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Book Review of Out of this World

Out of this World
reviewed on + 55 more book reviews


Ava Ward and Arnie Simpson are the smartest people around - and unable to hook up with someone that fully satisfies them as a result. Men can't get past Ava's job, and women invariably fail Arnie's intelligence test. When they meet up before their friends' wedding, sparks and misunderstandings fly. Their chemistry is undeniable, but it gets more than a little unexpected attention.

I'll say up front, I'm a fan of this author. I've read a number of her books and enjoyed them immensely, so I was really looking forward to this. However, by halfway through, I just wanted it to be over with already, and I finished it relieved that I actually made it. The humor that has delighted me in other works felt incredibly heavy-handed and overdone in this. Arnie in particular annoyed me. Practically every other line of dialogue of his started with, "I suggest..." whether or not it fit the meaning of the sentence or not. His perspective as well was riddled with over the top space metaphors and analogies, making it a chore to figure out what he was thinking, and his automatic assumption that Ava was an alien was ludicrous. Ava was handled much better, but even though I liked her and felt her reactions far more genuine and understandable, it wasn't nearly enough to save this story for me.