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Crazy People: The Crazy For You Stories (2012)

by Jennifer Crusie(Favorite Author)

3.78 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Argh Ink LLC

review 1: Not only were these short stories of more of Jennifer Crusie's crazy characters, but it was also a look at how she writes her stories. Some stories were in the book twice, but it is only to show the reader how they evolved over time from when she first set up the characters to when Crazy for You was written and published. I had the urge after I'd finished the book to go back and re-read Crazy For You again.She has even written of how she came about getting the characters on paper. The book is short and will most likely take the reader only a day or so (much less if you are an avid reader) to finish. I must say that when I read the first story, The Day My Sister Shot the Mailman and Got Away With It, I didn't think I was going to like this book. However, as I got use to... more the way Ms Crusie wrote her early stories I actually enjoyed the book. I especially enjoyed Just Wanted You To Know. My Sister's Wedding was also very good. If Ms Crusie wanted to go back a make a novella or full novel on some of these characters I'm sure she would have another great read on her hands.
review 2: 4/5 (B)Crazy People is a compilation of short stories - not kidding, short stories - that Ms Crusie has written in the Creative Art Program while making her way through her PhD in feminist literature and which are connected to one of my favorite book of hers, Crazy for You.In total, there are six stories as followed:The Day My Sister Shot the Mailman and Got Away With It, Of Course - Ms Crusie wrote this short story as a writing exercise. Basically, she had to write a story consisting of 26 sentences, each sentence starting by the corresponding alphabetical letter, i.e. 1st sentence starts with A, 2nd with B, ...., 26th with Z. This was the start of Crazy for You because that's how Quinn and her sister Zoë got their names :P Clever of Ms Crusie to fill the two hardest letters with names right? LOL. For this publication, Ms Crusie has re-visit the story and expanded it :)Sleep Cure - This story is about Quinn's mother when she was a young teen and how she got her stepfather to stop putting her down.Meeting Harold's Father - This is the first meeting between Zoë and her husband, Ben. Very cute story and my favorite of the compilation.Necessary Skills - It's been a couple of years since I've re-read Crazy for You, so when I read Necessary Skills, I could not remember the protagonist, Barbara. However, a quick skim through Crazy for You and it came back to me LOL. Barbara is also known as the Bank Slut. She works at the bank and seems to have something for married men, "stealing" other women's husbands. Turns out, all she's looking for in a man who can take care of her and in her mind, it means being able to work with their hands. She can help it that they are all married men and are having marital problems!Just Wanted You to Know - This short story is actually one long letter from Debbie, Darla's sister, to her husband who had just left her for Barbara. It starts out with how she'll be there when he comes back, but as she adds the post-scriptums, you can see Debbie is starting to get back on her feet and finding herself again :)I Am At My Sister's Wedding - This one is interesting because we've never actually been introduced to the characters as they were cut from the final version of Crazy for You. Basically, Quinn was supposed to have two best friends: Darla and Stephanie, but in the end, Stephanie got the ax. I Am At My Sister's Wedding is actually told from Caroline, Stephanie's younger sister, as she attends Stephanie's five weddings. Yes, five :PIn addition to these short stories, Ms Crusie has added some thoughts and how these stories came to be which I thought was all very interesting :) Crazy People also includes the first chapter of Dog Days, what would later become Crazy for You.My Opinion: Overall, I quite enjoyed Crazy People :) Yes, the stories were short, but they were entertaining and funny - hey, it's Jennifer Crusie after all LOL - and I loved the "behind-the-scenes." It was really interesting to know how these stories connected to Crazy for You and how they helped Ms Crusie writing the book :)My favorite story was definitively Meeting Harold's Father, just because it was fun and random and yes, for the touch of romance :) Guess you can't take out the romance reader in me :) Another one that I really enjoyed was Just Wanted You to Know, I could just see Debbie getting back on her feet and becoming more and more confident after each passing day, realizing she didn't need her husband! The only short story I wasn't very invested in was Sleep Cure, part of it has to do with the story itself and another part is I was never really a big fan of Quinn's mother and seeing her as a teen? Just not interested.Overall, Crazy People was fun and I'm really glad I got it :) I definitively recommend it to fans of Ms Crusie and readers who read and loved Crazy for You. Yes, I know, that was the targeted audience anyway LOL, but I'm telling people who falls into that category and had doubts, well doubt no more and get it! :) less

Download links for: Crazy People: The Crazy for You Stories

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