Making Waves

Sourcebooks Casablanca

Making Waves
Tawna Fenske
2011

The Summary
"She always wanted to belong...just not to a dysfunctional pirate crew.

"Juli has trouble fitting in, though she'd prefer to keep the reasons to herself.  But when she mistakenly stows away on a ship of misfit corporate castoffs, her own secrets become the least of her concerns.

"He knows plotting a diamond heist may be considered unusual behavior...

"But Alex isn't feeling very normal when his unscrupulous boss kicks him to the curb.  Meeting Juli doesn't do much to restore normalcy to Alex's life either, but it sure is exhilirating!

"As Alex and Juli bare their secrets--and a whole lot more--they find that while normal is nice, weird can be wonderful."

The Good
I picked Making Waves up on a whim.  I'd liked some of Tawna Fenske's other work (e.g. Frisky Business, and Now That It's You), so I thought I might give this novel a try.  And I'm so glad I did, because Making Waves is weird and almost surreal--and it's absolutely hilarious.  I finished it within a day, because I couldn't stop myself.

I loved the humor and, honestly, the sheer oddity of it, plus I just loved the characters.  A few are just plain awkward, laughably obtuse when it comes to love, and poor Juli is smack dab in the center of this nautical comedy of errors.  They're just so silly, so lovable, and I couldn't help rooting for them as they made their way through the Caribbean on a wild and wacky adventure on the open seas.

Honestly, I probably laughed more than I should have, mostly over a bit of dialogue in the early chapters of the book:

"She already thinks we're cartographers," Alex said.  "Let's just stick with that." 

Phyllis frowned.  "Cartographers?  An hour ago, Cody was trying to figure out what NESW spelled on the compass." 

"Cookie," he insisted. 

"And just last week, Jake was reading the map upside down." 

"I was drunk, okay, Phyllis?" Jake retorted.  "Pirates enjoy their rum from time to time."

It is probably the best argument ever.

Overall, Making Waves was a wonderful, comedic romance.  Like top 5 of my favorite romantic comedies.  I mean, it has a super smart heroine, a hilariously dysfunctional pirate crew, a number of botched romantic opportunities, a curiously elegant and eloquent Caribbean privateer, and a wild goose chase involving a shipment of sex toys.

Yeah.  It's great.

The Bad
No real complaints.

I liked the way the novel flowed.  It was an effortless glide from one awkward moment to the next crazy adventure; however, I found the coincidences to be a little too convenient.  But I was will to suspend disbelief given I was reading about a modern-day pirate crew in search of a shipment of diamonds that might or might not exist.

The Ugly
Out of everything, I thought the shipment of sex toys was perhaps the weirdest part.  I mean, sure, you've got the dressing up as prostitutes and the dapper, Oxford educated privateer and the Cordon Bleu caliber cook who may/may not be gay, but it was the sex toys that I found weird.  It just kind of put it over the edge for me.