Exes and Ohs

Blecch. The "oh" part of the title apparently refers to the protagonist's orgasms. Really--really?
Really not worth it.

Everything Nice

This is my first foray back into junky chick-lit now that I am officially done with graduate school. Did you catch that?--Absolutely, Positively DONE with my library degree. It was by the skin of my teeth, all last-minute and inappropriate for a young professional, but this expensive test of my time-management skills and patience is finally over after two and half years.

Hooray! And now I'm back to blogging.

Everything Nice = Fairly bad. There's better chick-lit out there, with more in-depth characters than Mike (Michaela), a motherless, frigid advertising exec (with a taste for whiskey and married men) who loses her job and has to learn to loosen up when she gets a job as a substitute teacher in a charter school. The writing isn't bad, though--I like this quote.

p. 163 "Mike was formulating a theory that said the difference between 'finding yourself' and being a fuckup was about five years. The twenty-six-year-old who lost his job and moved to Costa Rica was destined to be a surfer. The thirty-one-year-old who fell off the corporate ladder was destined to be a serf. It was wildly unfair of her and probably unrealistic, but being at sea in your twenties can feel so much more forgivable."

Sushi for Beginners

This is British chick-lit. Very cute--it's like the Irish version of The Devil Wears Prada. Magazine publishers scrambling to get everything just right and uber-hip before the deadline. Plus there's lust, drinking and rampant egos. Like eating a popover--delicious, but mostly air.

Slummy Mummy

Fiona Neill has such a good voice--I folded over page after page because of her character's wit and depth.

Lucy Sweeney is smart, resourceful and funny, but she is trapped in a chaotic disorganized mess of motherhood. She loses her credit card in the freezer half a dozen times a month, her laundry piles are epic, and she and her children are always late to school, often because they have to climb out the living room windows due to lost keys.


The whole book is delightful and funny, but this is my favorite episode. I couldn't stop laughing as the absurdities mount. Lucy is driving the children to school after a marathon morning of forgotten homework:

......"I notice the roads are very quiet. Sealed in the car with the heaters blowing wildly, it is easy to feel cut off from the rest of the world. When I stop at the next junction, I see a large number of parents walking their children to school with unnaturally cheery expressions of homhomie and collectivism. I remember with a sudden lurch that I have forgotten it is Walk to School Day. I will suffer ignominious associations with childhood obesity, global warming, and congested roads. I switch down the heating and explain the situation to the children.
..... 'By driving to school, we are releasing bad chemicals into the atmosphere. Today, lots of children in London are walking to school to show that they care about this. I have forgotten, we are late, and so we are going in the car. But if you crouch down and lie on the floor until I tell you to get out, we might be able to get away with it.'
..... I pull on Joe's Spider-Man hat and shrink down below the level of the dashboard to drive within two hundred meters of school. Then we all sit there, quietly waiting for a break in the cloud of parents wafting along the pavement.
...... I note Alpha Mum, striding down the road in a pair of heavy walking boots and wearing a rucksack. She lives miles away. She couldn't have walked here, but judging by the zealous look on her face, she has. Just as she is level with the car, Fred gets up and starts banging on the window. 'Help, help,' he cries.
I try to pull him away, but he is rubbing the steamed-up window with his tiny hand. A nose appears, pressed against the glass, one of those turned-up, slightly superior noses that never has freckles because it is always protected from the sun with wide-brimmed hats and factor forty. Then a pair of eyes, wide open and blinking, tries to focus on the tiny face inside. The overall impression is ghoulish, and Fred starts to cry louder. It is Alpha Mum. 'Someone has left a child locked alone in this vehicle,' she shouts loudly down the street. Clearly she is a woman who enjoys taking charge in an emergency. 'I'm going to inform the school. Will you stay here and try and comfort it?'
..... I hear Alpha Mum's walking boots stomping along the pavement out of earshot and shut my eyes, practicing deep breathing techniques that I hope will keep the car steamed up."...

Chasing Harry Winston

You'd think that after a smart novel like The Devil Wears Prada, one that made millions of dollars for everyone involved, the publishers would vigilantly edit whatever Weisberger came out with next. I can only imagine that either her publishers lazily retreated and let her reputation sell the book, or that her ego stood in the way of the editing process. Either way, somebody dropped the ball.

Weisberger's tale involves three women seeking love and husbands as they approach their 30th birthdays. One is too promiscuous, one is too monogamous, and the third doesn't love the man she's with. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, one's too hot, one too cold and so on...

The book is too long, too shallow, and it's crowded with too many plotlines, men and inexplicable plot meanderings--such as these beauties...

p. 196-197: Two characters argue for 2 whole pages about one character's penchant for popular chick lit, detailing such works as Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Bridget Jones's Diary and The Nanny Diaries.

p. 247: One character leaves her OB-GYN exam (which has NOTHING to do with the plot):
"After dressing, Emmy jumped on the 4 train to Union Square. She figured on a brisk walk directly home to shower--something she always felt compelled to do after the K-Y-heavy exams--but as she exited the subway at Fourteenth and Broadway she found herself heading directly toward Leigh and Adriana's building. With Leigh's breakup only a week old and Adriana's newfound commitment to work, she figured at least one of them had to be home, sulking or writing or both, but the doorman shook his head [...] By the time she reached her building and trudged up the five flights of stairs, she was drenched from head to toe: her hair from the freezing rain, her feet from the filthy slush, and her ladyparts from the overzealous application of medical-grade lube."
Isn't it terrible?-- the overuse of the word "directly," the fact that this does nothing to advance the plot and finally, it's not even well-written!

Too Good to be True

Book publishers did a study of devoted readers of the romance genre, seeing as how romance novels make up 50% of the American book market. They wanted to pinpoint what makes a good (to the readers) romance novel. The number one answer: the couple has to get together in a fairy-tale romance by the end. Most readers will actually skim the ending of a book before they buy it, in order to determine that there is indeed a happy ending.

I feel like this book's first page is the ending of a romance novel. An air traffic controller goes on a vacation and gets married to the man sitting next to her on the plane. If I could get past the idea that they're already happily together and married by page one, I might be able to get through the remaining 403 pages. So far no luck.

Bombshell

Ooo, this was an embarassing cover to been seen with. And I knew that the plot was formulaic, but when I went on Powells.com to get the image, they told me that it's number 33 of the series! What?? And now I'm reading the quote on the front cover--"'Sex and the City with more heart...a winner.' Publishers Weekly on Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend." The positive review isn't even about the book whose cover it's gracing! I feel like I've been played in a major way.
Throw this one back. There's better chick lit out there.

Remember Me?

A woman awakens in the hospital, only to be told that although the last thing she remembers is falling outside a bar the night before her father's funeral, three years have actually passed since that night. This blip in her memory comes with bigger changes--it turns out that in the last three years she has completely changed her life. From a Bridget Jones-type, office worker, funny frump...to a high-powered, coiffed, carbohydrate-free company manager, and married too. What happened?
And that's the book.
Cute, especially if you enjoyed her "Shopoholic" series.

Judging books by their covers

Can you tell that another quarter of graduate school has ended? The shorter and shorter blog posts, and then utter silence for weeks... Well, but for one assignment, the new quarter has begun, and I'm full of hope that I'll stay caught up, nay, ahead, of the assignments for my spring classes. Just go ahead and try to quell my good intentions--go on now, I dare ya!

I've still been reading, but it's been light reading. Light like reading your fortune from stale fortune cookies light. I will not even talk about them--they were good and satisfying when you know what to expect, and the covers let you know what to expect. Not that I mean that in a bad way--it's like how we (or at least many among us) turn on "What not to wear" for a bit of evening television escapism. You know the routine--the frumpy clothes, the shock and horror of the hosts, the frustration of the frump-ee the day after her first shopping trip, the traumatic haircut by Nick, and finally, the glorious reveal to family and friends--Ta dah! Another chic soccer mom is rehabilitated, ready to be released back into the suburban wilds!

The Manny

I loved this book. Loved it the way that you love a croissant when you're biting into its warm crispy outer layers--you fully enjoy the moment, but it's not meant to satisfy you in the long run.
A high-powered corporate journalist with two children is getting fed up. For as many hours as she works, her lawyer husband is around even less. Her girls are handling everything ok, but her son is retreating further into his shell every day. To her staff of housekeeper, drivers and nanny, she adds a young graduate student to act as her son's "manny."
It's totally unrealistic except in its descriptions of the insane lifestyles led by the rich in America. The draw of the book is observing the differences between "them" and "us," so the lack of real emotion is not too noticeable.