Getting Warmer to Apocalipstick

Being summer I have much more time to read (ideally at least). My two most recent were Getting Warmer by Carol Snow and Apocalipstick by Sue Margolis. Neither were reads I would recommend to a friend. An enemy perhaps... one whose brain I would want to fry.

Getting Warmer was about a thirty year old teacher in Arizona that has a bad habit of lying to just-met-men in bars but then falls in love with one of the lied to men and must tell the truth but keep the man. This is what makes me laugh: she only lied to this man because she had just been rejected by a East Coast jerk and HE KNEW THE BARTENDER!!! Gasp! So since this man knew the bartender he must have been a drunk and therefore worth lying to. She told him that she taught prisoners to read (she was really an English teacher) and that her mother had dementia (but really she just lived with her rich, slightly crazy parents who were nice enough to take her in when she couldn't pay rent). I am sorry but I would NEVER claim that my parents had dementia just so someone would leave me alone. Also, if I did tell him a small lie I would fess up and laugh it off if if I realized that I liked him. But my small lie would be something like, "My name is Grace." The end.

Lying aside the rest of the book was about the protagonist trying to fess up but chickening out. Every once in a while there's a few enjoyable, heart felt moments in which she teaches her students and they're lives are improved. I'm sure the ending is predictable enough that you don't need me to spell it out for you.

The other book I read, Apocalipstick, was also about a thirty year old (notice the theme). This book was worse than the plotless book of liar. In three hundred pages the woman managed to have Rebecca's (the main character's) father Stan marry her high school rival, be verbally abused with a man in traffic then fall in love with that man (also her new co worker), break up with said person over a misunderstanding, get back together with him, find out the man had a daughter, and uncover a major international beauty scandal which also (of course) caused an international stand off between England and Africa about oil. The best part of the whole plot is the cause of the beauty scandal. Apparently a French beauty cream used a Nazi truth serum in it because it creates natural collagen and fills in fine lines.

Did you get that? A NAZI TRUTH SERUM IN FACE CREAM. A member of parliament uses it and causes problems when she talks out at a conference with an unnamed African country about oil. Then of course little beauty columnist Rebecca saves the day. And gets the man. And a fifteen year old step daughter. And a new mother (who is her age). And a new baby sister. There are a few scenes in which the best friend is involved and and those are the highlight of the book despite the obnoxious discussion of ED and strange paraphilia which weren't even discussed in my Human Sexuality class last quarter.