Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott

Hannah hasn’t got your typical parents. Her dad’s something of a has-been celebrity trying to keep his fame well into his old age (he’s over seventy) and her mom’s recent claim to fame is a pizza commercial for which she was barely clad. Hannah’s perfected the art of flying under the radar at school but with her mom’s recent antics, that which she’d achieved is compromised.

All too sudden, way too many things start changing—her father who hasn’t spoken to her in five years wants to reconnect (but it might just be for his show’s ratings), her somewhat stabilized work life gets a pulse (except there are two—cute, whether she wants it so or not—guys there, and how do you keep from getting confused in such a scenario?), and drama keeps finding its way to her door.

Initially, Hannah’s mom Candy is presented as your average overgrown child, but she immediately springs a surprising amount of substance. It was refreshing to see a book where the relationship between the protagonist and their parents wasn’t transparent or unilateral. She’s troubled, and a good, unique type of troubled that didn’t involve bottomless pity-parties with no resonance whatsoever. This part—along with the entire family subplot, and the general plot—was revealed in layers, deliberate and gradual, and it worked really well.

You know, I don’t care what Elizabeth Scott is known for, I firmly believe her forte is family-building. Every single book of hers has a number of constants you can expect—intuition tells you where the romance is going; the main characters are, obviously, relatable—but the family is always a surprise (in a good way). The usual trope gives way to a happy resolution, but not in Elizabeth’s books. She strikes the balance the reality of the situation by not giving any happy endings and giving a definite feeling of closure nevertheless.

Here, for instance, both parents have unusual jobs (which is proving to be a trademark, eh? Stealing Heaven’s premise comes to mind). Her dad owns a castle in upstate New York, for god’s sake. Anyway, they’re both eccentric personalities and neither are right per se (but who is?), and while it’s developed and explored in the book, in the end it’s not like they’re magically better, though Hannah does understand at least her mom better. I love this touch of realism.

Hmm, let’s put a fresh spin on my reviews. You know how in chemistry there’s that solubility thing where there’s a maximum amount of any given solute you can add to any given amount of a solvent before the solution becomes saturated? Well, like that. Reaching the max, but not going over (no weighty precipitation or overcharged, unstable supersaturation!).

In fact, if anything, this book made me feel weightless. Plot, voice, characters—they were all a thrill. And the best thing is that it’s not just a romance, as the official description leads one to believe. Once again, Elizabeth Scott delivers. B+

(P.S. Bonus points for Hannah not mentioning her name is a palindrome.)

Simon Pulse | 210 pages | March 24th, 2009 | Elizabeth Scott's site | Excerpt | GoodReads | Amazon | IndieBound