Review: vegans and infidelity
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2013
It's good to not wanna eat living things... and even better to cheat on your spouse or break up someone's family... especially your colleague's family.  Gotta love how relative and selective morality can be, lol.  Poor animals (*sniff*).  Screw people.This was a bit of a chore to finish.  I was intrigued by the theme in general as you don't often see it in this genre.  And despite some issues with the writing, I was initially following the story with some interest.  There is something that draws you in here.  But I really grew to dislike these leads.  They both make awful choices.  Juliana went from interesting-weird to icky-and-self-absorbed-weird.  And I can't recall even one sex scene.  Not hot at all.  And don't even get me started on "the cabbage incident"....Pretty, femme and auburn-haired Lise has been married like 16 yrs with two children in Aspen, Colorado.  Her husband is up for a promotion, but this dream has been stolen by the newly appointed boss in his company.  Lise reluctantly joins him at a work party and is instantly taken with her husband's hot boss.  These two begin a friends-first connection that revolves around jogging together every morning.  All this opening stuff was pretty nice.Dark-haired, femme and athletic Juliana is a talented architect.  Maybe even a genius.  She's also highly sensitive and isn't very social.  She's a vegan (the other lead also becomes a vegan).  She has an unusual relationship with her mother.  She was also home-schooled growing up.  She's different.  One of Lise's friends jokes that she may have Aspergers in response to her inability to hold a conversation.  By the end of the book, I wasn't so sure that was a joke, lol.  I'd say take that implication seriously because I was a little frustrated with this emotionally immature lead and that would more than explain her oddities.  I don't mind weird leads.  I will even tolerate a vegan (this one doesn't do reiki and she isn't a psychic, thank god).  But ultimately, I just found her too self-absorbed.  I didn't think she deserved to be with Lise after "the cabbage incident."  Though I will add this is written in first person from Lise's point of view.  Juliana might not have seemed so much like a petulant child if we'd also gotten her perspective.Some writing issues distracted me from the storyline.  Too much repetition.  The word "appraised" is used to a ridiculous degree and these characters "bite their lips" in practically every scene.  And who says "baby" and "honey" at the end of EVERY SINGLE THING THEY EVER SAY????  Overkill.  And for some reason, Juliana's use of "baby" every time she spoke to Lise made her sound masculine to me... there was something very dude-like about it.  I don't know why.  It just was, lol.  The dialogue format was also confusing and you couldn't tell who was speaking and who was reacting right after someone speaks.  Eventually, I noted there was a pattern of one character speaking while the other's physical actions are adjacently described.  But not always. Why don't editors catch this kind of stuff???  Good lord. It's basic.  pfft.And yet there was some life here.  Lise's friends Kitty and Cher turned out to be very amusing and I enjoyed them.  In fact, I wanted Lise and Kitty to hook up more than the leads, lol.  Way more interesting chemistry!!!!  Also, the details surrounding Lise's profession as a realtor were realistic and gave the character depth.  I got a clear sense she was upper class by all her observation of things.  Moreover, something else is addressed here that I appreciated.  Infidelity can get UGLY.  Lise is never in denial about her feelings for Juliana.  She wants her... desperately.  She chooses Juliana over her family.  And Juliana wants too much and doesn't get how difficult it is to just drop your whole married life.  As a result, these two just make stupid choices.  I kinda hated them.  But this ugliness is inevitable.  It's a difficult situation and I appreciated that the writer didn't skim over how stupid and selfish people in these affairs can be.SPOILER AHEAD.....But here's where the author lost me entirely with these leads.  It's around Christmas time and Juliana is being a crybaby over Lise not ditching her family altogether to be with her.  (Gotta love her sensitivity regarding a mother's obligation to her kids.)  Lise is in the kitchen with a knife cutting cabbage.  They argue and this leads to Lise accidentally stabbing herself.  No, don't ask me how a lead "accidentally" stabs herself, I don't know.  Apparently she was already feeling "faint."  And one can only assume she isn't getting enough nutrients from her vegan diet.  But I digress....  so Juliana disappears despite the married woman's cry for help.  Married woman roams outside needing help- in the snow, no less.  Collapses.  Ends up in the hospital.  Now I emphasize the drama and emotion here because the other lead NEVER appears.  Gone for months.  WTF.  We typically get a scene where one lead is hurt and the other saves her or nurses her back to health.  But these tramps foul it up completely.  One stabs her damn self and the other sulks alone somewhere.  Completely unredeemable shyte!!!  How can you just abandon the lover you claim to be so passionate about... when she's lying in the hospital and needs you?  And how can you still desperately want someone who would abandon you in this way?!  I'm sorry, but nothing the author created after that redeemed Lise's stupidity or Juliana's insensitivity.  Not the sex.  Not the Epilogue Pregnancy.  Why is someone ALWAYS pregnant in the stupid epilogue?!?  I swear Epilogue Pregnancy is starting to sound like a weird pregnancy disease...