Jennie's B(ook)log

Title: Manhunting
Author: Jennifer Crusie
Published: 1993, Mira
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 7/10

I'm such a procrastinator. I have Scarlet Pimpernel to read for Dance Chica's book club, a non-romance book for Angie's August challenge, and a TBR pile that keeps growing. So what do I do? I reread an old Jennifer Crusie. It's Dylan's fault. She blogged about it and I realized I haven't read a real Jennifer Crusie (Don't Look Down doesn't really count) in eons. I just had to.

So yes, I don't know if you know, but I have a serious love of Jennifer Crusie's books. I've read everything she currently has in print. I would buy used copies of her out-of-print ones, but those suckers are expensive! I'm not paying $30 for a little series romance that was probably $4 when it was published. Not even for Crusie.

Kate Templeton is a 30-something successful businesswoman who is still looking for love. She wants to get married, but she's just not meeting the right guy. Just lots of the wrong ones. She comes up with a rational plan for catching just the kind of guy (rich, successful and intelligent) she wants: She takes a vacation at a golf resort, where lots of that type of man might be located. But the man she ends up meeting whose company she enjoys most is Jake Templeton. And he doesn't fit into her ideal at all. Can she be happy with a laid-back guy who has no ambition and won't leave the country?

This is one of Crusie's early books that have been reissued since she got famous. Generally, I think they are not anywhere near as good as her later books, IMO she's improved a lot as a writer over the years. I'd kind of forgotten most of what happens in this one, but I liked it more than I remembered. It's got lots of the trademark Crusie humor. And great characters--all her heroines are people I'd want to know in real life. And I love the scenes in the boat (yes, especially the last one).

Kate is such a '90s kind of woman--ambitious and successful, thinking that all women must want a career. At one point Jake says to her, "In the bad old days, men kept women from choosing to work. In the bad new days, women keep women from choosing to stay at home." Kate is stumped by this, and realizes that she's not being fair. But she wants it all, brilliant career and a family, too. She ends up having to reevaluate her life and deciding what's really important. The book is light and fun, but it's got a lot of substance too.

Great reread. :)