ChickLit

All posts tagged ChickLit

ALL’S WELL – Mona Awad

Posted by Daniel on February 18, 2022
Posted in: OTHER, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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Well, this didn’t work for me at all.

A one-time theatre professional, Miranda Fitch, is now a college professor and she’s close to losing this job. She is addicted to pain-killers for her chronic back pain. She loathes herself, her students, her life.

She has selected Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well – one of his ‘problem’ plays – for the current production. The majority of the theatre students however were hoping to perform Macbeth and have decided to revolt.  The leader of the revolt, the star of this (or any) play … not because she’s so talented, but because her parents make donations to the school … has called for mom and dad to threaten to pull funding if the play isn’t Macbeth.

Everything in Miranda’s life seems to be going against her until some unknown supporter steps in and offers a larger donation to the school’s theatre program and growth if Miranda can do the show she wants to do. With this surprise, life slowly turns around. Not only does her chronic pain go away and she builds on a thrilling sexual relationship with a friend and colleague, but her student nemesis seems to be taking on Miranda’s former issues.

There’s an interesting idea here in this book, and I give an ‘A’ for concept, but author Mona Awad writes the miserable Miranda so well that I took an instant dislike to the character and to the story.  Well… I guess it was hard to dislike the story right away because the story didn’t really develop until a third of the way in.

Miranda was miserable and very negative about nearly everything. I didn’t want to spend time with her, so I didn’t want to open the book to read. Sure … something was bound to happen to her, but I really didn’t care. It was a struggle to keep reading through the first half of the book.  it gets better, but I don’t think it pays off, ultimately.

The first person narrative felt weird.  I understood that this was to help get across Miranda’s take on the events around her, and it was possibly the best way to express her level of pain and misery, but it came across as a YA angst novel. Really, all she does is tell us about her pain. Again, and again, and again.

If there’s a correlation between Awad’s story or Miranda’s plight, and Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, I don’t know what it is.  All’s Well is not a well-known work (certainly not well known by me) so how it fits with the scheme and theme of the story, I don’t.

I was really hoping to like this, and it starts to pull up as it reaches the final pages, but the first half sets a tone that it just can’t overcome.

Looking for a good book? All’s Well by Mona Awad is a book about a miserable woman, and it never really establishes itself as anything else.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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All’s Well

author: Mona Awad

publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 1982169664

hardcover, 352 pages

PATRICIA WANTS TO CUDDLE – Samantha Allen

Posted by Daniel on January 21, 2022
Posted in: Dark Fantasy/Horror, ROMANCE, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

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Four women have made it to the final of a reality television dating show (ala The Bachelor). Their prize? A sleazy bachelor who doesn’t seem to want to choose any of the women before him. Their destination for their final? A mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest.

Each contestant represents a classic stereotype and each has their own reason for being on the show (it’s no secret really that it’s not to hook up with the bachelor).

Living alone in the woods on the remote island is Patricia, who watches as the female contestants primp for the camera and prepare for whatever contests the TV producers come up with for them.  But the cast and skeleton crew left on the remote island may need reclusive Patricia’s help if they are to survive into the next round.

I requested this book because I was in the mood for something light and fun, and with the television filming as a background I really thought I might get into this. And I did, a little bit.

The characters really are stereotypes, each person representing one quite obvious (to reality tv watchers) character trait. One of these stood out to me – the uber-religious – and I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it was just too easy to constantly have this person make a pithy religious quote.

There is a mysterious horror aspect to the book, which I found enjoyable … until it became more ridiculous than horrific.

Ultimately, this is both the success and failure of this book … this is heavy satire. But perhaps it is satirizing too much?  The satire of the reality show works well, but this strange addition of the dark turn takes it out of satire and then we’re no longer enjoying the book we thought we were getting in to.

It tries to come back or maintain the light-hearted satire, but I think it goes over the edge, making the come-back nearly impossible.

Also … the title? Patricia is not nearly as much a prime character in this book as one might think, given that she is the titular character.

Looking for a good book? Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen is a chick-lit satire of reality television shows until it turns dark and gruesome but tries to hang on to a light-hearted atmosphere anyway.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Patricia Wants to Cuddle

author: Samantha Allen

publisher: Zando

ISBN: 163893004X

hardcover, 256 pages

THANKSGIVING – Ellen Cooney

Posted by Daniel on April 28, 2021
Posted in: OTHER, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Ellen Cooney’s Thanksgiving follows one family through 350 years of Thanksgiving preparations. One family, one house, one room, one meal. Cooney’s book connects generations, shares family joys and sorrows and as family items and heirlooms are handed down and sometimes lost, reminds us what is important in life.

I have to admit that the first time I started to read this (back in 2013) I was bored early and put it away to try again.  I’m glad I waited and tried again because this time, perhaps fueled by my own interest in family history and genealogy, I was more interested in making the connections and following the family.
 
Seeing how little humans change over the centuries is fascinating. Our technology changes, and perhaps our perception of how we fit into the world changes, but at our core we, as humans, have many of the same concerns, loves, fears, and fervor now as we did 350 years ago.
 
Cooney manages to give us a little bit of the historical backdrop to each chapter (which features a new generation in the family line) as well as something that has a family member concerned.
 
One of my problems eight years ago when I tried reading this is that I was that I was not realizing that we were not going to be seeing the same people from chapter to chapter  – that this was not a book about a person, but a book about a family tree. It’s definitely a different sort of read than what I am typically used to.  This is ‘big picture – compare and contract with lots of glimpses at many individual stories’ rather than the more typical ‘one story with maybe a couple of subplots pulled together by one or two individuals.’
 
I liked that each chapter was titled for an item on the Thanksgiving table which helps pull together the metaphor of family gathering around the holiday table – even though the family is separated by time.
 
This is clever, tender, and well written, but ultimately it is a book that pulls together an idea and not a story, which is maybe why I was left just a little unsatisfied as I finished. Still, I give it four stars because I liked the message and the way it was done.
 
Looking for a good book? Thanksgiving, by Ellen Cooney, is a book about family and history and the coming together, using the American Thanksgiving meal as the common event between the generations.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
 
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Thanksgiving
 
author: Ellen Cooney
 
publisher: Publerati
 
ISBN13: 9780985050474
 
ebook, 248 pages

MULTIPLE LISTINGS – Tracy McMillan

Posted by Daniel on January 13, 2021
Posted in: OTHER, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Nikki Daniels is a single mother of a teenage boy, Cody. She owns her own business (home appraisal) and she’s got a younger boyfriend (Jake) with whom she’s hoping to start a new business. It’s an ideal life, right?  Except it’s not as ideal as it might appear on the surface. 
 
Nikki wants to be in real estate and not home appraisal or the restaurant business that she’s starting with Jake. Cody is a teenager and has no interest in what Nikki says. Jake is often emotionally distant and Nikki wonders if he’s just using her to to finance his dream. But worst of all, her father, Ronnie, has been released from prison and he’s coming to live with Nikki

Ronnie, a charming con man, has been estranged from his family since his sentencing, but his early release from the correctional facility (due to a  technicality) has him nearly slipping into his past behavior (especially conning women to bed) and he feels the best thing for him is to move in with his daughter and grandson.

Nikki doesn’t Ronnie around, afraid, in part, that he’ll be a bad influence on Cody, but Ronnie uses his con charm to integrate himself deeper and deeper into Nikki and Cody’s lives.  Ronnie recognizes Jake’s con and helps Nikki shake him loose, and Nikki can’t help but see the positive change in Cody now that his grandfather is giving him some attention.

I don’t remember what it was about this book that had me interested in reading it, and I had no idea what to expect as I got into it. I was expecting something dramatic to happen, which was never really there. About half way through I thought, “Okay, we’ve established the characters and the plot, when is the dramatic moment going to happen?”

But this isn’t that kind of book.  This is a gentle story about one woman turning her life around and making new connections with the men in her life.

This is what readers often refer to as ‘chick lit’ – a term I don’t care for, but when I looked it up on Wikipedia I found: 

Chick lit … is genre fiction, which “consists of heroine-centered narratives that focus on the trials and tribulations of their individual protagonists”. The genre often addresses issues of modern womanhood – from romantic relationships to female friendships to matters in the workplace – in humorous and lighthearted ways.

Oh, this definitely fits!

At the point where I was waiting for something more dramatic, I was already quite invested in the book because author Tracy McMillan delivers really well defined characters.  Nikki is the appropriately strong protagonist.  She is strong, though she needs the nudges she gets to shake her up a little bit to remind her not to settle.  She goes through the most significant character arc through the course of the book, opening herself up to what Ronnie brings to her (and Cody’s) life.

Although Ronnie plays a significant role in the book (every other chapter being from his point of view), he is more of a stereotype, not quite so well defined, and he doesn’t grow or change nearly as much as Nikki. His role is simply to provide the impetus for all the changes that Nikki will need to navigate.  Given this role, and the more stereotype-ness of his character, I think Ronnie’s carrying half the book was just too much.

But this was still an enjoyable, feel-good book that’s easy to read.

Looking for a good book? If you like chick lit and need a good quarantine read, consider Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Multiple Listings

author: Tracy McMillan

publisher: Gallery Books

ISBN: 147678552X

hardcover, 336 pages