The Thin Pink Line
Grade : C

Reading The Thin Pink Line was something of a roller coaster ride. At first I found the heroine simply appalling. Then I decided she was appalling, but occasionally funny. Then I decided she was quite funny, and less appalling than I had originally believed. By the time I got to the improbable ending, I wasn't really sure what I thought of her anymore.

The basic premise of the book is this: heroine Jane Taylor fakes a pregnancy, hoping to convince her live-in boyfriend to propose. She gets the idea when she is a few days late and believes that she actually is pregnant. When her period comes a few days later, she decides to buy a pregnancy test and a pink magic marker (so she can draw the telltale line that shows everyone a happy event is on the way). She presents the "evidence" to her less-than-ecstatic boyfriend, and proceeds to try to get pregnant in earnest. This doesn't go so well, and a few months later, she finds herself with a fake pregnancy and a whole host of people - including work associates and family - who are expecting her to produce a real baby.

I confess that at this point I thought she was a complete idiot, and I peeked ahead to the end (something I almost never do) to see just how long she would continue this ridiculous charade. I despaired when it appeared that she would carry it out to the bitter end, but resolved to soldier on through the book anyway. Fortunately, things pick up. The jerk boyfriend discovers her ruse and leaves her, then a work colleague finds her out when she sees her in a bar pounding back a few. Jane confesses all to the colleague, who has a great idea: why not continue faking through the entire nine-month period, and write a book about her experiences? Since they both work for a publishing company, Jane agrees to do this and gets a great advance. This still seemed a little silly to me, but somehow it seemed better then faking her pregnancy just for the dumb boyfriend.

The rest of the book follows with Jane trying to figure out how to look pregnant and act pregnant, and running into a snag when she falls in love with a man who doesn't know her secret. We're not entirely sure how that conflict is resolved, and we are left to wonder what exactly will happen at the end.

When I read the first few pages and found out that the heroine was desperate for a man, liked to drink, and worked for a publishing company in London, I couldn't help thinking that I'd liked the book better the first time around, when Helen Fielding wrote it and called it Bridget Jones's Diary. But by the end I was convinced that even with a heroine in publishing, the book was not like Bridget. It helped somewhat that the author was aware of the irony, and has Jane, an assistant editor, notice the proliferation of such books in her slush pile:

"Sometimes it felt as though you could no longer turn around in a bookshop or at an editorial meeting without being confronted with yet another pink-covered book whose pages told about the wacky adventures of yet another twentysomething Londoner who labored in publishing - I don't know why they all have to be in publishing, but they always are - and who will do anything in her power to find Mr. Right."

Obviously, the author is entirely aware that she has described her own book in a nutshell. The author's humor is by far the best part of the book. I thought Jane was at best, stupid, and at worst, unconscionable. Yet her sly comments about the people in her office just kept making me laugh. I almost forgave her stupidity when she blithely told her annoying mother that she was planning to name her baby Satan (pronounced suh-TAN), and when she compared the attendees at her sister's baby shower to the cast of The Crucible. I almost wet my pants when she called the most self-righteous one "Goody Peg."

While the heroine's humor is the high point of the book, her stupidity is definitely the low point. The whole fake pregnancy is both silly and ultimately unkind to others. At one point early on, Jane thinks she should get out of the lie, but can't think how. The answer seemed obvious to me: if you can fake an early pregnancy, surely you can invent a miscarriage to end it. And while I liked that Jane shows some growth, particularly when she realizes that others around her have invested emotional energy in her "baby," the ending of the book (which I won't spoil here) is a definite cop-out.

All in all, it's a mixed bag. If you want some laugh-out-loud humor and don't mind the fake pregnancy premise and its unlikely end, this may work for you. It is to be hoped that this review is more useful than the heroine (and presumably, the author) believes reviews in general to be. When Jane is helping one of her clients through a bad review, she thinks:

"Apparently, reviewers, contrary to their own inflated self-beliefs, don't matter very much. Oh, sure, books have to be reviewed, if only as an alternative to advertising, but it just doesn't matter very much what gets said."

We'll see, Jane, won't we?

Reviewed by Blythe Smith
Grade : C
Book Type: Chick Lit

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : July 5, 2003

Publication Date: 2004

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Blythe Smith

I've been at AAR since dinosaurs roamed the Internet. I've been a Reviewer, Reviews Editor, Managing Editor, Publisher, and Blogger. Oh, and Advertising Corodinator. Right now I'm taking a step back to concentrate on kids, new husband, and new job in law...but I'll still keep my toe in the romance waters.
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