Succulent and Hot

Having never been compensated for the thousands of hours I’ve spent reading over the course of my lifetime, I decided to write some book reviews for a publishing company.  May as well be paid for what I do anyway. 

So I set aside ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ the book I wanted to read with my ninth grade daughter for her pre-AP English class - I mean, Charles Dickens is an ok writer and all, but books filled with layers of deep literary meanings can cause unnecessary headaches - and instead picked up the first book I had been asked to review.

Granted, I am an English teacher by (former) trade. And a bit of a book snob. Plus I’ve never been a fan of over-the-top descriptions of gazebos and butterflies and wardrobe ensembles and sexy yard boys or cliché phrases or shallowly developed characters or formulaic plots.

So perhaps this particular murder mystery wasn’t the best fit for me.

But I had committed to review it and figured I should probably read the book in its entirety before writing the review.  So I read, flowery language and all.

And figured I had pretty much memorized the author's descriptive words and phrases until I got to the french fry.

The heroine – a beautiful, young, well-dressed self-appointed sleuth who does a better job of figuring out who the killer is than the police chief assigned to the case – is eating lunch at a restaurant with her astonishingly tan and good-looking husband.

With the exception of a name change, this is a direct quote from the book. Anything less would surely not do it justice:  

Tessa poked a succulent, hot French fry into ketchup she had laced with fresh black pepper. [a few lines of dialogue wherein she and her husband are attempting to untangle the messy business of murder] Annie ate the French fry, absently noting that it was lukewarm.

I laughed out loud.  I admit it.

If someone were to put a gun to my head (which actually happens to the heroine at the end of this book, sorry for the spoiler) and forced me to answer how I'd distinguish between a good "light" read and - well, something that simply wasn't good - I’d have to draw the line somewhere well before using the adjectives 'succulent' and 'hot' in the same sentence.   To describe french fries at least.

Those two particular adjectives - used together - conjure up entirely different images which would be wholly inappropriate for me to discuss in this post.

It must be the book snob in me, because clearly not everyone draws the same line. This book is number twenty in a murder mystery series. People buy these books. They like them. They wait anxiously until a new one is released.  I have published exactly zero books and can hardly cast aspersions on an author who has published upwards of thirty.

That being said, I'm sincerely looking forward to reading ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ Bring on the literary layers and headaches as long as they are free of succulently hot french fries.

Speaking of which, I'm suddenly starving. Who wants to join me for lunch?  Somehow I feel like a burger and fries.  We'll have to eat the fries fast, though - it won't do to let them get lukewarm.