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Summary: Crusie gets better and better
Review: Jennifer Crusie has taken her trademark humor and added a more complex and believable set of characters, then thrown in a dash of suspense to cook up an excellent novel--perhaps her best.Nell Dysart is just out of a 22-year marriage and starts working for Gabe as office manager in Gabe's detective agency. There she tries to recreate the life she'd known, but Gabe is different (thank goodness) from Nell's ex Tim and fights back when she attempts to manipulate his life. They can't fight the attraction, however. Crusie throws in parallel relationships between Gabe's cousin Riley and Nell's sister-in-law Suzanne and Gabe and Nell's college-aged children. All have to deal with similar issues of control and power and all deal with them in different ways. Nell and Gabe don't get to be too settled down as an old mystery starts to unravel around them. The two get caught up in blackmail, arson, dog-napping, and murder. While they're battling each other, you know they're fighting for each other as well. I liked the fact that Crusie let the humor come out of the characters and situations rather than force it. The exception is the opening sequence when Nell virtually destroys Gabe's office. This sequence was very funny, but it hinted at a character very different from the competent Nell we soon met. Crusie takes full advantage of the freer format of the single title novel to introduce older characters (both Nell and Gabe are in their 40s), and sexual contacts outside of the pairing (Nell even makes out with Suzanne in a very funny scene). I very much enjoyed this novel and recommend it without hesitation.
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Summary: Fun, but a disappointment
Review: Pity poor Jennifer Crusie, having to live up to the wild, sexy ride of "Welcome To Temptation." As a fan of hers who has read every book she has written, I was anxious to get my hands on "Fast Women." And while I admit to enjoying it, and reading it in one sitting, it was a little bit like Chinese food. lots of anticipation, great tasting, but less than filling. The premise was great, the story started out well, but somewhere in the middle it just faded away. There wasn't enough emphasis on the main character's romance, the secondary romance was expected, but highly disappointing, seemingly tacked on, as was the murder mystery. There was no mystery, the culprit was obvious. While "Fast Women" was better than the average romance/suspense, it was far from up to Ms. Crusie's usual standard. But you can bet I'll be first in line when her next book debuts.
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Summary: Not Her Best Effort
Review: Jennifer Cruisie is an incredibly compelling writer. However, this book is sub-par for her. It's supposed to be part mystery, part comedy and part romance. It fails on all three levels. Even at the end, when the villan is revealed, he seems tacked on, how he could have known about certain events is unexplained, three people are dead and I'm still not sure who killed them. It fails as a comedy, not even the dog character is amusing. It fails as a romance because it reads like a diatribe on "marriage as a trap for the unwary" as well as because the reader gets no sense of why Nell loves Gabe or why Gabe loves Nell. Gabe is a complete cardboard character. The only things we know about him are that he is tall, dark-haired,in his 40's and resistent to change. That is not a fleshed-out character. I agree with the author 100% that getting married should be more difficult (too many get married without enough forethought) but writing a book about how awful marriage can be and marketing it as a romance is a bad idea. At the end of the book I got the feeling that Nell and Gabe would be divorced in 5 years, maximum. The author can tell a story beautifully, she just needs to tell better stories. Who needs help being depressed? And she should get her characters the heck out of Ohio. Obviously, it is a hotbed of sordid and adulterous activity.
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Summary: Fast Women no Temptation
Review: Jennifer Crusie's story of three friends' struggle with life and marriage (and murder) is witty and thought provoking, albeit no match for Welcome to Temptation. My audio book version of Temptation is so worn from use I'm ordering another as a Mother's Day present to myself. No such danger here. Several times while listening to this audio-book I wanted to smack Nell. Conversely, second-character Riley inspired different, ah, emotions. The story's best pattern (pun intended) was the symbolism represented by the characters' taste in china. Now I know why I wasn't jealous when my older sister got grandma's china. Thank you Ms. Crusie for a lovely story, keep it up!
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Summary: I want a friend like Nell!!
Review: What a magic book!! I usually breeze through a book in a couple of days--this one, I stretched out for a week--I didn't want to let these characters go!! I am really going to miss Nell and Gabe and Jase and Lu and Suze and Chloe and Riley!! Oh--and, of course, Marlene!!
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Summary: Not even done reading it...
Review: and I love it, I just have to recommend it! The characters are wonderful, the story line has humor, a little romance, and it's in all the right places. I am so glad I found this author! i just reread the book, because i wanted to have fun again! i recommended my dad buy this book for my mom for her birthday and can't wait to discuss it with her.
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Summary: janeto
Review: I've read Ms Crusie's other books and couldn't wait for this one to be published. I was disappointed. I was looking for the true-to-life, funny, predictable situations from "Tell Me Lies" and they weren't there. I sure hope J.C. goes back to her tried and true format with her next book.
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Summary: Fast Women--Fast Reading!
Review: It's amazing how Jennifer Crusie can write book after book that reaches out and pulls you into a fascinating world of off beat characters. In Fast Women, Crusie introduces three women, all going through some type of personal crisis. It starts out with Nell, a woman who worked by her husband and helped build his business and career from the ground up. Just when their child is grown and the business successful beyond expectations-you got it-he dumps her and ends up marrying a younger woman. Nell has spent 18 months struggling to get her act back together. Now she ready to resume her life with a new job. Unfortunately she picks a detective agency to apply at recommended by her former brother-in-law. Her interview and what can happen is hilarious. Her boss is Gabe, a strong dynamic force that wants things done his way, not Nell's way. The battle begins. Next up is Suze. She's the child bride who married a man twenty something years older than she. You would think being wife number three or four, you would have a clue this man wasn't the type to be faithful. But no, Suze hasn't a clue because her man has stayed with her after she turned thirty, unlike with the previous wives, so it must be true love. After fourteen years of marriage, she's still being treated like the child bride. Suze wants to be independent and make her own money, but hasn't the faintest idea how to go about it since hubby has always taken care of her. The last friend is Margie. She's the rich daughter who had witnessed the traumatic death of her mother. Margie's husband skipped out on her after embezzling over a million dollars from daddy's firm. Margie hasn't seen or heard from hubby in over seven years, yet she refuses to declare him legally dead. Why? She might just have to make some decisions in her life-something she's not good at. While Fast Women doesn't sizzle like Crusie's last novel, Welcome to Temptation, I found it to be just as good. The three female characters make the perfect group. If you haven't met one of them, you've heard of someone just like them. There's romance, sex, and mystery in this novel. Give it a read, it's worth the time.
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Summary: deeper than Temptation; still good fun
Review: I really admire and enjoy Crusie's novels. This one is less of a romp than Temptation and more thought provoking, but wonderfully constructed and written, as usual. Definitely a keeper.
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Summary: Not your typical contemporary romance.
Review: Jennifer Crusie is one of those writers I buy the second she comes out with a new book, and this was no exception. I read it in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. For Crusie fans, it's not as good as "Welcome to Temptation" (what could be?), but it's better than "Tell Me Lies." Crusie's trademark writing is as good as ever - hilarious dialouge, hot love scenes, well-drawn cast of leading and secondary characters, fast-paced plot. Nevertheless, this is something more than the usual contemporary romance. I thought that the mystery at the core of the plot was exceptionally good. They are usually so predictable in romance novels, but this one had some twists that kept me guessing. Second, this book is really a pretty good study of the emotional chaos created by infidelity and divorce. It takes a very honest look at the various stages women go through, including the immediate post-divorce insanity. While all of this makes for a well-rounded book, serious romance novel addicts will be disappointed that there isn't more focus on the relationship between the two lead characters.
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