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In Babe in Toyland, Eugenie Seifer Olson has created a fun group of characters. Toby Morris works for a toy company writing instructions for assembling toys. She lives in an apartment with Michael, a professional musician and music teacher. One night while watching the news, Toby spies JP Cody doing the weather report, and falls head over heels in love. She begins to write poetry to him, and watches his weather reports obsessively. Michael begins dating Lisa Carlton again. Lisa and Toby hate each other. Lisa seems to take delight in tormenting Toby. So, Toby begins to pick up request forms for everything from Depends samples, to electrolysis and puts Lisa's name and office address on them. She takes great delight in Lisa's complaints about the information and samples she receives at work. Finally, Michael and Lisa break up, but Michael won't explain why.
Toby is twenty-five and in search of someone to love. Everyone thinks she and Michael are an item, but nothing has ever happened between them. She hates her job and longs for something more artistic to do. She loves bath products and is always searching for something new and different to try. She is comfortable with her living arrangements. But she is bored and lonely in her social life. Her friends try to fix her up, but the resulting dates are disastrous. So, Toby focuses on JP Cody. She asks him to write her back, and to her delight, he does.
Michael is twenty-nine, works with kids teaching them various instruments. He enjoys it, but wants to make it big in the music world. So far, that hasn't happened. His internal process is not described because this is a first person book by Toby. He is a hypochondriac, messy and easy going.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. I laughed, I cried, I even found some ideas for funny revenge. Toby is so busy looking in the wrong direction for love, that the person she ends up with is a surprise to both her and the reader. The book would be rated G, as there is no explicit sex in it. But the nice thing is that with Eugenie Siefer Olson's writing ability, there is no need. For a great, funny read, you won't go wrong with Babe in Toyland.
Reviewed by Nancy
for The Road to Romance
June 22, 2004
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