Review: Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins

5 stars
*SPOILER ALERT*

My original review for this book got lost in the digital ether somewhere between Auckland and Sydney, so excuse me if this one suffers from rewrite-itis. As we all know, once a piece of writing is lost it becomes the most inspired, crucial thing since the Magna Carta, never able to matched no matter how you toil over it. Not that I'm being dramatic or anything.

Anyway, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins features quirky rural vet Helen McNeil. One night, escaping someone at a party, she runs into a guy called Mark and they make small talk. Only later does she realise that Mark is actually Mark Tipene, All Black and shirtless poster on the work tearoom wall. He could have any woman in New Zealand (as everyone keeps reminding Helen), but for some reason he stops by Helen's clinic and asks her out. Nor is he deterred by her on-call roster (formidable during calving season) and discussions of bovine uterine prolapse. But he's based in Auckland, and she's in the Waikato, and then something happens that throws their burgeoning relationship right off it's planned course. 

I felt like Chocolate Cake for Breakfast sat midway on the spectrum that ranges from chick-lit to contemporary romance. It was written completely from the heroine's point of view, the love scenes were closed-door, and the romantic arc saw the hero and heroine in a stable relationship for much of the book; all characteristics that I would associate more with chick-lit or 'sweet' contemporaries. 

However, in other ways, it did feel very much like a contemporary, but I'm not going to list those ways because I  promptly forgot most of them after writing them in the original review. The distinction between chick-lit and contemporary is extremely arbitrary, but I feel the to situate Chocolate Cake for Breakfast with reference to them because it felt...different than the majority of both. Somehow, the sense of fulfilment I got from reading it reminded me of those first dozen romance novels I devoured, which made me feel so gooey inside and and which still hold a special place in my heart, even if, rationally, I know that there might be nothing incredibly exceptional about them. 

I read Chocolate Cake for Breakfast in a day, driven by my love for the quirky Helen and her poignant but still comic struggle with coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy. Her internal disquiet and insecurities surrounding her relationship with Mark and their impending parenthood were so raw and touching, and I think the lack of sugar-coating was one of the things that made the book feel so different and special. 

Helen can't understand what Mark sees in her, and feels sure that the pregnancy means that he'll stick with her just out of obligation. They develop massive communication issues that stem from the fact that they are very different people, who, because they have only been in a relationship a short time, don't understand each others' needs that well. Because the book is written from Helen's perspective, I've focused a lot more on her, but Mark was a great hero, a classic old-school Kiwi bloke with just enough new-age sensitivity thrown in. 

The fact that he's an All Black opens the field for comparisons with other rugby romances, particularly Rosalind James' well known Escape to New Zealand series. As much as I did like those, Chocoloate Cake for Breakfast feels far more organic, with New Zealand and the All Blacks undergoing far less fetishisation. This is much more made for an internal Kiwi audience, rather than people for whom New Zealand and rugby are exciting and exotic. 

Instead of having one of New Zealand's major draw-cards as a setting, here we have a fictional rural Waikato town, and the representation was both incredibly comic and spot-on. There's grumpy dairy farmers, the local pub, trips to 'big smoke' Hamilton and cousins who spot each others' cars in the local supermarket car park. 

I'm sure the way this book portrayed the familiar rhythms of life in the Waikato has impacted my rating, because it's impossible for me to separate my experience of Chocolate Cake for Breakfast with my near-constant sense of...not homesickness, exactly, but of nostalgia, longing and belonging. As a result, I've debated with myself a lot over whether I'm being rational giving this book 5 stars, especially since I 5-starred The Hating Game so recently. But, at the end of the day, when something is a 5 star book for someone, it's a 5 star book.

Review: The Derby Girl by Tamara Morgan

4 stars

The Derby Girl  is the third book by Morgan I've read, and I've come to realise that she's is exceptional at creating emotionally complex and realistic characters and plots. 

Gretchen, roller derby player and perpetual student, has been giving Dr. Jared Fine, local plastic surgeon and national hero, his coffee for months, but he doesn't recognise her when she stops to help him with his broken-down car orr when he asks her out a few minutes later. Jared is fascinated by Gretchen's her tough-girl demeanour, but Gretchen is playing a role and holding herself back, worried that Jared only wants the fantasy of the tattooed derby girl. 

The interplay between Jared and Gretchen was great. They snipe away at each other, and Gretchen doesn't take any shit, calling Jared out when he's being a selfish prick. He's a classic messed-up anti-hero (although a very nuanced one), and much of the book's conflict comes from Gretchen's concern that his relationship with her might be emotionally unhealthy. Having said that, we also have an excellent sub-plot surrounding Gretchen's aging grandmother, with whom she lives. 

Although Jared had a tendency towards dickishness, Morgan constructs this in such a way that, for the most part, you can't really hold it against him. Jared's sensitiveness, his upbringing and career, and his growing awareness his male privilege, meant that I didn't have any problems with him as a hero, at least until the final chapters. Up until then, there was never any doubt in my mind that Gretchen would reform him, in the great tradition of romance heroines everywhere.

Except that, I kind of felt that, in the end, she didn't. And, even though I suppose that was in line with the complex emotional realism that I value from Morgan, it also is the reason I shaved the rating down to 4 stars, even though I decided about halfway through that it was definitely a 4.5. 

In short, the ending let me down. Throughout the book, Jared has a complicated relationship with his father, and fights against the thought of becoming an uncaring, manipulative bastard like his old man. Without giving too much away, the ending sees him manipulate his friends to get what he wants, and, for me, this played into the fatalistic belief that he would become like his father, and took away from the hopeful note that his relationship with Gretchen could somehow 'save' him. 

Even though it may not sound like it from the way I've presented Jared and Gretchen's relationship, the traditional idea of a woman being responsible for her male partner's wellbeing and behaviour is one that is challenged throughout The Derby Girl. It does concern Gretchen that this is what Jared expects of her, and they discuss her concerns in the final pages of the book:

"...that's the problem. I can't be responsible for your actions or lack thereof. That's not a relationship. That's a jail sentence."

 "You're wrong." When she opened her mouth to protest, Jared grabbed her hands, unwilling and unable to let her go. "The problem with that scenario isn't that I'm asking you to be my reality check--It's that you haven't asked me to yours in return."

This is also where Gretchen's strength of character is important, in that it gives the reader peace of mind that the dynamic will always be that of equals, because she isn't afraid to draw boundaries and stick to them.

On the whole, The Derby Girl was a funny and enjoyable read with good emotional depth. I came away loving it, and it was only packing the dishwasher afterward that I started to have reservations about the ending. So, really, the take-away here is to never to do housework. It gives you to much time to think stuff over. 

Review: Pairing Off by Elizabeth Harmon

4.5 stars

I was ambivalent about the premise of Pairing Off, given that it's the romance of two professional figure skaters, and my interest in figure skating is non-existent. In fact, after two years of working with a Serbian woman who talked about nothing but figure skating, I think my interest could be actually classified as sub-zero. In Australia, we pay very little attention to winter sports at all, really, except that one time when we won gold in some speed skating thing because there was a pile-up that knocked down all the other competitors: 

Anyway, I can't remember now what possessed me to buy Pairing Off, but I must have weighed up a Russian setting and the prospect of an old-lovers-reunited romance against tight, sparkly costumes and a dignity-less hero and decided it was worth it. It was totally worth it, and my apologies to Anton for ever doubting his masculinity. 

After her partner created a scandal that rocked the figure-skating world and implicated her, Carrie Parker is banned from competing in the United States, and no-one in the skating world will touch her with a ten-foot pole. She takes a mysterious offer to skate in Russia, only to find out that her new partner is Anton Belikov, the first man she ever slept with. 

Anton doesn't realise Carrie was that girl in Amsterdam all those years ago, but he feels some strange pull towards the disgraced American, enough that he's willing take a chance on her. As they try to fit years of training into only a few months, their feelings for one another grow, but so do the things keeping them apart. 

The thing that impressed me most about Pairing Off was Harmon's ability to hit both the lighthearted high notes, and poignant low notes, sometimes simultaneously. The reader is inclined to sympathise with almost all the characters, even when their emotional struggles take a backseat to more lighthearted scenes. Carrie is burdened by her mother's death and her fractious relationship with her politican father, made worse by her 'defection', while Anton's just trying to make the best of a bad lot and do right by everyone. 

The romance between Carrie and Anton is low-key for much of the first half, because Anton is still in a relationship with his former skating partner Olga (even though she left him in the lurch by partnering elsewhere). However, there was some top-class yearning on both sides, and I liked that their romantic relationship was based on a thriving friendship, and that they were far away from cheating territory.

Anton's reluctance to break up with Olga should have been frustrating, but it wasn't, because it was testament to his earnest and thoughtful nature. He was dedicated to Carrie and both their personal and professional relationships, and showed great patience with her reluctance to trust him. His unconventional profession was handled with self-effacing humour, such as his distaste for "man-wax".

Writing accents can be a tricky business, but Harmon managed the Russian tendency to omit articles when speaking English without making her characters seem cartoonish. I also greatly appreciated that Carrie took the time to learn Russian, as opposed to other romance heroes and heroines who move overseas but never seem to learn the language.

In fact, I loved the Russian backdrop all together. Carrie's decision to skate for Russia brings to the fore old Cold War prejudices, while the scenes with Anton's family really captured the generational and ideological divides of today's Russia.

While the second book in the series was good, its setting in in mainland U.S. and Puerto Rico didn't capture me the same way, and I am keen for the release of the Russian-set Getting It Back, which features Anton's playboy friend Misha as the hero.

Review: Fighting Silence by Aly Martinez

3 stars
EDIT: Changed this rating from 3.5 to 3 stars. Must have been feeling generous that day.

Some of my favourite romance novels of all time feature the 'I've loved you my whole life' trope, so I was excited to read Aly Martinez's Fighting Silence, particularly as it features a unique hero, Till Page, who is going deaf from a congential hearing problem. 

The day Till finds out about his hearing defect is the same day he meets shy, artistic Eliza. They're both kids from the wrong side of the tracks with absentee parents, and from then on they look after each other. Till convinces himself that Eliza can never be his, but at eighteen they spend a night together and everything changes. Till disappears, and Eliza moves on with her life.  But Till can't stay away for long, and soon he's back with a fledgling boxing career and two brothers in tow. He doesn't want to do anything to endanger their friendship again, but all Eliza has ever wanted is Till, and she's not going to let his fear get in the way.  

Fighting Silence was different and touching, but while it was enjoyable, I was a bit conflicted about how to rate it. If you had asked me throughout the first half, I would have told you unequivocally that it was 5-star material, but I felt as though the second half let it down. The use of time-jumps worked well to set up Till and Eliza's relationship, allowing us to see a few formative incidents from their shared youth, but once they were together it prevented the reader from appreciating their growth as characters.  

Perhaps because I started to lose my sense of connection to the story in the second half, I also found the ending was very convoluted and took away from one of its major themes. I don't think it's any great spoiler to say that, about halfway through the book, Till becomes completely deaf. His early attempts to deal with this are very poignant. The way Till looks after his two little brothers is very endearing, making his realisation that they may suffer the same fate particularly heartbreaking. When he becomes permanently withdrawn and it starts to have consequences on his relationships with others, Eliza basically tells him to suck it up. After a time jump in which Till flicks his internal self-pity switch to 'off' and everyone around him magically learns to sign, his deafness is pushed to the side in favour of a lot of random new complications, and it's here that I start to wish the book took a different tack.

While I would be just as dissatisfied if the book gave the impression that becoming deaf is the be-all-and-end-all, it would have been nice to see Till learning to navigate his disability more, and to have had more realism in this process. I mean, everyone - regardless of ability - has days when they feel sorry for themselves, or have to make a concerted effort to remind themselves how lucky they are, and I feel like the quick change from Till underwent from 'angry at the world' to 'this is my lot now' delegitimised this constant and ongoing struggle.

These things brought Fighting Silence down, but it was still a enjoyable, well-written romance.

Review: Kulti by Mariana Zapata

5 stars

All Sal Casillas wants to do is play soccer. It's her life, and if she works hard enough, she can help her team to the top of the Women's Premier League. The last thing she wants is a distraction, especially when it takes the form of Reiner Kulti, retired soccer icon and Sal's new assistant coach. As a girl, Sal plastered her room with his pictures, but the man who watches her from the side of the field each day is nothing like her childish imaginings.  He is, in short, a bit of a bastard. On the rare occasions he speaks, it's to put someone down. Sal's the only one brave enough to tear a strip off him, and when she does, a tentative friendship emerges. As Sal gets to know the man beneath the tight-lipped and intimidating exterior, she realises he might be an egotistical, arrogant, stubborn pain in the ass, but he's also vulnerable and alone.  

Mariana Zapata's Kulti was atypical; longer than most romance novels, and with protagonists who had a platonic relationship for the majority of the book.  But the pay off was definitely worth it. Watching Sal and Kulti circle around each other was an engaging and refreshing change from compressed storylines and insta-love.

Pulling off a book of this length wouldn't have been possible without excellent characterisation. Sal was wonderfully developed, kind but assertive. Perhaps more importantly, she was witty and funny, a necessary foil to the taciturn Kulti. I also really appreciated that Sal wasn't reduced to a zero-sum tomboy stereotype.  She played soccer and worked in landscaping, but also loved 'feminine' stuff like face masks.  

And Kulti.  I didn't want to like him, I really didn't. He could be insensitive, but he was also a little bit like a lost puppy who followed a child home from the park and refused to leave. He was an enticing and interesting mix of contradictions and in the end, his dedication to Sal and her career won me over. I try to keep my reviews from being too fan-girly, but honestly, the way Kulti called Sal Schnecke got me every time.  Gotta love a good German endearment.

In fact, in light of the effect this book had on me, I'm going to issue a caveat emptor: if you buy Kulti, you may find yourself daydreaming your way through the morning commute and end up using your data allowance to google the German soccer team.  It was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make, but if you are looking to invest minimal time and effort in a book, save Kulti for another day.