Body and Soul
Grade : B-

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?

Lisa O'Connor is a neglected wife, unappreciated mother, and dissatisfied homemaker. One day she spots a beautiful twenty-year-old named Tory, and mutters, "I wish I had your life." Suddenly her wish comes true. Now Lisa is in the body of Tory and vice versa. She has a startling new bra size, a sexy twenty-one-year-old boyfriend, and a brand new job at the law firm owned by her own husband. Lisa doesn't spend much time enjoying her new circumstances, though. She loves her husband, Michael, and she wants him back.

Lisa tries to cope with her new life and figure out a way to get back to her old one. Tory, who now inhabits Lisa's old body, has had an emotional breakdown and is proving completely incapable of coping with Lisa's children, and Lisa is worried about them. Lisa (in Tory's body) sees her husband, Michael, every day at work, and she loves him more than ever. She knows all the reasons why their marriage hadn't been working and she wishes she'd had the courage to fix them instead of wishing her way out of her life. Now Lisa is getting close to Michael and the kids, seeing her family from the outside in.

We see this situation through Michael's eyes, too - he didn't appreciate Lisa, but now that she's freaked out he wants to do whatever's necessary to make their marriage work again. At the same time he's drawn to Tory (who is actually Lisa), not just because of her looks but because she reminds him so much of the way Lisa used to be. Lisa can't bear the idea of Michael having sexual relations with the woman he thinks is Lisa, because she's really Tory. And she can't bear the idea of Michael having an affair with her, because he thinks she's Tory. Am I making sense here?

This is Jennifer Archer's first novel, and it's a pleasant surprise. It's witty and charming. The plot's not exactly profound, but Archer does a pretty good job showing how poignant Lisa's situation is, especially when she tries to tell Michael the truth and he doesn't believe her. Also, I enjoyed the treatment of Lisa's competition, Tory. A very attractive younger woman, she could have been portrayed as a dumb blond or as a predator. Archer does neither of these. By the end of this novel, I felt more sympathy for poor Tory than I did for Lisa.

This novel's biggest problem is that it is too long. There just isn't enough material here to fill up all these pages. An epic can sprawl, but a comedy needs to be tight and snappy. Archer's treatment of the secondary romance between Lisa's best friend and a mysterious man is exactly that - snappy, funny, unexpected - mostly because it's paced correctly. Lisa and Michael's story is paced much more slowly. Midway through the book I was eyeing the number of pages I had left to read and musing, "What else can possibly happen?" This pacing problem is entirely understandable for a new writer and could have been corrected by an aggressive editor. Perhaps more seriously, Archer never succeeds in showing me that Michael is worth all the fuss.

Still, this was a good read, and I recommend it. Jennifer Archer has the goods; her next book might just be a keeper.

Reviewed by Jennifer Keirans
Grade : B-

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : September 22, 1999

Publication Date: 1999

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Jennifer Keirans

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