I really don't like this author's writing style, but I like the characters in this series. I've seen some of the movies that have been made from Meg Cabot's books and I have to say they are definitely better than the books, which is weird. At first I thought maybe she was British and I just didn't 'get' her writing style. That's not the case. She's an American. She uses far too many dashes in her writing -- something I'm not really too keen on to begin with ever since I decided when I was in college I'd major in English and then Broadcasting -- to make me happy.

Isn't that hard to read? Why separate the sentence like that??!! That whole "to make me happy" thing to finish the sentence ... grrrr ... by the time I read all that was between the dashes I have forgotten how the sentence even started!

I read the second book in the series (Size 14 Isn't Fat Either) before I read this one. I'm not sure if I'll read the third Heather Wells Mystery or not. Depends on how desperate I get, probably. ( )

A lot of chick lit I really love: not this. I found the writing poor, the characters and conversations irritating. I read about 100 humourless, dull pages before throwing it aside. ( )

It was a little breezy, but a fun read. ( )

This was more like a 3.5 because it was very, very silly, but I was in a low mood and it cheered me up, so it gets another 1/2 star. The protagonist often verged on too much, but every time it reached that point, Cabot managed to dial it back. ( )

One of the commenters on my updates nailed it perfectly for why I really didn't care for this book. The character of Heather is not likable really in this one for me. We find out that the main reason she decides to take the job she does is to go to school (for free) to get a degree to make her more appealing to a man. And she's trying to prove how smart and capable she is to get this same man to fall in love with her like she is with him (this is her ex's brother). We also don't find out much about her backstory and instead choose to focus on her crush on her ex's brother and her justifying everything that she eats by saying size 12 is not fat. I mean that line must have been said almost 100 times during the course of this book.

I now recall why I could not get through this book the first time my friend gave this to me as a gift. The book does not do a good job of developing secondary characters besides Cooper (her ex's brother and P.I.) and the why behind the murders was pretty awful. And I have to say that Heather drove me nuts because her investigation skills were hilariously bad.

Heather is an ex-teen singing sensation who is now broke living with Cooper (her ex's brother) and working as an assistant dorm director at a college in New York. We find out slowly (seriously) that Heather is broke because her mom ran off with her money, that her label dropped her when she insisted on singing her own songs, and that her ex fiancee who is currently part of a boy band or former boy band (I could not keep that one straight) is still trying to force a continuation of their relationship. Between this and the murder mystery aspect it was just too much for the first book in the series.

The writing got old quick. Heather's constant comments about being a size 12 is not fat was headache inducing after a while. That and her describing Cooper, his leather jacket, what someone else looked like and her thinking if they were either too thin or her size. Apparently size 10s don't exist in this world or size 8s either. You are either a size 0, too skinny, or 12.

The flow of the book was terrible. We either have Heather investigating (quotes) obsessing about Cooper, obsessing about her ex, obsessing about her size, or trying to hide from her past in this one.

The setting of New York actually worked in this one very well. I got a good sense of where Heather lived and the dorm.

The ending was a bit of a mess actually. The reveal behind who dun it was all kinds of gross, and honestly I was thinking it may be this person due to process of elimination anyway.

I read this for the Twelve Tasks of the Festive Season: Task the Fourth: The Gift Card. ( )