted, and my characters are jerks,
because she reminds me that I always think
my career is over in the middle of each bo... (show all)ok,
and because she writes truly wonderful stories
and then lets me read them first.
Keep dodging those trucks, honey. - First words
- Chapter One
The man behind the cluttered desk looked like the devil, and Nell Dysart figured that was par for her course since she'd been going to hell for a year and a half anyway. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Not me," Nell said, "I'm getting married."
- Publisher's editor
- Enderlin, Jennifer
- Blurbers
- Rice, Luanne
- Original language
- English
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- 1,889
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- 11,293
- Reviews
- 45
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- 6 — Czech, Dutch, English, German, Hungarian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 36
- ASINs
- 10