Review: An Anthropology Professor Studying Garbage--Does That Make This A Trashy Book?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 3, 2013
This is a (sometimes) cute light summer read about how love can develop despite the hazards of shepherding students in processing heaps of trash, family tragedies and misunderstandings, practical jokes, a really confused about what he wants hero, and the odd mafia hitman.  When the heroine, an anthropology professor, is invited by one of her students (who loves practical jokes and should really have been strangled at birth) to conduct her study of societal trends by analyzing what people throw away at the student's family home because their business is collecting and processing trash, it sounds perfect.  It probably would have been even better if the student had bothered to tell her brother, who owns the business about it.  It certainly would have been easier for both hero and heroine if the student hadn't told the shy professor her brother was gay (he isn't) in order to focus any possible female attentions on the younger brother who is recovering from crippling injuries and depression that his wife left him at this stressful time.So, we have a hero who already has a lot on his plate with running his business, dealing with his severely injured brother and trying to keep him together, trying to survive a sister who is fond of poking at people just to see how they react, and living with the guilt of not having saved his parents from the fire that left him in charge of his siblings requiring him to work on a garbage truck to support them instead of getting an education.  The fact that he turned that job into a cutting edge reprocessing business seems to have escaped him and he has always felt the sting of how people view him for his educational lack and for "being the trash man".  He is so focused on this and his guilt over his parents, he doesn't allow himself the same chance at the satisfying family life he is working so hard to insure for his siblings.  Add one shy professor who, being small, needing thick glasses, and being a brainy girl knows what it's like to have people unkindly label you trying to make him feel better, and his bed of nails is all made up and ready for him.His cover as a gay man is blown early because he and the professor strike hot sparks together.  It quickly becomes obvious he's not only NOT gay, but very VERY interested where the heroine is concerned.  She also shows an interest in him, melting into a puddle whenever they get into a clinch (something that happens much more frequently than you might have expected given the fact she was told he was gay).  What does the hero do with his puddled professor?  Blows it every single time they end up together by recoiling and apologizing as though she wasn't an adult capable of choosing to be with him, total afterglow killer.  The heroine, feeling stung by the initial deception of his sexual orientation, and whiplashed by his "come here, come here, come here--go away, go away, go away" actions, decides to swear off hunky trash men and just get the study done and get out of there.Enter the complications, a policeman who claims to be investigating a house involved in the study and has the professor looking though its trash for any kind of evidence that can be used to build his case.  After an attempted break in of the house, he moves in to help the professor and keep her safe.  He also seems drawn to her (which does NOT please the hero).  The hero's sister is also still putting her oar in (still not too late to strangle her), and is now promoting a relationship between our reluctant hero, and the now wary heroine.  She even goes so far as to lock them both in the wine cellar in an effort to get them to talk (and maybe employ a little body language).  When what seems like vital evidence seems to be found, the policeman is suddenly not acting so much like a policeman, but nobody seems to pick up on that.  The heroine, in a TSTL (to stupid to live) moment, insists on accompanying him to the station to make a statement, and ends up kidnapped instead by the policeman morphed into a troubled mobster who must clear up a mess his wife made and eliminate witnesses, including the heroine.How the hero and company discover the heroine's peril, find and rescue her, patch up their fledgling relationship, and lay the hero's demons is the rest of the story.  I do have a few small quibbles--the sudden re-entrance of the brother's wife smacks of a device designed just to get the brother's issues out of the way and clear the decks for the main event, the hero and heroine.  It could have been handled a little more subtly.  Speaking of plot devices, the avoid groveling by rescuing the heroine device was also put into play.  The hero had messed up badly enough, the heroine was due some explanation/apology.  Bypassing the emotionally difficult part was cowardly (so says those of us who are blood thirsty that way).  Still, this is a good book for a summer read and you may never view trash the same way again.