{"id":1568,"date":"2009-07-07T22:07:52","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T03:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2025-07-31T11:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T16:40:25","slug":"this-books-kinda-giving-me-the-willies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/this-books-kinda-giving-me-the-willies\/","title":{"rendered":"This book’s kinda giving me the willies."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CoverAnd I\u2019m only 50 pages in.<\/p>\n

Right now I\u2019m reading The Actor and the Housewife<\/em><\/a>, and I just don\u2019t quite know what to think. Here\u2019s the blurb:<\/p>\n

What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list\u2014you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you\u2019d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it\u2019ll never happen it doesn\u2019t matter \u2026<\/p>\n

Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity hearththrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened \u2026 though nothing has happened.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t sexual. It isn\u2019t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what\u2019s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky\u2019s husband is pretty cool about it. Her children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special \u2026 something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it?<\/p>\n

A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife<\/em> explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This part is what gets me: \u201cIt isn\u2019t sexual.”<\/p>\n

My. Ass.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, look, Sister Hale. I realize that I shouldn\u2019t be coming to this novel from the perspective of a romance reader, because it\u2019s not a romance. (I know it\u2019s not because the library cataloging block told me it isn\u2019t. It says it\u2019s \u201cchick lit,\u201d and library cataloging blocks don\u2019t lie.) But I am<\/em> coming to it from a romance reader\u2019s perspective because it\u2019s whispering naughty thing in romance\u2019s ear at this point. Yet I don\u2019t know a die-hard romance reader in the world who wouldn\u2019t tear her hair out.<\/p>\n

Becky Jack (the main character) is, thus far, what we romance readers would call TSTL. Too Stupid To Live<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also? Flirting *kofffallinginlovekoff* with someone while you\u2019re happily married is a HUGE romance no-no.<\/p>\n

I had to take a break from the gore of this woman\u2019s squished IQ and blog it. I don\u2019t even know if I\u2019ll be able to finish the book, except \u2026<\/p>\n

I must<\/em> get back to the trainwreck that she is. I should turn my eyes away. Look somewhere else. But I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And I\u2019m only 50 pages in. Right now I\u2019m reading The Actor and the Housewife, and I just don\u2019t quite know what to think. Here\u2019s the blurb: What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list\u2014you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[521,531,553,539,543,94,95,551,424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-books-2","category-friends-to-lovers","category-genres","category-molit","category-religion","category-sex","category-tropes","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16867,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions\/16867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}