Review of "Legend" by Jude Deveraux

Legend

By Jude Deveraux

Published: 1996

The Plot

A questionable fairy tale about a cooking-obsessed 30-year old heroine, who, following an impulse (most likely stress-induced) purchase is whisked away to the small town of Legend, Colorado in the romantic 1800s, where with an average life expectancy of about 37, she would have been pitied and frowned upon, as she was unmarried and childless despite essentially having one foot in the grave. She finds herself, however, treated much more favourably, often lamenting about how she wished her fuller figure was as appreciated in modern times as it was back then. This is despite the fact that she arrived at a century where the fashion was to look pale and frail, as if you were dying of tuberculosis (but that was OK, because there was a good chance you were dying of TB, delicately coughing blood into your little ornate handkerchief). 

At Legend, our heroine meets a cowboy with a surprisingly 20th-century outlook on life, especially when it comes to property ownership by women and loving a person for who they are. The heroine then lives out a short two-week fairy tale in Legend, nevertheless wishing she was back home. After these two weeks, we get a very interesting and engaging plot twist on our lady's time travel, but it is very quickly ruined by cheesy and unnecessary developments that are as helpful to the plot as a 3-pound dumbbell to a leg workout. 

My review

The good: 

1. At least an attempt to present a heroine who does not entirely fit the conventional beauty standards (although it falls somewhat flat).

2. The plot twist mid-book was a great take and created a lot of interest. I wish it was developed further as a conflict in and of itself instead of pushing a completely forced cheesy narrative instead. 

The bad:

1. The developments following roughly the mid-point of the book.

 

2. The heroine's self-discovery and character development. This is such a missed opportunity. At some point, the heroine realizes her self-worth, however, instead of a mature, growth-from-within approach, she is only basing it on other people's views of herself, i.e. I'm worthy because all these people think so, instead of the good old "I'm worth it, fuck the people" or "I'm f#cking 30, maybe I should stop obsessing so much about my weight, it's not that important in the grand scheme of things".

3. The one-dimensional characters lacking any depth. One of them is literally portrayed as a caricature cartoon villain, despite there initially being some nuance to his relationship with the heroine, which sounded a lot more believable.

4. The reason of one of the characters for being a total ass to the heroine is as plausible as an accused's statement "those were not my drugs, I just found them on the street and wanted to put them in the nearest trash can". 

The ugly:

Arabic ugh... One of the characters keeps calling the heroine "habibbi" - this is a male form of that term of endearment. The female version is "habibti". Sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Same with Alladin being "Al El Din" - that does not sound right. Admittedly, the author of this review does not speak Arabic (just lived in Israel long enough to know a few things here and there), but it still sounds like a more plausible name would be actually "Allah-al-Din" or something along those lines. 

The legal:

This book has a lawyer who a. acts in a blatant conflict of interests and b. does not appear to have a very good grasp on the very area of law which he practices as part of a very high-end firm.

Verdict

2.5 starts out of 5