32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter

32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter

Rating: 3.5 stars
Genre: Chick-lit
Recommended for: Fans of well-written chick lit

The heroine is a girl growing up in a small Mississipi town with her abusive mother. Her mother doesn't care for her at all, she has no friends in school and everyone laughs at her because she's black as the night and ugly compared to her beautiful mother who's more or less the town whore. At some point she even stops talking and she becomes known as the town's weirdo. Her only consolation is Mollie Ringwald's movies, where the ugly duckling may suffer and get ridiculed, but in the end she always manages to land the prince.

One day a new, rich family comes to town, and one look at James Farrell has the heroine falling heads over heels for him. And if Ringwald's movies have it right, he will soon come to see her and fall in love with her right? Well, it turns out she's very wrong and after a prank James's sister pull on her, Davidia leaves town and goes to LA, where surprisingly she starts a new career as a sexy, lounge singer. But one day the past comes to haunt her again; James Farrell appears at her nightclub and seems immediately lovestruck by her new personna. Can Davidia/Davie have her Mollie Ringwald ending after all?

For one, I really, really liked this one. It was smart, it was witty, it was fan and also very emotional at some points. The heroine who's POV we listen to during the whole length of the book was great and very likable and I really hoped she'd get her Mollie Ringwald ending.

That was until some past actions of hers are revealed. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I never saw that coming and at that point I actually hated her. I didn't believe I could ever get over that and forgive her again, yet somehow Ernessa Carter convinced me that she was not undeserving of a second chance. Still, I could never love her again the way I did before the revelations and that killed the 'keeper' status for me. All in all, a great audiobook with a wonderful narrator, which was just short of perfect.