Okay, let's kick this thing off with a book review, like I promised yesterday.

The cover isn't a telltale of the, erm, secrets within

Back in high school, my friends and I always wanted to bury our noses into books.  Pocket books, novels, series, sequels, manga, comics... you name it. Inasmuch, we were called The Book Club, not only as a self-proclaimed title for our group, but our classmates also deemed us so. You could never pry one of us out of the little spell cast upon us of whatever tome we had in our hands. And of course, when one enjoyed something to read, it's almost ritual that we share the book we had with each other once we were finished.

Among those books that we enjoyed were romantic novels. Imagine about seven girls during lunch, giggling, having their undies tied in knots in whatever escapade their heroine was trotting on about in the current novel in our hands. It was a guilty pleasure for us. The novels, of course, had sex scenes in them. Men fiddling about with the *ahem* "curly triangles" and "cupping bosoms" were just some of the regulars in the pages we would read about. And we were about 13-14 years old when this happened. We chose to violate our own imaginations and pop our own fantasy cherry at a tender age. But I mean, looking at us and the books we chose to read, you would never guess they were romance novels. The romance novels we read never had any racy covers. We preferred to read ones with, erm, less provocative images, or sought out versions that were a little more vague.

I personally have never read that book, I bet it would be an interesting novel, but God forbid me to wave that book around in a private Catholic high school.

The book in question that we thoroughly enjoyed is Judith McNaught's Something Wonderful.

This is a review, and some of you might've already read the book, some may plan to, some may not have enjoyed it as much as I have. It's books like these make me believe, once again, that romance can be well written.

It happens at some time in eighteenth century England. I know nothing about centuries but that's what I can deduce from the novel. Our heroine is Alexandra Lawrence, a cheerful, boyish teen of the countryside, who, at a young age, has shouldered most of the responsibilities of a slowly degrading household. Fatherless, and practically motherless, and an only child, her mother arranges for her to marry some rural aristocrat to save their lives. Alex is none too thrilled about an unwanted fiancee, let alone a marriage.

Judith has her thing about 'independent, different, driven' women, ones who just won't back down. It is a very consistent pattern. As I was reading a fifth book (Whitney, My love), I could basically pretty much skip the description of the women and get on to the next chapter. Every woman in her novels have sooty black lashes. They are thin but they somehow fill out. Their hair cascades down in a waterfall of gold/mahogany/titian/tartar sauce on her shoulder. Their skin alabaster. They are in every book she has ever written. Once I get to the physical description of the ladies, my eyes just instantly roll themselves.

Anyway, as if on cue, along comes Jordan Townsende, into Alex's quiet life, with an entrance of a band of thieves wishing to end his life.

Jordan is, as among many of McNaught's main male characters, a very eligible, sought-after bachelor. Blessed with "rugged good looks", "tall, with long muscular legs", "muscles rippling across his shoulders". You will see all male characters fit this description in her series. Jordan has averted himself as far away from marriage as he possibly can. Apparently he can be ruthless and cold to women after they happily and willingly warm his bed, and he disposes of them the next day. Rinse, repeat.

Sometimes I wonder which book I'm talking about. They are all like this. She just changes the names. But then again, her books are delightful so I can let that slide.

Back to the story, Alex unexpectedly saves Jordan's life from the thieves, garbed in what could be the most unflattering choice of clothing a woman could wear. Because of this, he thinks him as a boy. Caught unawares of her gender, Jordan, er, does something, I'm sure with pure intentions, to Alex, resulting in a tarnished reputation for her.

Alex's mother seizes the opportunity to marry off poor little innocent Alex to Jordan because apparently, it was Jordan's fault for 'nulling her chances of ever being wedded to anyone who mattered'.

Well, I guess that's what you get after being given a second chance to live.

Being the respectable gentleman that he is, Jordan reluctantly agrees, admitting to his fault. He then finds himself lulled into Alexandra's sweet, sweet innocence, enraptured in something that 'sets her apart from the others'.

There is actually more twist to the story than just that, in which I choose not to spoil for you in case I may have interested you into reading it.

For the most part, I found myself in a tizzy of frustration because they could just not seem to communicate with each other, like why Alex is acting like thus and why Jordan was like this.

It is so deliciously, romantically, outrageously frustrating.

Yet I was practically having my undies in a twist out of pity for poor Alexandra, and I just want to scream "Just love her already, Jordan!"

And in the part where he finally learns about her past? I cried. Yes, I fuckin' cried. Call me a crybaby. My heartstrings are as easily tugged like a loose thread on your sleeve. Sue me, I could not help not to. It made me cry in high school, and it made me cry last week at 2 am. Well, I really just got teary eyed, I didn't bawl my eyes out. That would make it look like I'm crying to my tablet. Which is just sad.

And during the accused betrayal, I just practically whizzed through the last remaining chapters of the book. I was at the edge of my seat (well, my bed).

Although the ending was somewhat meh. Alex could've made it more interesting and made Jordan beg at her feet, but she didn't. Boring. Would have been funny though.

The gist: 9/10

Other than the used and reused description of the characters, I loved this book. I loved it then and I love it now. I could not put it down. I read this into the wee hours last Friday, and I have never devoured a book as fast as when I attempted to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in an hour (I finished it in four).

Some of you who have already read it may think I may be shedding too much praise on this, but I absolutely fell in love with it. It is something wonderful. As far as romance goes, I'm pretty sure there are other more interesting ones out there, with a more interesting storyline, but it's not as bad as you would think. It will and always be a guilty pleasure for me. I bet I most probably will read this a third time.