The book is a memoir of Ree Drummond, big city girl swept away by a smoldering, handsome cowboy. I've never been a regular follower of her blog, but out of curiosity, I watched all her new TV shows on Food Network, She is obviously and understandably proud of her family and her life so out of curiosity, I picked up her memoir from the library.
Right off the bat, the flowery paper, page after page, got a bit...flowery. But it went with her writing - she's a VERY feminine woman. She likes pretty clothes, shoes, makeup and as a young woman in her 20's, she's very concerned about her looks - again, comes with the territory. As the book went, the writing became excessive and detailed and just plain redundant very fast. She comes home to her parents' house from Los Angeles, and never seems to get a job and gets to stay there while aimlessly wondering (and wandering) if she's going to move on to her dream job(?) in Chicago. I couldn't really figure out what she was actually going to do once she got there. Then one magical night she meets "the Marlboro Man." (She never reveals his name; he is "the Marlboro Man" through the whole book! It got old the second time she used the pet name!) She meets him, talks to him for a few hours, never gives him her name, and they part ways. Several weeks later he magically calls her. Allrighty then.
SO they date and all she does every night is go to his house and eat dinner, watch movies and make out. She's writing in the sense of days, after several pages, only a two weeks have gone by. *Sigh. And in the midst of all this, she can't make up her mind if she's leaving or not, and never gets a job either. That really bothered me; no wonder past reviewers felt this memoir got so self-obsessed and exaggerated - she wasn't doing anything except hanging around her house and waiting for him to call her and then come pick her up or send her out gallavanting in the country to find his house some other out of the way location.
I don't doubt that she was swept off her feet by "the Marlboro Man." I don't doubt he's a gentleman and a great cowboy. I just have a hard time taking her seriously with all the over-the-top, flowery (not just the paper), extremely detailed narration of her romance. Not even halfway through I was getting tired of her indecisiveness about whatever was in Chicago and all the details about all their "dates" at his house. I finished the book out of sheer curiosity, honestly. I very much wish that the publisher would have quit with the flowery paper either just after the prologue or forward the first chapter. I also wish that she would have dropped the whole "Marlboro Man" deal after he magically called her back. He's got a name - make up a name if you want to protect him, but jeepers he has a NAME.
After finishing the book (and all six of her Food Network episodes), I still just have a hard time taking her seriously.
