PRAISE THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER. Glad I'm done with this one.
At about 30% in, I knew this book would end up with only two stars by me. Hell right now, I feel so angry I may just lower it to 1.5.
Seriously. I cannot remember dislikinghating a heroine as much as I dislikehate Miranda Wake. She is a hypocritical, judgmental, homophobic, idiotic woman. My aversion towards her manifested itself from the beginning of the book. Something about her attitude rubbed me the wrong way. She is too self-righteous, too arrogant and not an ounce of charm that would make any of these negative traits tolerable. No matter how much the author tried to make me like her I just couldn’t. Also, I do not understand how is it that Adam got infatuated so fast. She’s so damn insufferable and stupid. I could see from a mile away how her plan to write a tell-all book would blow up in her face.
One of my biggest problem with her? She acted as if her 19-year-old brother is incapable of making decisions. I have an 18 year old sister and let me tell you, if I even insinuated she had bedtime while she was under my roof, she would laugh in my face.
Didn’t help that she dissed one of the members of my favorite couple in this book.
No, I did not like or care much about the main couple, mostly because of her. In fact I wished so badly that she didn’t get a HEA. She didn’t deserve it. Adam did, not her.
The language of the book is clunky. I got the feeling the author was trying to force feed me her impressions of the characters and not allow my own impressions to flourish. Let it be said that while I love foodie books, I felt that the narration kept hitting me over the head with all the food metaphors. Please, stop. We get it. Adam (the hero) is a chef. Food is his passion and his passion shines through to the point of coating every interaction with food references, even the supposedly painful moments. It got annoying real fast.
Examples:
“Christ, getting personal info out of her was like trying to peel a tomato without blanching it first.”
“This was a woman coming apart like an overcooked sauce, separating into an ungodly mess right before his eyes.”
“…the lines of tension in Miranda’s face softened, melting like sugar into caramel.”
“He liked the way Miranda moved as if she were swimming though melted chocolate, sort of boneless and effortful.”
“Miranda wilted before their eyes, like greens under hot bacon dressing.”
And many, many more.
I found myself putting this book down a lot, especially during the sex scenes. I just did not care about the main characters enough to control my SQUIRREL! attention span. Tumblr and vegan recipes kept taking my attention away. When I wasn’t distracted, I cackled over gems like these:
NSFW after the jump...!
(show spoiler)
Now that we are in the subject of Adam, let me tell you, he is the best part of the book. Kind, funny, sexy and loyal. Not to mention he’s a kick-ass chef. He’s everything Miranda doesn’t deserve.
The secondary characters were fantastic. You couldn’t help loving them and cheering for them and even maybe wishing they would skin Miranda alive. The only other good thing I can tell you about this book is that it gives you the recipes of the featured drinks/dishes.
Overall, Can't Stand The Heat is like drinking a glass of flat coca cola thinking it was fresh; completely and utterly disappointing.
5
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