Header PromotionRules of Engagement (2004)
You
know when someone has a good joke and doesn’t expand upon it and just
tries to stretch this same joke as long as they can til it stopped
being funny, oh about twenty minuted ago? Well, that’s Rules of Engagement by Kathryn Caskie
in a nutshell. In this specific instance, playing on the saying “All’s
fair in love and war.” Caskie takes the cute idea of using a military
text as a how-to manual for getting engaged and stretches it, stretches
it . . . wait for it . . . and stretches it some more until she gets to
the requisite 300 pages. And the author barely makes that 300 pages
mark. It leads to an arduous read because other than the amusing
epigrams from the military text that starts each chapters, this novel
is so paper-thin. The hero, the heroine, the two aunts and the basic
plot are all cardboard cutouts. No historical atmosphere, of course
(not that I was expecting any). Only that one good germ of an idea and
it’s not enough. Grade: Average
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