Friday, March 31, 2006

Family Trust

Author: Amanda Brown
Published: April 27, 2004 (Plume)
Category: General Fiction
Quote of Choice: She could count higher than twenty, though, as a result of living at the penthouse level, she was under the impression that the number twenty-one was followed by the "number" P.

When I read the back cover of this book, I couldn't help but think of that episode of Friends where Christina Applegate plays Rachel's sister. The topic of who would be guardian to Emma, Ross and Rachel's daughter, comes up. Rachel's sister says something like, "Wouldn't it be great if you guys died? I could be Emma's guardian and then learn some life lesson, get a makeover, and meet the man of my dreams!"

Well, in Family Trust, Becca Reinhart and Edward Kirkland find themselves designated co-guardians to an adorable little girl named Emily. Becca is the stereotypical "successful power woman-who's too busy being successful to havea life outside of work." Edward is an impossible combination of being a wealthy playboy who is genuinely nice and strangely good at being a father figure.

I was a little disappointed with Family Trust, since Amanda Brown also wrote Legally Blonde. Becca and Edward are so busy being good parents in their own right that they don't really work together. Each of them is amused once in a while over the other's behavior, but they're not together enough to have a good chemistry between them. I might be wrong, since I skipped most of the last quarter of the book after Edward and Becca's only kiss. If the book was lukewarm when the two of them were in the same city, it wasn't going to improve when they were in different countries.

In the end, it would've been more interesting to see how Becca, Edward, and Emily fared as a family in an epilogue. Becca and Edward's lifestyles were so different that it would've been funny to see Becca at all these snooty Hamptons events and charity dinners. I find it hard to believe that Edward would give them all up being that he's the head of a philanthropic organization.

Eh, I think this book could've been better.

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