The Givenchy Code

My ongoing unofficial TBR challenge is to read books I started but hadn't finished. Julie Kenner's The Givenchy Code is a book I started last year, then set aside.

As if a recent breakup, scrounging for rent money, and lusting after designer shoes weren't enough to make graduate student Melanie Prescott's life challenging, suddenly she's practically living The Da Vinci Code. A mysterious stranger is sending obscure codes and clues her way and she soon discovers she had to solve them in order to stay alive. With stakes like that, her dissertation on "the derivation and primary characteristics of codes and ciphers used by prevailing nations during wartime" is looking a little less important than it was yesterday. Right now she's just worrying about living to see tomorrow. The only bright spot in the whole freakish nightmare is Matthew Stryker, the six-foot tall, dark, and handsome stranger who's determined to protect her. Well, that and the millions of dollars that will be her reward if she survives this deadly game. And she'd better survive. Because that's a heck of a lot of money to be able to spend on shoes and handbags and sunglasses and
dresses, and, well, it's hard to be fashionable when you're dead.

I picked this one up again after reading Rosario's review, and I'm glad I did: 4 out of 5.

I started and set aside this book around the time Paperback Reader reviewed the book. Here's a quote from that review: "Problem is, the first thirty pages are so weighed down with designer-name dropping that it's tempting to put the book aside. However, once the initial onslaught of labels ends, the book takes off in a steady rhythm with increasing danger."

The first part of the quote is exactly what happened. I read the first thirty pages and grew frustrated with the whole name-dropping thing. I must also confess that I'm growing tired of shoe-obsessed heroines. When shopping consumes Melanie (Mel) through the first section, I gave up. After reading Rosario's review, I picked up the book again, and discovered that I had quit one chapter before the real action begins. After that, we start to see what Melanie is made of, and I came to like her much more than I had in the beginning.

The clues are quite well done. I certainly couldn't have deciphered them, but I didn't feel cheated or alienated from the story because of it. I simply enjoyed following Mel and Stryker on their journey. We get less of Stryker's point of view, but I liked him very much and thought he was terrific.

So the end result was that I liked the book, although I'm still wondering why someone would pay that much to play this "game." And I'm glad the celebratory shopping wasn't described in great detail. I'll probably get the next one in the series, The Manolo Matrix.