Book #45: The Bride Wore Size 12 by Meg Cabot

This is the last of the Heather Wells mysteries, and probably the most mundane of the murders she investigates. An RA dies in the hall before the new school year even starts, and nobody is sure what happened. And by mundane, I don't mean the story itself is boring--it's just the least sensational and most normal/likely sounding of the murders that have happened in Heather's residence hall. There's also the added storyline of Heather's engagement and wedding preparations with Cooper, which keeps things moving in the right direction.

Also, honestly, I'm a little over these "Size 12/14" titles. As much as I enjoyed the books, these titles seem so demeaning and belittling--like that's all that matters about Heather is that she wears a size 12. I know that Cabot is probably trying to do the opposite--but it doesn't come across that way. The book itself doesn't REALLY talk about sizes all that much--and I feel like by this book she's stopped talking as much about what she eats and what she weighs--maybe because she's in a fulfilling and happy relationship, so she doesn't have to think that much about it any more?--but the title doesn't accurately reflect that and doesn't really show what the book(s) are about.

Book #44: Size 12 and Ready to Rock by Meg Cabot

This book may have been my favorite of the Heather Wells mysteries. Heather's past as an ex-pop star comes more into the front of this story, which gives it more depth and gives some side characters a lot more interesting personalities than they seemed to have originally. When she was a rich and famous teenie pop star, Heather dated the son of her record producer, Jordan Cartwright, but they broke up when she found out he was cheating on her with their new up-and-coming star, Tania Trace (and that's when she left the whole music scene altogether). But now she's engaged to Jordan's brother, Cooper (who's not much in touch with his family) and turns out that Tania Trace's tween rock star summer camp is happening in Heather's dorm over the summer, so she has to deal with Tania and all of Jordan's family--while trying to figure out who is trying to kill Tania and almost succeeding.

The thing I really liked about this book was how it stopped portraying Tania and Jordan as one-dimensional, ditzy, boring characters, and showed that they had souls and insecurities and that they were human. She'd always thought of them as idiots and only caring about superficial things, but as she (and we) got to know them and Tania's past, they became much more sympathetic characters--which I felt made the story so much more interesting. The mystery was pretty creepy and realistic too, with the creepy stalker-type factor, so I thought this book added an interesting twist to the series.

Book #43: Big Boned by Meg Cabot

Heather Wells does it again in this book, where her brand new boss is shot in the back of the head while sitting in his office in "Death Dorm," where people just can't stop dying. Heather suddenly finds herself as one of the suspects this time, so she has no choice but to try to investigate.

There's not much more to say about this one, other than it's more of the same as the previous two--funny, quick, light-hearted, Heather solves the crime. I enjoyed it just as part of the overarching storyline in Heather's life and job.

Book #42: Size 14 Is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot

This is the second book in the Heather Wells series. After solving the murders in the first book, Heather thought they were in the clear--until one morning someone finds a cheerleader's head in a pot on the stove in the dorm kitchen. Nobody knows what happened to her or to the rest of her body--so Heather starts trying to figure it out. She gets much more over-the-top involved in this one--she goes undercover into a fraternity to investigate the guys she suspects there, she involves a student that she's befriended to help her, and she ends up in a dangerous situation in the end after she's figured out who it was. Thank goodness for her or else nobody would know who did it!

The other funny aspect of this series is Heather's obsession with her landlord and ex-boyfriend's brother, Cooper. She is totally in love with him even though she paints a picture of him as being totally unreachable and unattainable: smart, educated, hardworking, mysterious, into artsy things and not reality TV--and yet he's obviously interested in her even though she's kind of the opposite in every way. I don't know if the whole romance is totally believable to me--mainly because since we're inside Heather's head, and she sounds kind of ditzy, in a fun and friendly way, but not in a way that Cooper would really be interested in her. But oh well--it's still fun to read.

Book #41: Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot

I read basically all of the Princess Diaries series when I was in high school, and always enjoyed Cabot's easygoing and fun writing style. While I was in Utah, I found out about the Oyster reading app, and downloaded the free trial--and read all five of her mysteries with heroine/amateur sleuth Heather Wells. Size 12 Is Not Fat is the first one--and you wouldn't have any idea what the book was about from its title. Heather Wells is a washed up pop star who lost her recording contract when she gained weight and her money when her mom ran off with her agent and her savings, so she ends up getting a job as an assistant residence hall director at New York City College. I loved this backstory and persona for Heather--I thought that was a super interesting and hilarious aspect of the story. But the main plot actually had nothing to do with Heather's past--it revolved around her trying to figure out what happened to several kids who died falling down the elevator shafts in her building. It doesn't feel like she gets obnoxiously involved, but she just does her job and keeps stumbling on questions and problems--and she ends up solving the mystery and finding out who is murdering people and why--and ends up getting in serious danger at the end with the murderer as well.

Like I said, Cabot's style is so funny and easy to read, it really feels like you are in Heather Wells' head and that you get to know her specifically as you read the book. She's got insecurities about things (like her body, as you might imagine from the title) but she's also really funny and frank about them and doesn't mind admitting that she eats cream-cheese-and-bacon bagels every morning for breakfast and that she wears Spanx when she needs to.

Book #40: The One by Kiera Cass

After America's obnoxious ambivalence about her two suitors in the previous two books in this trilogy, I was ready for her to make a decision (and luckily, she HAD to, since this was the last book). However, Cass was determined to turn America into a sort of Katniss overthrowing-the-evil-government figure and got her into developing and meeting with all these rebel groups even as she's deciding (spoiler-but-not-really) that she wants to marry Maxon and take on the responsibility of being a princess. I just didn't really understand the rebel groups in the whole series--they were really terrible at what they were doing and it wasn't clear at all what they wanted. It was seriously contrived and didn't feel like a real conflict at all. I know I've said this in the last two posts about the other books in this series, but that was the main problem about these books--they would have been a lot stronger with a much more condensed plot and a lot less convoluted journey to the climax. I think the main idea behind the original book was interesting, but this money-grubbing idea to turn everything into trilogies that everyone has lately really ruined what promise it had. But in the end, America ends up with Maxon (after one final huge rebellion) and they live supposedly happy ever after. And, to be fair, I felt like Cass's writing style improved over the three books, and even though I didn't ever love how she wrote, her dialogue stopped making me want to hit her and it was much easier to get through by the end (or maybe I was just desensitized to how bad it was).

I know I'm making it sound like these books were terrible, but obviously they weren't that bad because I finished all three of them. I guess that's the thing about these love-triangle stories--even when there are lots of annoying things about them, it's hard to put them down until you know what happens.

Book #39: The Elite by Kiera Cass

I can't honestly say why I decided to read through this book. It's been over a week since I finished it and I can't remember anything about it--other than America just goes back and forth between her two love interests, Aspen and Maxon, and cannot make up her mind about which one she wants--and they both still apparently really love her and are perfectly happy waiting while she just tells them she needs more time. I really didn't buy the whole love triangle here--Aspen definitely wasn't very developed as a character and her problems with Maxon seem very contrived (he's forced to abide by the laws of his country, as the prince, and do things she disagrees with, so therefore she gets mad at him). Mainly, this book shouldn't even exist, since this series should really have just been ONE book instead of three, so there wasn't enough action to keep it going. And yet I finished!

Book #38: The Selection by Kiera Cass

I have seriously seen this book around for a year or more, and never forgotten it because of that unforgettable cover (such a beautiful dress!). But I've avoided it because after I read the blurbs about it I decided not to read it--all I kept seeing about it was that it was a cross between the Hunger Games and the Bachelor--and the main character is named America Singer. That seriously is enough to turn me off. America Singer? That is the dumbest thing I've heard in forever. But my sister-in-law Kristen persuaded me to read it, if only to make fun of it with her, and it seemed like the perfect beach read while we were hanging out at Bear Lake all week for the Leininger family reunion. So I read it, and on the one hand hated it and on the other hand really enjoyed it--enough that I did end up reading the next two in the trilogy (although it TOTALLY should not have been made into a trilogy--seriously only had enough material to be one book).

In this dystopian version of future America, a monarchy has been set up and the masses are divided into numbered castes, each caste being assigned a specific career path (the higher castes getting the better jobs and more money). The prince, in order to choose a bride, has a Queen Esther/Cinderella type lottery for all the young women in the land to submit themselves as his potential new princess. So of course America Singer, a 5 and a musician, submits herself, despite the fact she's madly in love with Aspen (seriously, these names), and she's chosen as one of the few to go to the palace and meet prince Maxon to see if she's the prince's bride. She meets Maxon and immediately goes into angry chick mode, fighting with him and somehow making him fall in love with her anyways, and they become friends despite the situation. America stays at the palace as one of the prince's favorites as the pool narrows down.

There are so many ridiculous things about this book that it's hard to describe it all at once. The thing I hated the most was how obnoxious the dialect was. Cass obviously does not know how to talk if that's how she thinks normal conversations between people go. When she meets Prince Maxon for the first time, he calls her "my dear," and she says something like, "Don't call me your dear when you're keeping me in your gilded CAGE!" Seriously? Also, the whole plotline seemed pretty far-fetched to be set in the future--sure, maybe that happened in Queen Esther's time, but a super-strict caste system and lottery for the prince in future America? And Cass's version of American history is completely hilarious--America gets so in debt to China that China invades and makes it the American State of China until people revolt and set up the monarchy of Illea. Yes, that seems very logical and believable. I really shouldn't have liked it at all, but for some reason I was driven to find out what happened between America and Maxon (because she obviously will end up with him, despite her dumb obsession with Aspen), so I kept reading the sequels despite it all. This was the best plot of the three books, but probably the worst writing of the three (she seems to get better as time goes on).