Don’t you hate it when you get suckered into reading a book by a comparison to a favorite author? I read the line “If you like Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, and Liza Palmer, you’ll love Ellyn Oaksmith! and that is all it took to pique my interest. However, I didn’t find this book anything like Sophie Kinsella’s books. But to be honest, once I reached the point of the talking breast implants, I pretty much lost all interest.

Molly Gallagher feels responsible for her mother’s death. While it is not something she actively processes, it has affected her life in a profound way. She shies away from being the center of attention, even going so far as to not get the recognition she truly deserves in her career. Instead of using her own name, she uses the alias Diner X for her column and reviews of restaurants across town.

She finally gets enough nerve up to have surgery to remove disfiguring scars on her chest, but there is a mixup and she wakes up with breast implants. The surgeon is not willing to do two surgeries back to back, so she has to live with her appearance for a month or so.

Of course there is no way that she plans on keeping these knockers, but suddenly she finds that men are paying more attention to her. And when one special man , Chas – the guy she has had a crush on since high school – starts showing her attention, she has to figure out if she is going to take a chance and grab the brass ring or continue running and hiding from her problems.

With the help of Max and Louise, the voices that she attributes to her new breasts, who give her good, but conflicting advice, she finally starts experiencing living, instead of existing, by gathering the courage to take chances. And maybe there is more than one fish in the sea – like Wolf, the son of one of her clients.

I get that humor is subjective, but I didn’t find anything funny about the plot device of talking implants. I appreciate that others might find this hilarious but it just didn’t work for me.

I would have loved more about self-esteem issues, and Molly’s adjustment to the new attention she is getting. Men don’t talk to her face anymore but to her chest. And that issue is explored some, but not in great detail.

This book has been published before in 2011 under the title Knockers. When I followed the link to Amazon for Knockers, I found a statement from the author:

The premise of KNOCKERS is ridiculous but it’s rooted in some very real difficulties in my life. While working on fishing boat as a cook I was badly burned on my arm and both legs. Shortly after that I met my future husband. He would only know me with these burns. I know it sounds corny but I knew I’d found the right man when he didn’t care about the way I looked. He was the one person who saw right through my jokes, my sometimes false confidence, my attitude and just understood me. I guess that’s what I feel Molly needs to reach by the end of the book. I couldn’t write about my personal relationship so I combined two people — Max and Louise, to create a perfect mother figure for Molly. Someone who protects and someone who is wise. And make us feel safe.

And while I completely agree with the sentiment, I wished she had told the story in a different way.