Legend Book

Reread - January 2016! - 2.5*
Originally read - 2004 - 4*

While I normally don't knock down stars for my rereads, I had to do it with this one. I guess over 10 years tastes evolve :D My biggest issue with this one was that it requires endless amounts of belief suspension!!! So while it was an enjoyable read overall, these MAJOR flaws really took away from my enjoyment and distracted me endlessly!

Where do I start?! I won't go into a summary, since that is available at the top of the page... I will dive into the critique... If you don't want spoilers, please don't read on ...

♦ First of all - the heroine, Kady, was not very relatable. She is a cook, but she is absolutely OBSESSED with food and cooking - to the point of distraction! She goes out with her friends/fiancé , only to say that she feels like she's wasted her time and should have been in her kitchen instead. Ok, so there we have her - would rather be cooking than socializing with friends and boyfriend - a mousy, loser right off the bat! Sorry, that is mean and harsh, but COME ON! Then, we have to listen to her incessant babble about how she is fat and unattractive...only to say that she has a size 14 top and bottom, but size 4 waist. ??????????????? What kind of figure do you have woman?!?! To my understanding and imagination - that's the hourglass figure out of a comic strip... Ok - either way, that's fine, doesn't even sound so bad - so why is she complaining!? ... She then goes on to say that a few years back, for Halloween, she dressed up as a prostitute and this is when her "cooking school classmates" started noticing her ?? Ummmm, WHAT?!?!?! So this shy, mousy girl, who only cares about cooking and hates her body dressed up as a hooker for Halloween?!?! Really?! I'm to believe this?!

♦ For all the talk that she is not attractive, all of a sudden Kady is causing a time-wide commotion! From her trip to the past, to her present in Alexandria and New York, Kady has men falling all over her! So much for her being "fat and unattractive" (her words, not mine)!

♦ I found the book to be lacking romance, in the sense that she is with some guy constantly (whether it be her douche fiancé or Cole or Tarik), but it is NOT the hero (Tarik) until the very end! Tarik and Kady get very little time together for us to see their romance blossom and develop!

♦ The whole - Cole is dead, died at 9, but he is a ghost and the whole town is a ghost town and Kady goes back in time 150 years and visits this ghost town - made very little sense, unless you suspended belief and just read for the sake of reading... How did a dead boy create a ghost town in which he is in his 30's...? And how do items from this ghost town that never existed keep resurfacing 150 years later (marriage certificate, wedding dress, Cole's cabin in the woods...)

♦ Cole and Kady get married in the fake/ghost town in 1850's and this marriage certificate shows up with Tarik in 1990's. How could this marriage certificate show up 150 years later when this never actually happened - since Cole is a ghost and the whole town didn't exist, how could there be a marriage certificate showing a man (who DIED at 9) got married (at 30!) ...??? Again - I'm all for suspension of belief if things are going to make sense in the end...But if the author provides NO explanation - I get really annoyed...

♦ They go back in time to "fix" things, so that Cole and his family don't get killed. However, by doing that , they would have prevented Ruth from sleeping with Tarik's grandfather, thereby preventing the conceiving of Tarik's father; hence in present time Tarik wouldn't exist!! The author "fixes" this by having Tarik find his grandfather and telling him that he MUST seduce Ruth (a married woman!!) and that she must have a child this year (this would be Tarik's dad!) !!! Ummmm - this is how the author ensures that Tarik still exists when they come back to the future :) OK - I get it ! But how realistic is that?! The only reason Ruth slept with Tarik's grandfather before was because she was grieving over her killed husband and children! If her family doesn't get killed (which is what Kady went back in time to accomplish) - why would the non-grieving Ruth cheat on her ALIVE husband ?!!?! I guess she would do it because the author told her to?!

Anyways, it was things like these that spoiled the book for me the second time around (first time I guess I just didn't care:) ) ... I call this carelessness and personally find that it distracts from all the good that I saw in the book initially! I hate when the thoughts I'm left with are: "Wow...well that made no sense...!"