I loved the reading of this story, and the story itself was a fun romp. When Lilian wails that she does not want to be known as the woman on the internet with the arm flab, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Arm flab heroines of the internet unite!
My main complaints were:
1) I never get to find out what dead languages the main character knew! Yes, I know that the story is not really about dead languages but more about becoming that which you pretend to be (cool premise!) but I wanted to know which dead languages the main character was versed in. It's pretty unusual for someone in western culture to study other dead languages but not Latin. Latin is usually the default dead language option of high schools. I wanted to know what else she had studied. Since she recited the poem in old Anglo Saxon, I have to assume that was one of them. What was the other? Greek? Sanskrit? Ancient Egyptian? Babylonian? I want to know!
2) I enjoyed it when Christian fell in love with her, but boy was I disappointed when I realized that he fell in love with her because he was victim of a spell. I wanted him to fall in love with her because she kicked ass, could recite poetry in different languages, had a razor sharp wit and a sense of humor and because she looked damn fine in a bustier. Skinny guys fall for bright, funny, well endowed fat chicks all the time. I would not have minded the spell bringing them together if the reason was that Lilian had become more confident, or just was a stronger person because of the spell. But to have Christian love Lilian mainly because the spell made him do so... well, that cheapened it for me.
Hmm