Kimber the Magnificent here. Being all brilliant and beauteous. As usual. Telling you that Mom and I have been thinking. (Mom says “noodling.” No idea what that means. Or what pasta has to do with anything. But you know Mom!)

Anyway, you know we have our Big Kitty Litter Box in the Sky Awards, right? Reserved for books that hit it right out of the park in the Stinkasaurus Stupendi category. But we’re thinking of creating a new award: The Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire Award.

Cuz if it’s one thing that chaps our hides, it’s a book that’s not honest about who/what it is. You know the type? You pick up a title at a bookstore. Library. Online. Read the summary/synopsis. Think to yourself, “Hey! This sounds pretty good. I’m in!”

The Unpardonable Book Sin

You start reading. Then, wham! It starts getting warm and toasty. The fire alarm goes off. And you realize you’ve been had. Lied to. Cuz the book you grabbed on the basis of its own description turns out to be something else. Commits the Official Mom and Kimber Unpardonable Book Sin: Pretends to be something it’s not. Misrepresents itself. Fakes it. Has a hidden agenda.

So. Not. Cool.

Tip for Authors: (Throwin’ this in for free): You soooo don’t want to do this. Mom’ll nail ya on it. Every time.

We Have a “Winner!” (Not)

So. Ding! Ding! Ding! Our first Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire! Awardee is I’d Give Anything. By Marisa de los Santos. (No. We’re not linking to it. We don’t promote fire starters. One of us is just funny that way.) Here’s the blurb:

“Ginny Beale is eighteen, irreverent, funny, and brave, with a brother she adores and a circle of friends for whom she would do anything. Because of one terrible night, she loses them all—and her adventurous spirit—seemingly forever. While the town cheers on the high school football team, someone sets a fire in the school’s auditorium. Ginny’s best friend Gray Marsden’s father, a fire fighter, dies in the blaze.

While many in the town believe a notoriously troubled local teen set the fire, Ginny makes a shattering discovery that casts blame on the person she trusts most in the world. Ginny tells no one, but the secret isolates her, looming between her and her friends and ruining their friendship.

Over the next two decades, Ginny puts aside her wanderlust and her dreams. She marries a quiet man after college, and they move back to her hometown, where she raises their daughter, Avery, and cares for her tyrannical, ailing mother, Adela. She distances herself from the past and from nearly everyone she knew. But when Ginny’s husband, Harris, becomes embroiled in a scandal, her carefully controlled life crumbles, and, just when Ginny believes she is regaining her bearings, the secret she’s kept for twenty years emerges and threatens to destroy her hopes for the future.

With the help of fifteen-year-old Avery and of friends both old and new, Ginny must summon the courage to confront old lies and hard truths and to free herself and the people she loves from the mistakes and regrets that have burdened them for so long.”

Pants on Fire!

Except that’s not really what this book is about. It’s more of a political polemic with an agenda.  (If we want to read that, we can find it perfectly well on our own, thank you very much. No need for that bait and switch stuff.)  Additionally, this book presents itself as “Women’s Fiction.”

Quick! Someone grab a fire hose!

Fool Me Once…

Mom and I? We checked out this book cuz it was sitting on a library shelf reserved for “Never been checked out. Will you be the first?” titles. We felt sorry for it. Now we know why it has  “never been checked out.”

We won’t make the same mistake twice!

Wait. Do I smell smoke?

Taking your nominees for the next Liar! Liar! Pants of Fire Awards in 3, 2, 1… Go!

 

Pants on Fire image credit.