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GIVE AND TAKE Anne Larence BET/Arabesque June 2000 (4) Melanie Schuster |
Contemporary Romance |
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PLOT SYNOPSIS: |
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REVIEW: |
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I have said it before and will continue to do so—if an author can make me feel so strongly about their characters that I want to take action, they have succeeded wildly. If I want to cheer for someone, fall in love with a hero or want to kick the stuffing out of a villain, I take my hat off to them. In this case, I wanted to pop the heroine in the head, so I would have to say that Give and Take was a smashing success for Anna Larence. Yvette and Derrick Williams are the quintessential buppie couple of our times—dual income with one child, living the nice life in the suburbs. But Yvette is longing for another child. They make enough money, she reasons and with Derrick’s savings they can easily expand their nest to accommodate another baby. Despite Derrick’s insistence that they wait until he has established himself in the business he plans to open, Yvette deliberately gets pregnant. And helps herself to a large portion of Derrick’s savings in order to facilitate the changes she deems necessary in their lives. Having proven herself disloyal and selfish, why is she surprised when Derrick moves out? The balance of the book is fairly predictable, centering mostly on Derrick and his rage at Yvette. Yvette is depicted as a spoiled, shallow selfish woman with no attributes save a beautiful face and a lush, plus sized figure. Derrick and Yvette do little more that bicker throughout the book. They do not get counseling—Derrick refuses. In the meantime, everyone lines up to take potshots at Yvette. Everyone, including her mother, seem to see her as being ridiculously spoiled and a real handful. My question as I was reading the book was why no one tried to pull her coattail before this? No one gets to be that spoiled and out of control all by themselves—they have the help of a lot of enablers. My other question was, why was Derrick such a prize? All he had done was talk about a new business for years and years—he never raised a finger to actually establish one. And he made no more effort to communicate his feelings that did his wife—they were, in my opinion equally to blame for the current situation. No, she should not have dipped in the savings, but once you have a character do something unforgivable like that you have to lessen the weight of the dirty deed or try to redeem a thoroughly unlikable person. This is particularly hard to do with a heroine. If the readers don’t like her on some level, the book is sunk. Derrick came off as too ineffectual to me, especially after an incident at a sales meeting involving a seductive female. And it seemed to me that too much of the blame was placed on Yvette, since in the end she had to literally beg this man to come home and had to give up everything including her house and car to make it happen. But that is what made the book compelling to me. This is the kind of book that engenders thought and discussion as well as tells an interesting story. Anna Larence is the kind of writer who does not mind taking a chance. There is no predictability in her writing—you never know what she is going to do next. Her short novel "The Preacher’s Wife" in the Mother’s Day anthology of a few years ago is my all-time favorite of her works. You will find a totally engaging and very sympathetic heroine and hero. But try AFTER HOURS and some of her other books—you will be amazed at the range of women and men you will meet in those pages! Whether you love Yvette and Derrick or you want to give them both a smack, this is one book you will not forget. |
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1st June 2000 |
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