Book Review: Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I swear that hand looks like a foot. CREEPY

At First Sight: Meg Koranda was expected to arrive at her best friend Lucy's rehearsal diner and think that the groom was perfect and basically walked on water in his spare time, just like everyone else thinks. And he was perfect...perfectly wrong for Lucy who is so used to people pleasing that she hadn't stopped to think that he wasn't what she wanted. 

So, with spectacular bad timing, Lucy calls the wedding off and bolts, and Meg is left stuck in the groom's hometown (where everyone regards him as god), broke and homeless while Mr. Irresistible Ted Beudine goes out of his way to make her life hell. 

Ted is mad as hell and he's taking it all out on Meg, even if she's the only one who's telling things as they are, telling him he's not perfect, even if she's the one person who makes him feel almost normal again. 

Second Glance: There is one reason why I finished this book: because it was written by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and I figured that if someone could pull this off it was her. But I was sadly mistaken. The only likable characters in this story are Meg and Lucy. Everyone else is slightly cartoonish and Grade-A Assholes. 

Everyone blames Meg's for Lucy's choice because honestly no one can fathom why anyone would dump the self-righteous prig that Ted Beaudine is. I never got what was so irresistible about Ted, he's smart but lots of people are smart(er), and he was handsome but then apparently ever male in town was, he was the son of celebrities, so were Lucy and Meg. 

At one point Meg says she's tired of feeling unworthy, but she's the most normal, likable person around. Like I said before, everyone else is mounted on their high horses - and I do mean everyone else in town, these supposedly awesome characters coming back from other books - and acting downright mean and underhanded. They sucked 98% of the book, going as far as to pimp Meg to this rich old guy whom they all want to invest in the town and telling her she has to put up with it because she owes them and Ted.

There is this Star Wars quote that says something like "You're quick to believe the worst of the people you love, that's a problem." and it fits this book to a tee. Everyone who supposedly loves Meg turns against her, completely overlooking that to her Ted is a stranger she just met and that her loyalty lies with Lucy and that Lucy is a capable woman of 31, even Lucy's family fails to see this. And the one time Ted fails them, all the people who made him patron saint of his hometown are even more unforgiving on him -I almost felt sorry for him, but not quite because he's a jerk.

Bottom Line: Call Me Irresistible is not a book I can recommend much, other than if you already are a SEP fan and know she can do better. It's few redeeming points: Meg makes her own way, and she makes damn sure Ted grovels before the end - though it was too little groveling considering all the stuff he and the town put Meg through - and the fact that I'm interested enough to check out Lucy's upcoming story.

(because I can't give less, and because I did finish the book, much as I thought I wouldn't)