Book Review - Heaven Sent by Christina Jones
Tuesday, 4 November 2008 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
byslantedlightBecause I have to clear my desk just a bit before I'm allowed to properly crash with lj for the night... *g*
Well, I hoped this might be some light frothy reading for Guy Fawkes night, but...
I actually thought the premise was pretty cool - a slightly floaty-around twenty-something who has a first-class degree in chemistry but is failing at life has always wanted to make her own fireworks... The thing is, I could be forgiving of the fact that this woman apparently lives in the next village over to one of the most popular fireworks display teams in England and yet never applied to them for a job, and I could even be forgiving of the fact that she fell in love with the owner/fireworks designer and even when it turned out that the job she applied for, despite interviewing her on an industrial estate in an abandoned unit, actually turned out to be working for her dream-job/love-of-her-life after all. Because this is chick-lit, it's supposed to be happy-fluffy, and that's what I chose from the library shelves. I've even read other books by Christina Jones, including one about an aspiring wingwalker, and I quite enjoyed them at the time. Plus the fun of fireworks - right?
Except... I think she's made a go of quirky-romance books where the heroine actually has a bit of gumption about her and the other characters are amusing and unusual - and the formula may be wearing a little thin. Everything was a bit too "amusing and unusual" and I started to struggle - and then she had one of the characters say ...and remember this was in the days when you got the grades you studied hard for and deserved, not those awarded simply to bump up government targets..." and I had to close the book hard and put it down. Because someone who thinks that the vast majority of kids don't study hard today, and don't deserve the grades that they're awarded just gets no more of my time... Daft bint.
And there. Five more minutes and I'll have finished tidying the giant Pile of Doom and be allowed to retire properly to lj world... *g*
Well, I hoped this might be some light frothy reading for Guy Fawkes night, but...
I actually thought the premise was pretty cool - a slightly floaty-around twenty-something who has a first-class degree in chemistry but is failing at life has always wanted to make her own fireworks... The thing is, I could be forgiving of the fact that this woman apparently lives in the next village over to one of the most popular fireworks display teams in England and yet never applied to them for a job, and I could even be forgiving of the fact that she fell in love with the owner/fireworks designer and even when it turned out that the job she applied for, despite interviewing her on an industrial estate in an abandoned unit, actually turned out to be working for her dream-job/love-of-her-life after all. Because this is chick-lit, it's supposed to be happy-fluffy, and that's what I chose from the library shelves. I've even read other books by Christina Jones, including one about an aspiring wingwalker, and I quite enjoyed them at the time. Plus the fun of fireworks - right?
Except... I think she's made a go of quirky-romance books where the heroine actually has a bit of gumption about her and the other characters are amusing and unusual - and the formula may be wearing a little thin. Everything was a bit too "amusing and unusual" and I started to struggle - and then she had one of the characters say ...and remember this was in the days when you got the grades you studied hard for and deserved, not those awarded simply to bump up government targets..." and I had to close the book hard and put it down. Because someone who thinks that the vast majority of kids don't study hard today, and don't deserve the grades that they're awarded just gets no more of my time... Daft bint.
And there. Five more minutes and I'll have finished tidying the giant Pile of Doom and be allowed to retire properly to lj world... *g*
