Fiona Walker’s French Relations has a lot of good points, and one scene in particular is laugh-until-you-bawl funny. But it has some bad ones too, like obvious and repeated foreshadowing (I think I counted 10 mentions of the same event) and an over-reliance on puns for laughs. They can be funny, sure, but that sort […]
Category: Chick lit
In Her Shoes
I can’t believe Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes was actually made into a movie – actually I can. It’s for people who like to laugh at (not with) other people. One of the main characters, Maggie, is mean, spiteful, selfish, greedy, and a bitch (not to put too fine a point on it). Oh, and […]
Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married
I love, love, love Marian Keyes’s Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married. Though it’s not perfect (see spoilers, below), I enjoy the story and particularly certain scenes so much that I’m still able to reread it regularly and enjoy it just as much each time I do. I really like Lucy, and overall the book is […]
Boy Meets Girl
A modern day epistolary novel, Meg Cabot’s Boy Meets Girl is told entirely through emails, notes, instant messaging, voice mails, and the like. Except I don’t – like it, that is. It’s one thing for a book to be written in the form of two people writing letters to one another – where both parties’ […]
The Edge of Reason
The second (and final) Bridget Jones book, Helen Fielding’s The Edge of Reason, isn’t as good as the first, but it’s definitely worth a read or five. The timing is off in places (e.g., Magda’s pregnancy/new baby in the two books) and some of the situations are a little too outrageous, but all in all […]
Suddenly Single
I’m sure that Sheila O’Flanagan tried to dumb down the financial market info in Suddenly Single, but even so I couldn’t understand much of it (and there was a lot) and therefore the whole story was far less interesting than it might have been. There was no humor, either, so in the end I found […]
The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing
More a collection of short stories than a novel, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank, is on the smarter and more serious end of the chick lit spectrum. I’m not normally a fan of short stories, preferring to spend the length of a novel getting to know a few characters and […]
Just Friends
It’s set in New York, but I would definitely classify Just Friends, by Robyn Sisman, as English chick lit. Either way, the whole book is fun and there are a couple of truly hilarious scenes. The characters and, more importantly, the various mix-ups and misunderstandings are believable, which makes them all the funnier. This is […]
Good Grief
For a long time I hesitated to read Lolly Winston’s Good Grief because, given the title and plot (young widow starts over), I thought it would be too sad. And it is sad, in parts, but it is also beautifully written and I really liked it. The grief is palpable at times, but the tender […]
Straight Talking
Jane Green’s first book, Straight Talking, is not her best. Tasha is both shallow and selfish, and I couldn’t root for her no matter how hard I tried. At one point she found out something hurtful and I actually thought “serves you right!” (She said as much to herself, too, but that still wasn’t enough […]