Story for the Week
It is estimated that becoming proficient in the English language requires more than 1,000 hours of study. While not the hardest language to learn (that title apparently belongs to Mandarin), English’s idiosyncrasies definitely make it difficult.
I majored in journalism in college and minored in English and psychology. Prior to college, I worked on my high school newspaper. I’m an avid reader (duh), so you could say words are my jam. When Corinne was in middle school, she submitted an essay for National Junior Honor Society. Two of her friends asked their language arts teacher to review their essays and expressed shock that Corinne didn’t do the same. Corinne responded that her mother majored in journalism. She didn’t need to have the teacher review it because I already had.
Not to toot my own horn, but (ok, maybe tooting) there are things in English that come easy to me that stump a lot of other people—effect and affect, who and whom, lose and loose, when to use I versus me, its and it’s. I have to admit, I can’t for the life of me understand why those last two examples are so difficult, but like I said, words are my jam. For years, I had a boss who would ask me to check “effect” and “affect” for her, even after we stopped working together.
Fast forward to today. My Gen Z daughter may leverage my background to help with essays, but she totally schools me about the new phrases that seem to pop up in every generation. I know we Gen Xers had our own quirks—take a chill pill, yuppie, gnarly 🤦🏻♀️, dude (I still use that one on almost a daily basis, usually in traffic).
When Corinne was younger, I learned most of the new phrases from TV shows she watched. VICTORiOUS taught me that “sick” was a good thing, “wazz” meant going to the bathroom, “no chizz” meant no 💩. But I feel like I learn new words and phrases from Corinne every few months. A couple of years ago, I would hear her talking to her friends, and one of them would randomly say “slay,” telling someone they did something good.
She still says slay, but this year, they “eat” or they “ate that up” or they “cooked” when they do something well. So when Corinne texted me to tell me “definitely just ate up that calc test” and “I also just cooked up HI,” she meant aced the test and performed well at speech. But then a few weeks ago, she told me something “was cooked,” and it didn’t sound good. I asked her to clarify. Apparently, if someone or something does the cooking, that’s good, but if someone or something IS cooked, that’s a bad thing? 🤯
In one of our recent conversations, I educated her about the phrase “out of pocket” after I saw a TikTok video about a misunderstanding in an office. I asked her what the phrase means to her, and she said it means someone is acting wildly or inappropriately. I explained to her that one of the meanings refers to out-of-pocket expenses, which made perfect sense to her.
Then I told her about the TikTok video where younger people in an office could not figure out why one of the older people wrote in her out-of-office message that she would be “out of pocket.” To them, it sounded like she was going to get wild and crazy on her vacation when, in reality, she just meant that she wouldn’t be able to be reached. No cap. (That means “no lie” or “for real” for those of you not in the know. 😉)
The older I get, the more often recent slang terms creep into the books that I read. Sometimes they work, and sometimes…they don’t.
Book Review
⭐⭐½
2.5 Stars for Tamed to Be Messy by Dineen Miller
287 pages
Publication Date: May 28, 2024
I received an advance copy of this title from the author.
Publisher’s Description
He’s always played the field. But when an off-limits beauty is running his rehab, will this injured beach patrol hero flee or swim to friendly shores?
My life used to have meaning. Born with a silver spoon in my mouth I quickly spat out, I defied my parents, dropped out of law school, and became a lifeguard. What can I say? I love the surf, the sand, and helping others.
But that was before the accident.
My rotator cuff is torn so badly I may have to quit the career that gives me so much joy. I’ve got a grueling rehabilitation ahead of me with no guarantee it will be successful. Good thing my physical therapist is amazing. Not only has she promised me a return to full range of motion, she’s easy on the eyes, making the painful exercises worth it. There’s just one problem:
She’s my best friend’s kid sister.
Last time I saw her, she was an eighteen-year-old wild-child with pigtails and a wiggly puppy in her arms. Now, that naïve independent streak has matured into bold confidence. And the way she looks at me makes it obvious she’s glad we’re getting reacquainted.
With my future on the line and us spending so much time together, I know I’ve got to keep this strictly professional. Because if her brother ever thought my treatment plan involved us becoming more than friends, I’d be the one in need of rescue.
So what’s it going to be? My career or my heart?
Is there any way to have both?
************
Main Characters:
- Nick Lawless – lifeguard recovering from rotator cuff surgery, needs physical therapy so he can recertify in nine weeks, strained relationship with his parents who are high-profile attorneys and disappointed he dropped out of law school
- Hannah McCarthy – physical therapist for humans and animals, originally went to veterinary school, had a crush on Nick when she was a teenager
- Graham McCarthy – Hannah’s older brother, Nick’s best friend, also a lifeguard, insists that Nick see her for his physical therapy but also the one who has always told Nick she is “off limits”
- Liam McCarthy – Graham and Hannah’s oldest brother, owns the pet store next to Hannah’s new office
I discovered Dineen Miller through one of the Facebook reading groups I belong to. I signed up for her newsletter (probably for a giveaway), and she recently sent an e-mail to her subscribers asking if anyone wanted to be an ARC reader for her upcoming book. I read a lot of ARCs and had room in my schedule, so I opted in.
Tamed to be Messy is the third stand-alone novel of Miller’s Messy Love on Mango Lane series. A clean romance telling the story of lifeguard Nick Lawless and physical therapist Hannah McCarthy, I found it to be a quick, sweet read. That said, I’m not sure that I will read other books by this author.
Told in alternating points of view between Nick and Hannah, readers know both are secretly attracted to one another. Hannah’s brother Graham has always told Nick that Hannah is off limits because Nick is a player. Hannah has always had a crush on Nick but is worried about getting hurt like she did by her last boyfriend Bryan.
I enjoyed the complexities that Miller built into the story line. Nick keeps his parents’ wealth a secret, and when they limit his access to his trust fund, it forces him to confront them about a program he wants to finance. Hannah finds herself in a confrontation with a pet owner who abandoned his pet outdoors, and she enlists Nick’s help to bring the dog back to full health and mobility.
Between Nick’s therapy sessions and working with the dog, we know he and Hannah will get together. This is a romance. Of course they’re getting together. It’s not a romance without a happily ever after.
I did have some challenges with the story though. Let’s start with Nick. Graham and Liam know him as a player. While he acknowledges his past, he allows his friends to believe it even though he hasn’t dated in a while. Why?!?! If you’ve changed and are a better person than you used to be, why wouldn’t you want your best friends to know and believe that about you? Why would you allow them to continue to think poorly of you?
He also hides from his friends that he has a trust fund. His boss is the only one who knows he has money because Nick uses it for altruistic projects to help the turtles. At one point though, Nick says that life got tough when he spit out that silver spoon, but he doesn’t regret it at all. He has a trust fund! So he didn’t really spit out the silver spoon. It’s not like his parents cut him off financially. They just put his money into a trust and made him work with a financial advisor to spend it. They only cut access after his accident.
I also wish there had been a prologue that introduced Nick’s accident as the impetus for his change. The accident is mentioned several times with no details about why it was so bad. I can only assume that it happened in a previous book in the series, but it would have been helpful to hear more about this potentially career-ending incident. In regard to the desire to no longer be a player, I would expect a pretty significant life event to make someone stop being a serial dater. That would have been great character development for Nick. As it is, he’s a decent guy at the beginning and a decent guy at the end.
Now let’s talk about Hannah who last saw Nick six years prior to the beginning of the story when she left for veterinary college at 18. We learn over the course of the book that she decided about two years in to switch to physical therapy, which would have taken another three years minimum. When she graduated, she got a job with a sports medicine group, and she just returned home to Sarabella and opened her own practice a couple months prior.
Hannah claims to have helped several professional athletes get back to full health when other therapists would have said there was nothing more they could do. She also claims that she is one of the few physical therapists who can help Nick get back into condition to pass his lifeguard recertification. At most, Hannah has been a licensed and practicing physical therapist for a year, so I find that very hard to believe. It would be better to have her not be so much younger than her brothers and to have her working with professional athletes under the tutelage of a premier sports medicine physician for several years.
Finally, if the author is going to try to write young, 20-something characters, she needs to make sure their language fits. “Rizz” and “lit” are popular with Gen Z, but they feel too young for these characters, especially since Nick also mentions Hannah’s spunkiness, and Hannah refers to Nick as a dolt. Hannah also describes her best friend’s residence as “her quaint apartment-like dwelling.” It feels like these characters speak in three different generations, and it’s really awkward.
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