Great review from Grave Tells!

Grave Tells review!

The idea of suddenly being thrown out of your body and into another person’s would seem an entirely terrifying prospect to most people, but to Abby Watson, she sees it as the chance of a lifetime. Once she recovers from her initial shock and fear about the whole thing, of course. After all, her own body is less than desirable, or even comfortable to reside in, and in her opinion, any other body is preferable. Besides, she’s kind of in a coma, and possibly infected with H6N12, so when she finds herself inside Frank Patel’s body, her geeky coworker at the lab, Abby sees the entire situation as a way to escape her frumpy and mundane life. It’s not like her physical body is going anywhere while it’s in a coma in the hospital, and Frank’s body has, well, different and novel appendages to explore.
While adjusting to the weirdness of being in a man’s body, Abby/Frank bumps into her best friend, Jenny, at the hospital. It is then and only then that Abby realizes how horrifically selfish Jenny has always been and how uninterested she has always been in any of Abby’s problems. It’s not hard for her to decide to snatch Jenny’s body, take it to their high school reunion, and ruin Jenny’s reputation amongst their former classmates forever. And when she’s at the reunion as Jenny, Abby bumps into the fabulously rich and snotty Julie Garwood, and, naturally, decides to snatch her body next.
Abby hops from body to body until she finally is able to meet Jake Carradoc, this time in the body of a foreign backpacker that she doesn’t even know the name of. All she knows is that her current borrowed body is gorgeous, athletic, and has been hit by Jake’s car. Jake, feeling extremely guilty, as you would expect, offers to let Abby stay in his fancy Hollywood bachelor pad, especially since she apparently has a horrible case of amnesia. I won’t tell you what happens next, but it’s basically pretty sexy. And complicated. But really sexy. Eventually, Abby has to decide what to do with her body snatching ability, whether it’s right to kidnap these other bodies. What happens to their soul? What happens to her own body while she’s away from it for so long? Is there a way to snatch someone else’s body forever? And if she does return to her own body, what will happen between her and Jake?
I enjoyed reading The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick. It was fast, it was funny, and it was deliciously sexy. Abby is very, very funny; her inner thoughts and even her dialogue with the other characters remains consistently hilarious, which helps you stay connected with her throughout each body snatch. Her mother, Annie Watson, is also totally ridiculous, and, therefore, fun to read about. She’s addicted to twitter and tells embarrassing and extremely personal stories about Abby to everyone and anyone. Generally, she’s just a mess. There are so many hilarious moments in The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick, that it’s hard to pick only one. I think that overall, the best scene was when Abby is in Jenny’s body at their high school reunion. I won’t tell you all that happens, but I will say that it involves a gigolo and a badly torn dress.
The biggest problem I had with the story is the waffling Abby does about keeping her borrowed body or not. On one hand, it seems like she’s going to make the right choice and return to her own body; this is what you want her to do, as it’s the morally correct choice. Not only is it wrong to steal another person’s body indefinitely, but there are other factors she has to consider, like her mother’s worry, the fact that she’s living a lie, and the emotions of Helen, Jake’s oldest friend, and Davina, her daughter. But then, after you’ve accepted the fact that Abby is going to return, she actually doesn’t. She remains in her borrowed body and it isn’t until she’s left with almost no other options does she decide what she wants to do with her body snatching ability. It’s not that her decision is a bad one (because either choice is fun and exciting), but by waffling for so very long, Abby comes off as a little uncaring. I would have preferred to see Abby being more decisive toward the end of the book because I think this would have helped mark her transition from a totally selfless doormat to an empowered and adventurous woman. Again, it’s not that the resolution, or the period leading up to the resolution is bad, but it could have been a bit better, a bit more defining for Abby.
Memorable quotes:
Jake Carradoc has the absolute worst taste in picking film roles…

“He’s now starring in that new police musical show on TV, the one in which the policemen are members of a glee club and burst into song every time they catch a criminal. OK, I don’t think it will last past a couple of episodes either, but he plays the very troubled teen son of a policewoman who actually was a man but has since undergone sex change surgery in Singapore. I know. If I had a Mom like that, I’d be traumatized too.”

Abby definitely lacks courage…

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a coward of the “Let’s surrender Sparta to the Persians because we don’t want to die at Thermopylae” magnitude, but I need to pay my rent.

Don’t fall in love with Jake. He’s not like Twilight…

“So my advice to you is – never fall in love with him. Even if you feel yourself falling, you’ve got to drag yourself out of it. Nothing good will come out of it, he’s bad news. He’d only hurt you. Plenty of people have fallen in love with him, you know, women and men alike – and look at them, they’re miserable. He never reciprocates. He’s the total opposite of Twilight.”
“I won’t fall in love with him,” I promise.
Lust maybe. Lust is good.
“Good.” Davina seems satisfied. “He’s great dad material, but nobody should have him for a boyfriend even if he were the last person on a dystopian Earth left without camels or little green aliens.”

Body snatching = Order of the British Empire?

“I’m in one of those OBEs I’ve seen on the Discovery Channel. OBE = Out of Body Experience. (Then again, it can mean Order of the British Empire.) I’m floating around in my own death experience like Patrick Swayze in Ghost, doomed to wander around eternally until I find my axe murderer, or Demi Moore.”

 If you liked The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick, you might also enjoy Touch the Dark by Karen Chance (book #1 in the Cassandra Palmer series). Like Abby, Cassandra has the ability to possess other people’s bodies and leave her own behind. Cassie is more of a badass chicka compared to Abby, and she also needs to deal with ghosts, vampires, and the fact that her body can die if there isn’t some sort of spirit possessing it. Whereas Abby’s body, when she’s out snatching other people’s, doesn’t automatically die because it’s an empty vessel. Both books, however, feature absolutely gorgeous men for the heroines to seduce/fall in love with, and the sex scenes aren’t bad either…wink wink!

Final thoughts:

I would definitely recommend The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick if you’re interested in a glamorous, ridiculous, hilarious, and sexy paranormal book to read. Abby snatches bodies all over Los Angeles, usually rich ones, and wreaks havoc upon the lives of each borrowed person. This story is about finding true love and stopping at nothing to get it. It’s about being with the man of your dreams and using subterfuge to get there. Oh, and a pretty freaky body snatching ability. Because if you could hop into another person’s body, anyone in the world, would you say no? I know I wouldn’t.
The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick is a GraveTells recommended read!

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