Nerd in Shining Armor

Rating:
Summary: The secret's out about Nerds thanks to Vicki Lewis Thompson!
Review: Shades of Jennifer Cruise! I just loved this book! The "Nerd in Shining Armor," had me laughing aloud at its refreshingly different cast of characters and unusual dilemmas.

The story was so unique. A family moves from Tennessee, where they were a step up from hillbillies, using the money they acquired from the sale of a pair of boxers once owned by Elvis Presley, and now are living in paradise but still not quite fitting in. Our heroine, Genevieve, tries to shed her past and become a cosmopolitan secretary who is thrilled when her Cary Grant look-alike boss asks her to fly to Maui for the weekend. Although he often takes the new office girls on such "business" trips, she thinks she's going to be different and seduce her boss with wedding bells in her future. Even the presence of the office computer nerd, Jackson, doesn't dampen her enthusiasm.

It's not that she hates Jackson, it's that his hair is often un-kept, glasses smudged and although she's tried to give him fashion hints, he still looked like "her cousin Harley after a three-day toot, decked out in sweet potato-orange plaid shirt and pants the color of rotten eggplant." It's colorful language like that that is generously scattered throughout her dialogue that had me hooting! She describes Jackson as a computer god, who needs a girlfriend if for no other reason than to pick out his clothing. I just love this author's wit! And, although her omniscient mother, Annabelle, fears that something terrible will happen if she flies, Gen throws caution to the wind and packs the only luggage she has, a memento of her flight from Tennessee, a hard-sided pink suitcase bought at the Salvation Army.

When the boss turns mad man and jumps from the plane, the computer nerd, who's only flown on computer simulators, steps up for his first rescue and flies the plane to save our beauties' life! He manages a crash landing in the water. Jack, who has as big a crush on Gen as she had on her former boss, is endearing with the sweet way he encourages Gen to swim to the far off island. Although she comments that for "a nerd he swims like an Olympic athlete," he promises not to leave her behind in the shark infested waters and that no harm will come to her. Can you imagine someone as hot looking as Jennifer Anniston with someone like Bill Gates on steroids? At this point, that's all I could imagine. When they finally reach the island with only the clothes on their back and a supply of guava fruit, it looks like their luck has run out.

It's the little things that kept me smiling throughout the entire adventure, like Gen losing her contacts, but discovering Jack's glasses are the same prescription so they share the glasses. When her Salvation Army pink plastic suitcase washes ashore with survival supplies of a change of underwear, some "Power Bars" that Annabelle snuck in, an electric curling iron and what every couple needs when stranded on a secluded island, six condoms, you know the fun is only beginning.

I've read many books that have two people crash land on deserted islands and have to survive on their wits, but never have I read one so comical. It's the Beverly Hillbillies meets Robinson Crusoe, when our sophisticated secretary reveals a suspicious southern drawl when stressed and survival skills from her days home in "the hallow", and our computer nerd looks great without clothes and really cleans up nicely in salt water, that is just the beginning of the sharp and sassy romance from long time author Vicki Lewis Thompson.

You have to read this one! You won't be disappointed and it will make you wonder if that computer nerd down the hallway from you at work can really be your "Nerd in Shining Armor!" I can't wait for the next Nerd-like story from this clever author, "The Nerd Who Loved Me".


Rating:
Summary: A Lowering of Standards
Review: I read this book because my friends bought it for me when I began dating my own self-proclaimed nerd. (Mine, however, is an economist.) Unlike those who read it in mere days or hours, it took me 5 months, and for several reasons. First, I felt dumber after having read it, so it made sense to spread it out over a period of time. Secondly, there is utterly NO depth or complexity to the plot, so the chance of forgetting something important in the meantime was impossible. Most significantly, it bored me to death. It was predictable, the hillbillyness was contrived, the emotional range of the characters was about as wide as a twig. And throwing in a moralistic message of "remember your roots" amounted to a weak attempt at avoiding yet another flat, hopelessly dull character by giving her some psychological depth. The attempt failed.

Granted, I have a bias against the sprouting genre of "chic lit" that assumes female readers want something as substance-less as "women's magazines." Frankly, I find it insulting. But (sigh)if you want something mindless to cleanse your mental palate (of course, this may result in a lowered IQ, but the process has its merits - kind of like watching cartoons), then this book ought to do it. And there's a decent sex scene to boot. But don't expect Bridget Jones here (a heroine who transcends possible labels of "chic lit"). There is no wit, no depth, and absolutely NO surprises.

Then again, it represents a lot of the fiction being produced and (why god why?) published.