Book Review: Nobody’s baby but mine

I generally do not give a review to any book that has not touched my heart. There have been a very few books that touched mine as much as this- in a negative way.

If I don’t like a book, I usually move away and forget about its existence but this book has won my hatred so much that I have to rant/ review about it. So any of those SEP fans-am sorry guys I just hated this book. And then why did I spend whole four hours to read this? Go figure…

Book: Nobody’s baby but mine

Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Series:   Chicago Stars #03

Genre: Fiction – Romance

Characters:  Jane Darlington, Cal Bonner, Kevin Tucker, Ethan Bonner

Setting: Chicago, Illinois, The USA

A genius (!!!) professor Dr Jane Darlington just needs a baby to fill the vacuum in her life. But she doesn’t want her (from the beginning it is a ‘her’) to suffer the same ‘freak’ (an IQ of 180, hence a freak) status she does, so she decides her father should be a ‘dumb’ jock. So that his dumbness and her ingenuity would give her a normal baby (now this is ingenuity!!!)

(You are still reading? Good)

And of course she doesn’t need a man in her life, just his baby. Erm.. There is a catch. She can’t go out to the sperm bank because only medical students donated over there (see problem of high IQ). This she has no other choice (!!)  but to utilize the first chance to seduce the famous footballer (of the Chicago stars) Calvin Bonner.

Come on, he is a good looking footballer and he has an accent- so he should be dumb! And she can get impregnated by him and she could move away from his life completely. Why should he know about the baby – after all he is dumb.

(I was starting to get irritated by now, how about you?)

The hero umm.. Cal Bonner a 37 year  footballer with a shortening career – make it threatened career – who still dates blondes below 23 as a rule. He doesn’t get fooled by Jane but still gets seduced (!!!). But when he comes to know of her plans, he decides to punish her by marrying her and also he feels the moral obligation that he can’t let his baby suffer.

(By This time I was almost fuming)

He takes her to his native Salvation, Texas but tries to keep her away from his family, so that they wouldn’t be devastated  when they hear about their divorce (planned after the birth of the baby). They were already suffering the death of their other daughter in law and grand son. 

(wait you have not heard the best part)

Jane comes to know he is not exactly dumb (gasp) in fact he is a Grad in biology. Earth shatters around her as she finds that Cal had betrayed her (Uhh? come again?) and now she is sure to be doomed with a freak girl baby. (Wait.. not over.. Wait for it.. Tada…) 

He is aghast coming to know that he has married an “elderly” lady and that she is 34 (gasp again).. So there goes the last chance of recuperation (as if I really cared to see one there).

Then they agree to stay civilized till her childbirth and then get an amicable divorce. But for that, Jane needs to behave as a person that her in-laws would not miss her. And Jane magnanimously agrees to it.

(And dont even ask me where they fell in love with each other, I was concentrating on when they would tear each other apart or a major earthquake to gobble them up, and then I could go forward with my works.)

 So somewhere on the line they fall in love and once she says that she loves him, Cal starts regretting the whole “relationship / commitment”  episode and wishes she would leave him alone (or something like that!) and of course he would take care of the baby’s needs.

(If you were not  by now, this would take you down)

Once it becomes clear that Cal is not for any relationship and that he had been spying on her through his agents, his family takes “HER” side and as any SEP novel, he grovels. But his family promise to stay with her till she forgives him and wont support him. 

Come on, is he not the only one who erred? Is he not shameful? She being woman, that too a pregnant woman she has all the right to get angry. all because she was in love and he was not? Spare me the logic.

(I am by now, more of  “whatever is it over yet?)  

And then she forgives him when he proves that he is ready for a commitment. You would ask how (I mean you should) He helped her select the wallpaper for their house in the midnight by breaking in a shop. (God save me!)

If there was one word I felt all through my reading – RIDICULOUS. If all these do not convince my hatred for the book, get me the book let me it hit it on your head.

Anyway I got some questions, most of them are rhetorical and I wont bother to think of an answer.

• An high IQ is a bane? Seriously? Freak?
• Smart mom + Dumb dad = normal kid ??
• Dr Jane! you dont need a baby to fill the vacuum just a therapist.  
• Jane can cheat Cal about the baby, be prejudiced about his intelligence, act as a hooker and lie about her age and then goes into hysterical behavior that Cal never told that his degree was in Biology (she did know he had a degree). And then throw in the moral questions and his family supports her. 
• How does she know that baby would be a she and he keep referring to the baby as a he?
• If Cal was doubtful about the commitment, he could have left her and her baby alone and could have saved us from the ridiculous aftermaths.
• Dont even let me start on Jim’s emotional abuse on Amber (Cal’s parents). “My wife didn’t graduate from high school, so she sometimes gets intimidated when she meets people with advanced degrees“  Doesn’t anyone put these men to their places? 
• And you know what the Footballer decided to become after his retirement? A DOCTOR (oh please)

If there was something that was positive about this book (as with all SEP’s other novels) was the matured romance between Cal’s parents. Cal’s mom had changed herself to fit in the sophisticated family and society of Jim, Cal’s dad.

But Jim now, after all these years regrets that he had lost the girl whom he loved and wishes to rekindle the old flame. Those were the only scenes that seemed sensible and made me go “awww”. And Kevin, he was the only character in this whole drama who seemed normal (which means not a jerk). I should have to hold my judgment till I read his own novel in the Chicago Stars series.

Bottom-line:   Ridiculous! I would not recommend this to anyone who has a bit of brain. I understand you need a plot for a romance, which need not be exactly plausible but this was tooo far fetched. Thank you for putting up with this rant / review.