A Side of Panache

Welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense! Last time, a whole lot of nothing happened to fill time until Ren showed up. On Christmas. Despite Kelsey telling him not to. I mean, Kelsey has secretly wanted him to come after her since about 2 seconds after dumping his ass, but Ren has no way of knowing that. Anyway, he just loves her so much  he couldn't stand being away from her anymore, so here he is. Chapter Five: Return We start with Ren and Kelsey still hugging from the last chapter, which goes to show that the last chapter just wanted to end on a cliffhanger.  Cliffhangers usually require something exciting happening to be interesting, though. Anyway.  Ren is back, and Kelsey is happy about it. I felt myself blossom and grow with new vigor.  Ren was the sun, and the tenderness he showed me was life-giving water.  A dormant part of me grew into pulsing life, stretched deep rooty fingers, opened thick green leaves, and shot curling tendrils outward drawing us clo

Welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense! Last time, Kelsey went on three different dates. That's literally it. One of them is plot relevant, and by that I mean that one of them leads up to something plot relevant. No, it's not the one you think it is. Nothing enjoyable happened, either, so it's not like we got any entertainment out of it. Artie is cartoonishly Nice Guy-ish, and Jason is so boring that despite the fact that this is my third time reading through this book I had to check that this is actually his name. Li is pretty cool, I guess. We learned nothing new about Kelsey other than she apparently lets everyone walk all over her instead of just Ren. Chapter Four: A Christmas Present So here's some more confirmation that Kelsey celebrates Christmas, at least. This is a continuation of my question from the last book, when Kelsey literally met the goddess Durga and then didn't even think about the fact that all Judeo-Christian religions, and

I hate this chapter. Last time, Kelsey set up three dates that all happen at around the same time! Whomp whomp! I mean, her whole characterization so far has been "Oh, woe is me, I'm not good enough for Ren, who could ever love me," so, you know. Good to know she's a hypocrite on top of all her other fantastic characteristics. It's just annoying to me that "BEAUTIFUL BUT SHE DOESN'T KNOW IT" is still such a common character type. Anyway. Chapter Three: Dating Ugh. DATE 1 Ughhhhhhh. We can only expect good things from a start like that. This is Kelsey's date with Artie, the NiceGuy TM stereotype who thinks that of course any girl would be HONORED by his mere presence and because he's such a NICE AND SMART GUY. I'm not disputing that this kind of person exists, but he's wrapped up in a Fat Nerd TM stereotype coupled with Houck's utter inability to write dialogue that sounds like it comes from a human. So, he end