Liquid Silver Books, $3.95, ISBN 978-1-59578-350-9
Contemporary Romance, 2007
Attention, everyone!
I knew he was out there, too. He was my Twin Flame, my Split Apart, my Tantric Soul mate; the man who would love me madly, passionately, loudly.
The only reason why I haven’t been reduced into a trembling mess after the triple whammy of “soul mate” overdose is that the narrator, Gabby Browne, lives in LA. She’s one of those people who can’t be expected to behave like you and me, I suppose. Gabby is an aspiring actress whose only successful career move so far is her move into professional dog walking to make ends meet. Waiting for the Big One is her story.
What is the big one, you ask? Gabby thinks that it’s the Big O – the elusive wonderful kind rumored to rock a woman’s world until she can’t stand properly afterwards. Perhaps it’s the big love of one’s life, although this one can be quite muddled since there are two men jostling for her attention.
Derek Novello, the fitness instructor of the gym The Body Electric and Gabby’s platonic best friend, decides that it’s time to take their relationship from playful flirtation and harmless teasing to something more. Derek and Gabby are certainly attracted to each other, they both know it, but Gabby is convinced that their personalities won’t suit as lovers and sex, therefore, will ruin their friendship. Zach Harris has just moved to the apartment across Gabby’s block (their apartments will face each other) and he’s cute. Funny too. Gabby thinks that they can work something out, but Derek naturally begs to differ.
When I’m done with this book, I tell you, it will be too soon if I come across another horoscope reference. I think I’m now allergic to any mention of a zodiac sign. Gabby believes in horoscopes, which is fine with me, but yikes, every other paragraph in this book will have something about how so-and-so behaves this way because so-and-so is a Pisces or Scorpio or whatever. The constant relation of a character’s behavior or feelings to his or her zodiac sign occurs in such a ridiculous frequency here. As the story progresses, Gabby comes off more and more immature when she can’t see the obvious because she’s too blinded by the zodiac signs of the people around her. Oh, that guy has the right zodiac sign! He must be right for her! Believing in astrology is one thing, but it is when the heroine purposely blinds herself to everything else because she is too fixated on zodiac signs that she begins to annoy me big time.
Waiting for the Big One is a romance story written in a chick-lit manner, which is to say there are a few traditional romance genre rules that are broken in this particular book. Under any other circumstances I would probably enjoy this book. However, PG Forte inserts an overpowering idiosyncrasy or quirk in her story that irritates me after a while, so in the end I can never really get into the story as much as I’d like to. If I don’t come across the word “Scorpio” anytime soon, I’ll be most grateful.
