Call me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I am on a Susan Elizabeth Phillips binge. The last three books I read to completion have been by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I think I am now firmly apart of the SEP fan base

Call Me Irresistible is about a young woman, Meg Koranda, who convinces her best friend, Lucy Jorik, to ditch the perfect man, Ted Beaudine at the alter. Lucy complies, and Meg is left ditched without money in the small town of Wynette Texas and forced to work her as a maid to cover a hotel bill she was unable to pay. The town hates her for the canceled wedding, but he manages to move from humiliating situation to humiliating situation with enough grace to earn the respect of the small town.

There were a few other subplots that kept the book moving forward. The town was in need a large construction project, a new golf course, and Ted had to court a business man to convince him to build there. The business man was a older rich man who took an interest in Meg because of her famous parents. The business mans daughter took an interest in Ted. There were some awkward dinner dates with the four of them of which Ted and Meg had to string them along both professionally and personally while Ted and Meg were falling in love. The business man really creeped out Meg for obvious reasons, and Ted ending up having to beat him up in a scene that acted as the climax of the book.

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In the end, Ted falls in love with Meg after a period of casual rebound lovemaking, and they decide to marry. There was a pronounced declaration of love first, of course.

Meg Koranda was the daughter of Jake Koranda and Fleur Savagar from another SEP book, Glitter baby, which I found interesting. Apparently a few of the other side characters had other SEP novels of their own, and were given weight like I should have recognized them.

There were a few parts of the book that really bewildered me. I knew when I picked up the book that Meg and Ted would end up together, but it didn’t play out like for the first 150 pages of the book. I was actually looking forward to seeing how the author was going to pull that out because they were almost mortal enemies through the first act. The answer was unconvincing. They ended up their casual lovemaking arrangement after an accidental kiss that neither character could explain. Its almost like they knew that they had to fall in love, and they decided to start falling in love just because that’s the thing that comes next. It wasn’t natural, and the romance didn’t have any context to it. Ted was awful to her, and Meg was acidic in response. He wasn’t awful in an aloof bad boy way either. He was contradictory and mean spirited.

Another part that lost me was Lucy’s blessing. Right before Meg and Ted hooked up, Meg called Lucy to ask for her permission first. Lucy was forthcoming and in approval. Sure, the book would have been a lot more interesting if Lucy said no, but the plot was already too convoluted and too absent of Lucy to add that dimension to her character.

The whole “Win a Date with Ted” thing I found completely extra and unnecessary.  It didn’t add any scenes in the book, nothing to their journey, and acted as a false climax to an already eventful plot line. Sure it added tension, but all it did was put the tension in the wrong place. You expected Meg and Ted to have a fantastic reunion in San Francisco and fall in love again, and when it doesn’t end up that way, their love story loses all steam. I mean, the “Win a Date with Ted” contest was hinted at throughout almost the entire book. It was foreshadowed like crazy. Then it fell flat. When they actually meet up again in New York City 20-30 pages later, it feels like too little too late.  I know SEP is trying to avoid rom-com cliques but c’mon. If she was going to go that route, she should have taken a red pen through the entire story line.

The plot with Haley breaking into her house and terrorizing her house could have been edited out as well.

The last and most troubling aspect of the book was the conflict in Meg and Teds relationship. Meg found him too robotic, too practical. Her chief complaint was that his lovemaking was too analytical. He was a systematic lover and she found him to be not compulsive enough. She wanted him to be lost in the lovemaking, drunk with her sex. In the end, the lovemaking that satisfied her seemed a little rape-y. I found the narrative of the book didn’t articulate this frustration well, and in the end, sounded immature. She sounded like someone who had the perfect relationship but had to find something to gripe about because, well, she gripes about everything.

Despite my minor complaints, I really enjoyed the book. I love reading about gallent acts of social valor, rough men sticking up for their women, and fabulous country clubs to boot. Sure, the book could streamlined the plot a little, but the reading experience was worth it. Only in books like these can such lazy layabouts land such perfect men.