Dial Em for Murder by Marni Bates: I Think You Mean Romance

Dial Em for Murder 

by 

Marni Bates

Emmy, the daughter of a single mom, just wants to write the perfect romance novel; but her efforts so far have resulted in hilariously awful trash. While banging her head uselessly against her latest novel, Em meets an old man in Starbucks. He promptly dies on her from “mysterious circumstances”, but not before warning her that she’s in terrible danger and slipping a hi-tech cell phone into her pocket. Shell-shocked and confused, Emmy, with the help of her friends, begins to unravel the mystery of the old man and his strange warning. But don't pay attention to the tagline. "She wanted to write a mystery, not live it" Em isn't a mystery writer. She's a romance writer.

Characters

Em: Seventy percent of the time, I really liked Em. Unfortunately, the other thirty percent she drove me completely up the wall. She was quirky and funny and her whole life revolved around relatable “Writer’s Problems”, which was absolutely hilarious! But, the next moment, she’d act like a total dunce and I wanted to smack her upside the head. So, I‘m kind of split on Em. She was okay, as YA heroines go, but I feel like credit for her coolness mostly has to go to the fact that she was a writer: instead of anything she actually did.

Ben: He is kind of the love interest except he disappears five chapters in and is never seen again. So, he’s Gale from the Hunger Games.

Sebastien: I’m not going to compare this punk to Peeta because he’s too much of a jerk. I didn’t like him. At all. Can you tell?

Audrey:  She was the awesome best friend character who can hack computers and sass people into oblivion. Since she was incredibly awesome, let’s say it again AWESOME, why wasn’t the book from Audrey’s point of view? It would have been hilarious.

Also… Holy crap why are there so many characters?! The book is barely two hundred pages long and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s just wrong.

Likes

I usually enjoyed Emmy’s inner monologue; it was always about writing (even it was romances) and how she’d write people into her stories. And, in the beginning, I loved how she totally lost it when crazy things started happening to her. Maybe I’ve just read one to many books lately where the protagonist reacts unrealistically to people trying to murder them, but I thought it was hilariously realistic. Of course, the problem came when she didn’t adapt to the idea of being in danger and was still comically useless by the climax

Emmy was a writer, so of course she was cool. I swear more protagonists need to be writers. It makes for some hilarious fourth-wall breaking jokes. In fact, the book opens up with an intentionally terrible snippet of Em’s writing; which, I believe, is a surefire way to have her connect with any readers who’ve ever dabbled in writing.

There was humor!

I don’t even care if it wasn’t always the best humor. I’ve just been starved of comic relief. And, guys, I need it. I need it bad. The last two books I’ve read (Ever the Hunted and Scythe) were such downers! The witty comebacks, and even the groan inducing pop cultural references, were a breath of fresh air after the two “dark and serious” (*read as* dull as dishwater) books. 

Dislikes

It was kind of dumb. There was an unhealthy dose of suspension-of-disbelief. Just in the first few chapters there was a dead rich guy, a mysterious hi-tech phone, an over the top police man, and an entire police force who were completely useless. And, the final nail in the coffin, the solution to these useless policemen was to go to a super fancy school for freakishly rich people. Because, of course it is. What is it with these fancy schools? Is there one in every town? But, wait, there’s more! The school hosts two people that Em already knows (she hates them because… reasons) and they’re automatically involved with the dead guy. Come on guys, that’s a little much; even for a murder mystery.

The Romance, why? So, there’s this repeated . . . thing in the book where Em’s single mother has terrible taste in men. Like, a borderline verbally abusive kind of thing. One guy even stole all their stuff before running off to never be seen again. Now, even being the ‘unromantic’ cynic that I am, I was decently shocked that a book would come out and acknowledge that a bad/unhealthy romance was, well, bad/unhealthy. For a bit, I was sort of impressed. Then, Sebastian St. James showed up. This brat fit every bad boy trope existing and I died a little inside every time he did something “sexily” or “powerfully”; y’all know the person I’m talking about.

Dial Em for Murder isn’t really all that special in the end. Heck! I can’t even complain about it being a waste of time because it was barely three hundred pages. It took me probably two hours? Maybe three to read? Ultimately, it was a fluffy little romance/mystery that really only entertained me because I was tired of reading about super powered teenagers taking on the world. If it seems like your thing, go ahead and check it out, there’s certainly some jokes in there that are worth the read. Otherwise, just let this one slide.