Bad Beginnings

Yummers! was one of the books that I read repeatedly as a child.  I can't say that there was any one specific thing about the story or illustrations that inspired me to revisit the story over and over.  The friendship between the two main characters (who accept one another despite their vast differences in diet and exercise philosophy) may have been the main attraction.  However, I believe that there was more to it.  As a child, I would study the illustrations and imagine that Eugene was casting longing, loving looks at Emily even as she gorged herself on a variety of foods.  Emily was completely oblivious to this simmering attraction.  To my child's mind, this was a lesson in unrequited love.  How could one not feel sympathy for Eugene who clearly cared about Emily and liked her just the way she was?

Mary Kay Andrews' often creates situations for her characters that seem almost insurmountable.  She uses a uniquely poor start to a relationship in her latest, Ladies' Night, an enjoyable, fun read.  The two main characters meet in a court-ordered divorce recovery group. The author surrounds her main characters with her trademark variety of oddballs who provide a perfect foil for the developing love story between the two "normal" characters.
Grace Stanton, a successful lifestyle blogger (think Martha Stewart), is betrayed by her philandering husband with her personal assistant.  She ends up locked out of their home which is in a gated community with very few personal belongings.  Her only option is to live with her mother in an apartment over a bar.  Instead of receiving her share of their property and income as the wronged party, Grace is sent to what she terms "divorce camp" because she made one tiny, little mistake when she discovered her spouse's infidelity.  As with most of her books, the author mixes in misunderstandings and intrigue to keep the story moving along.  Unlike Emily and Eugene's story, this one has a happily ever after ending.

An author who creates unique female characters is Jennifer Weiner.  In The Next Best Thing, her main character is less than perfect physically and painfully aware of that fact.  With the loving support of her grandmother (and The Golden Girls sitcom characters), Ruth Saunders moves to Hollywood to pursue her dream of writing for TV.  Things don't always go Ruth's way as she learns how to navigate Hollywood and its people.  After a few small successes, she manages to pull together support for her own sitcom about a "normal" girl trying to make it on her own.  Unfortunately for Ruth, between the studio and the actors, her creation becomes the complete opposite of her vision.  Although the Hollywood stereotypes seem to come directly from Susann Jacqueline's Valley of the Dolls, the author manages to create characters with enough depth to keep the reader caring.  Ruth and her true friends persevere and she finds happiness with a man who, like her, is damaged physically but internally intact.
Unfortunately for Emily and Eugene, James Marshall never wrote a book about their simmering attraction for one another.  We will never know if the turtle and pig managed to work things out.  What we do know is that books by authors like Jennifer Crusie, Susan Anderson, Elizabeth Lowell, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Nora Roberts hardly ever let us down because unlike real life, things turn out the way we want them to even if they start with a bad beginning.