First Star I See Tonight

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Hennepin County Library audiobook 9 CDs

Read by Nicole Poole

Genre: "romance" but with sex, not romance

 

Ugh. If you want a book that skips the romance and allure and just goes to the sex, you may enjoy this. I did not enjoy this book. My biggest question is why I kept listening to it when I fast-forwarded the sex scenes (they were that obnoxious) . . . as in he plans to "nail her" after they've been bickering . . . yuk. My middle sister said it was "pretty good," and I kept yelling at it in my car. "Stupid!" "Don't do it!" "Are you kidding me?!" Yet I listened to the end. . . what does that say about me as a reader? (Don't read the rest of this if you don't want ***spoilers***.)

 

Odds and ends:

• Cooper Graham - handsome, athletic, wealthy former quarterback with the Chicago Stars . . . which threw me, especially when the Chicago Bears were also mentioned. Then I realized that the story had a second fictional team in the same city as "Da Bears."
• Piper Dove - investigator who was not nurtured by her father. Mom killed when Piper was four. She had to buy her dad's business from her step mother for too much money after he died.  
• For a former pro athlete who's determined to make money in business, he certainly has bad money habits!
• Duh! Noah is jealous of Deidre and Cooper! How can you not see this?!
• Sleep on the sofa, you moron!
• Too Stupid!!! Why . . . .
  

What I liked:

• the mystery of Bernie seeing her deceased husband . . . and how that all turned out.
  
• some of Piper's tough guy persona (which was wiped out by the overdone sexuality of her interactions with Cooper)
• the part where they drove to Thunder Bay! The North Shore, Castle Danger, pie, lighthouse . . . loved this
• Jada and the Nerf war with her classmates
• I like that Jenn ended up with "Officer Hottie" - Eric.
  

 

But I just couldn't handle the overt sexuality wrapped in a "Cooper really cares about women's rights" and "Piper gets involved in helping to end sex trafficking." Really? And she steals and plants his SuperBowl ring with a mideast prince . . . ? And about a hundred other things that made me crazy. So glad I'm done with this. Next time, it goes back to the library the first time I say "Stupid!"