Review: Anyone But You

Title: Anyone But You
Author: Jennifer Crusie
Pages: 224
Rating: 4.5/5

For Nina Askew, turing forty means freedom—from the ex-husband whose career always came first, from their stuffy suburban home. Freedom to have her own apartment in the city, freedom to focus on what she wants for a change. And what she wants is something her ex always vetoed—a puppy. A bouncy puppy to cheer her up. Instead she gets…Fred.

Overweight, smelly and obviously suffering from some kind of doggy depression, Fred is light years from perky. But for all his faults, he does manage to put Nina face-to-face with Alex Moore, her gorgeous, younger downstairs neighbor.

Alex looks great on paper—a sexy, seemingly sane, surprisingly single E.R. doctor who shares Fred's abiding love for Oreos—but a ten-year difference in age, despite his devastating smile, is too wide a gap for Nina to handle. Ignoring her insistent best friend, some interfering do-gooders and the ubiquitous Fred—not to mention her suddenly raging hormones—Nina thinks anyone but Alex would be a better bet for a relationship. But with every silver-haired stiff she dates, the more she suspects it's the young dog-loving doctor she wants to sit and stay (Cover Blurb)!

I’m pretty sure my reading slump has a lot to do with needing a change in genres. I’ve been reading primarily young adult vampire fiction since the beginning of the year, with a few smatterings of books about wizards and demons. I had finished up Marked last week and started Betrayed and I’m still only about 90 pages into the story (despite this fact, I already like it better than Marked). What I decided to do was to sit that book down and go for something totally different and see if that helped.

About two years ago, I read Jennifer Crusie’s contemporary romance Bet Me and absolutely loved it. I ended up buying her whole back list where they sat and collected dust on my bookshelf. Last year, I picked up Agnes and the Hitman and devoured it in about 12 hours, stopping only to go to the bathroom. I really enjoy Crusie’s writing style and her stories are wonderful. Therefore, when I went for something different to read, I was instantly pulled to her books on the bookshelf.

Anyone But You is an absolutely adorable read. I started this book yesterday morning and if I wouldn’t have had to sleep, I would have finished it last night. I settled instead to finish it at lunch today. I loved it! The main characters of this novel are Nina and Alex, but really the hero of the whole book is Fred, the depressed, bottom heavy beagle basset mix dog that Nina picks up at the local animal control. I’m a huge dog person anyways, so it doesn’t surprise me that I latched onto him. His antics are the reason for Nina and Alex, and he’s the reason why I loved the book so much!

I think this is exactly what I needed. I’m going to start another contemporary type romance tonight and I think I’ll stick with these for a while :)