Book review: What I Did For Love

What I Did For Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Rating: 3.5 of 5 warm chocolate chip cookies

Synopsis (via SEP’s web site):

It’s not easy being famous when your life is falling apart… Georgie York has been dumped by her movie star husband, her own film career is tanking, and her public image as a spunky romantic heroine is taking a serious beating.

What should a down-on-her-luck actress do? NOT go to Vegas…NOT run into her detestable former co-star—dreamboat-from-hell Bramwell Shepard…and NOT get caught up in a ridiculous incident that leads to a calamitous elopement. Before she knows it, Georgie has a fake marriage, fake husband, and maybe (or not) a fake sex life.

It’s a paparazzi free-for-all, and Georgie’s non-supporting cast doesn’t help. There’s Bram’s punk-nightmare housekeeper; Georgie’s pushy parent; a suck-up agent; an icy studio head; and her ex-husband’s new wife, an international do-gooder who just might win the stupid Nobel Peace Prize!

As for Georgie’s leading man… Bram, with his angel blue eyes and twisted black heart, has never cared about anyone but himself. Still, he’s giving the performance of his life as man in love—thanks to the half a million dollars she’s paying him. It was official. She’d married the devil. Or had she?

Two enemies find themselves working without a script in a town where the spotlight shines bright…and where the strongest emotions can wear startling disguises.

Review:

This is a good book. I love SEP because she always manages to surprise me. I pick up one of her books thinking that I’m not going to like it because the premise on the back just doesn’t snag me, and then she always hooks me until the end.

Best example: Ain’t She Sweet. If you haven’t read this book, go. Now. Buy book, apply butt to chair and read. It’s awesome. I picked it up at the airport during a delay and started in the middle, which is what I do when I’m sure I’m not going to like the book but have nothing else to read. I read about 10 pages then started over at the beginning and read the book the whole flight home. Still her best book, IMHO.

In What I Did For Love, she started off the same. Great characters that I cared about: check. Great side characters that I cared about: check. Good plot: check. Lance the Loser and Jade = awesome: check. So, I’m reading along and get to the end of the book. **SPOILER ALERT***

There it goes sideways for me. See, in the beginning, Georgie and Bram hate each other. Loathe with a fiery passion. They’ve hated each other for years. They meet up by accident and then again by Bram’s intention. And you know what he does? He picks on her. Calls her idiot ex Lance the Loser. He’s pursuing Georgie for most of the book, partially for his own agenda, but what does he do the entire time?

He pokes at her. He banters with her. He protects and defends her. He goes after her for sex. This, you understand, he does from the very beginning. You know what all that adds up to? A guy seriously in love. Not falling in love, not getting to know a person all over again, no; this is a guy who’s got serious feelings for a girl AT THE BEGINNING of the book.

He’s the boy on the playground yanking the ponytail of the girl he likes so she’ll notice him.

First chapter intro, you know what popped into my head? This guy is so in love with her. Seriously, that’s the thought that ran through my head, verbatim.

Then I settled down for a good read. But at the end, what do you think? He says that he fell in love over the past few months, that it has nothing to do with the past. She says the same thing. They both believe it. That’s the story.

What crap. Seriously, two people hate each other for years, YEARS, spend every second bickering from the start, have crazy hot sex after, like, six days of getting back together, and the past had nothing to do with it?

The other problem I had was the ending itself - way too sweet. This from the Queen of MUST HAVE HEA or I WILL STOP READING. And still, the book ended in a way that I thought was contrary to the characters as SEP had set them up. These are not sweet and nice and wholesome people.

These are scrappers. They do not become grateful for life’s joy just because they (finally) figure out they’re perfect for each other. Happy, yes. Relaxed, yes. Content, yes. Syrupy sweet and deliriously grateful, no.

So, my recommendation: if you like the premise, buy in mass market paperback when it comes out or, if you must read now, pick up at the library. It’s not worth the hardback price. That said, I know that there are the rabid SEP fans out there that would buy her napkins, so feel free to disregard my advice.