Chick Lit
I was pleased to review The Boy Next Door because I read and enjoyed the authors' previous American release Come Together. I'm happy to say that their new one is even better. This story is absorbing and touching, the dual first-person narrative device still works well, and this story isn't quite so ...
Warning: This Book Is Not A Romance. This is not a book whose central story concerns a woman and a man meeting, falling in love, and living happily ever after. Even though Red Dress Inc. is the newest imprint from the Big Kid on the romance block, Harlequin/Silhouette, they’re branching out into ...
Ironically, Rebecca Bloomwood writes financial articles in a magazine called Successful Saving, although she could write an encyclopedia about all the things she doesn't know about successful saving. "I shop, therefore I live," is her motto. Or wait, maybe it was "I live, therefore I shop." Shopping ...
Confessions of a Shopaholic is another Brit Chick Lit book with yet another heroine who is the author of most of her own problems. But unlike the addict heroine in Marian Keyes's Rachel's Holiday, the heroine of this book is not nearly so likable, nor does she make as much progress. Rebecca B ...
A little while ago I saw the movie The Whole Nine Yards with Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry. It was a comedy about a man who discovers that his neighbor is a hit-man. Some premise, I thought. A charming sociopath kills people for a living, and we're supposed to find that funny. What burned me the mo ...
Second Thyme Around made me wish for much more - more humor, more character development, more emotion. Although I enjoyed the pleasantly quirky narrative style, the book never gripped me enough to recommend it, particularly at the hardcover price. Fey organic farmer Perdita Dyl ...
B-
After I fell in love with Mr. Maybe I was very interested in reading more stuff by Jane Green, so I asked if I could review Jemima J too. Jemima J was actually last year's book. It came out in hardcover in America in 2000, and has been recently released in trade paperback. It contained some of the h ...
Marian Keyes's Rachel's Holiday is a warmly-recommended story about addiction, denial, and the need for acceptance. Rachel Walsh is a 27- year-old Irishwoman who leads a high-flying New York party girl's life. She strives to be chic and groovy and wants nothing more than to be accepted by those she ...
B+
I picked up a copy of Good in Bed as a result of a discussion I was in about Brit Chick Lit. This book is not British, but in many other ways, it does fall into the same sub-genre. The heroine is young, urban, professional, single, and somewhat neurotic. She's also quite funny and rather endearing i ...
