Hating Valentine's Day (Red Dress Ink)

Rating:
Summary: Christmas Carol redux
Review: I have seen about four different tellings of the tale "Christmas Carol". I'm not that fond of it to begin with. When I found that this book is just a rip off of that tale, albeit Valentine's Day instead of Christmas, I was not a happy camper. In fact, I'm not sure I'm even gonna bother reading the rest of it. After all, I'm pretty sure I can guess how it ends.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, Fun Read
Review: I would actually give this book 4 1/2 stars. There were some(very few)slow spots in this book, but overall great book! I loved the main character's outlook on Valentine's day, it even went on to explore why she hated it so much. It showed the ghosts of Valentine's Day, just as a Christmas Carol does but much more interesting in my opinion.

This was a quick, fun read and I will be looking for other stuff by this author!


Rating:
Summary: chick lit meets Dickens
Review: Wedding photographer Liv Hetherington detests the rituals of Valentine's Day and for that matter dating in general. She vows this year to elude her matchmaking father, the nonsense of her boss, and the machinations of her best friend. She growls at those who think that Valentine's Day is a smashing success for the romantic. Declaring V for victory, this year Liv is making it bah humbug clear to those who throw Valentine's Day and dating in general at her.

However her negative ions are abruptly battered when the sixties great in crowd wedding photographer Mrs. Batty Smith comes from beyond to blithely inform Liv that she must change her attitude or be eternally wedded to the darkside. As Liv wonders what was in her food or water Batty-Smith avows that the spirits of Valentine Past, Present, and Future will come calling her. Each comes with a "video of her life with Past having been filmed, Present being filmed and Future filmed based on a trend analysis of her feelings.

Allison Rushby provides a delightful rendition of the Dickens' classic switching holidays so that the audience obtains a fresh fabulous fable. Liv is a delightful scrooge and the human support cast brings out the bah humbug to relationships attitude. The ghosts are wonderful as each is quite different so the audience will feel as if there are three shorts running through this fabulous tale.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Hating Valentine's Day
Review: You don't hear of Valetinine Scrooges, but they do exist; case in point, Liv Hetherington, a wedding photographer who has had it with V-day rituals and dating diseasters. Yet, when everyone who has been urging her into these romantic nightmares gives up on her, there is a strange let down until she discovers that Fate is willing to give her one last chance. Her "Marley" is the ghost of an old woman with the unlikely name of Mrs. Batty Smith, who informs her that three spirits will visit her to encourage her to change her ways. Cupid, aka, Valentines' Past, is sort of cute, albeit irksome. Valentines' Present is the ideal man, one that readers who like to play the book as a movie in their head will want to hit pause on when he comes around. The spirit of the Future- we won't go there. Suffice it to say, she outdoes Christmas Future on the scary level. With more humor than Dickens, readers are given an equally meaningful message that applies to any day, not just Valentine's Day.