80 Books No.59: The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs by Christina Hopkinson

It's more chick-lit. But, I like to think, chick-lit beyond the romance and dating and stuff. Here, the story picks up about nine years after the ending of a traditional chick-lit (boy and girl waltz off into the sunset together) and finds boy and girl as dad and mum of two under-fives and struggling. As Mary's irritation with Joel's apparent ineptitude at being a responsible husband and father increases, she decides to keep a list of everything he does that annoys her and use it to help decide whether to divorce him.

Okay, so it's pretty bonkers as a concept: I would imagine few divorces are quite so calculated and methodical in their origin. Also, Mary and Joel are two very un-chick-lit-esque names, perhaps deliberately. And also, it's completely put me off getting married or having children as it just seems so much effort. I spent two hours faffing with my hair today and I'm far too selfish to give that up.

But aside from my own complete self-absorption...

The bonkers concept does translate itself into several other bonkers instances throughout the novel, not least Mary and Joel witnessing their friends in a weird sexual encounter. It goes off at tangents as well, with Mary's lesbian best friend debating whether to have children or not, but ultimately this was a book I actually quite enjoyed, as it was quite witty, warm-hearted and, despite the bonkersness, was rooted in some reality. Mary and Joel weren't perfect and life was quite mundane for them. And why can't we have some average people in a novel for once?

80 Books No.54: You Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

You know my assertion way back in March that I don't really get on with chick-lit? Perhaps I should revise that. Admittedly this is only the fourth chick-lit novel I've read this year, and of those four, perhaps only two of them (actually including this one) could be deemed books I genuinely really quite enjoyed. But none of them have been books I've flung across the room in a 'what the hell is this?' kind of fit (unlike Once Upon a Prince which is still making my blood boil). So perhaps me and chick-lit  could get on after all.

This one was a pretty standard read: Rachel ditches her fiancé just before the One Who Got Away walks back into her life complete with picture-perfect wife. Lots of angst, some sparky repartee and some mildly comedic moments before coming to a reasonably predictable ending.

However, it stands out as a more superior form of chick-lit than some for the following reasons:

1. It's written for people with a brain. I've read so many chick-lit books that are written using super-basic English as if women can't read complex sentences. The characters are 2D and everything is just geared up in order to describe some cringe-worthy sex scenes. Speaking of which...

2. There are hardly any cringe-worthy sex scenes. There is one sex scene involving the main characters which is actually quite endearing.

3. The characters are quite pleasant and nice. It is a bit Bridget Jones in places, but most chick-lit is influenced by that anyway, so forgivable.

The storyline does swing a bit like a pendulum towards the end as the main characters are unable to make their minds up about anything, a trait which annoys me with real people, but I can overlook in print. It was a quick and mostly enjoyable read.

80 Books No.45: The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes

Marian Keyes is, as far as I am concerned, the reigning queen of chick lit. I've said before that me and chick lit fell out a while ago, but that I do make exceptions, and Marian is one of my exceptions. I have read every one of her novels, even Sushi for Beginners which was a bit of a chore (although the heroine's parents lived in my hometown - how strange). Her most recent books have been a bit divisive. The Brightest Star in the Sky had such a horrendously saccharine ending that I sort of wanted to burn the book, whilst This Charming Man was criticised by many fans for being overlong (I actually enjoyed it enough to read it twice).

Her Walsh family novels, however, have always been winners. Watermelon, Angels, Rachel's Holiday and Anybody Out There? deal with four of the Walsh sisters and their journeys through (variously), single parenthood, being boring, addiction and bereavement. The skill Keyes has always had is to make the sister she's writing about at the time be your favourite, although secretly Rachel has always been my favourite as Rachel's Holiday is frankly sublime.

And so here is book five, and presumably the last one as we've now run out of Walsh sisters. In this one, the youngest sister, Helen, is dealing with the aftermath of a depressive episode whilst being involved in finding a missing popstar. As you can see, it mingles serious with quite frivolous, albeit not quite as spectacularly as Rachel's Holiday does (just read it, it's immense). Helen was always the sister I was least able to like but here she's grown up a lot and had life experiences of her own, making her a more appealing character. In some ways, she is very different from the character in other novels, though whether this is down to age or the fact she is narrating her own story is open to debate.

What is clear in this novel is that Keyes is writing very firmly from the heart. In Rachel's Holiday she dealt with addiction, something likely informed by her own battle with alcoholism. Here, she deals with depression, something which almost scuppered her ever writing again. It was this element which made The Mystery of Mercy Close stand out for me; the descriptions of depression in it really bring home how terrifying this illness must be and brought it to life for someone who has never experienced it. Whilst the storyline is a bit convoluted and it could do with some editing, this novel is worth a read simply to be immersed in the life of somebody dealing with such an illness.

80 Books No.18: When Good Friends Go Bad by Ellie Campbell

Like I said when I reviewed Lizzy Harrison Loses Control, chick-lit and I stopped being easy bedfellows a few years back, and this title is a bit off-the-wall cheesy. Still, like many of my recent reads, this only cost me £2 brand new, so it was worth a gamble. At the very least I knew it would be easy to read.

Basic premise: 4 girls are school friends, then they drift apart (the 'childish prank' that goes wrong described in the blurb is way more boring than I expected in light of having read Torn). They have a brief reunion and then split their ways again, more distant than ever, until somebody gets back in touch. Admittedly this to-ing and fro-ing is not normal chick-lit stuff. The complete lack of drama, at least 'on stage', is, until the last fifty pages, incredibly unusual. Yes, there are affairs and divorces and fights, but it all seems to have happened before the story started. Then when there's a big showdown in the last few pages, it all seems very pantomime. Weird.

Character-wise, there's a big effort made to make the four women very different. Jen seems to be the main protagonist as it's from her perspective most of the novel is told from. She's likeable enough, if a bit of a wet lettuce, and her relationship with her daughter is virtually non-existant. Meg's relationship with her son is more believable and she is a bit more of an interesting character, although her storyline is odd. Georgina is again perhaps more believable if erratic. Rowan... well, you hardly see enough of her to get much of a sense of her and the story is never seen from her viewpoint.

With regard to the men involved, I'm not sure if we're supposed to be attracted to all of them. From my viewpoint, Jen's (ex) husband Ollie is the only one worth any time whatsoever: Aiden and Tom gave off vibes of being weird way before they were revealed to be. This makes the ending a strange mixture of pleasing, predictable and completely random. Not as random as Jen's final pages confession of her traumatic teenage past, but still quite convenient. The novel is tied up surprisingly quickly, as if the authors wanted it finished.

Yes, authors. Ellie Campbell is apparently a pseudonym for Pam Burks and Lorraine Campbell, sisters who write novels together. There is nothing especially interesting about this, although it is unusual, but it was very confusing when reading the acknowledgements as they referred to 'we' and 'our' throughout - even mentioning two husbands! Why go to the effort of pretending to be one person if you're going to give up in the dying pages?

Final summing up: a reasonable enough way to spend some time, won't set the world on fire, try not to laugh at the ending.

PS: I'm glad they did choose the name Ellie Campbell, though, as it means it's totally legitimate to post this video. Classic tune.

80 Books No.12: Lizzy Harrison Loses Control by Pippa Wright

 

I used to really like chick-lit and read loads of it when I was younger. I’ve read all of Marian Keyes’ books with the exception of her most recent novel, many of Cathy Kelly’s and several of Sophie Kinsella’s. They’re easy reads and generally have a reasonably likeable character and a happy ending (I always feel cheated if it doesn’t).

Then a few dodgy ones put me off and I stopped reading them. It wasn’t really an active ‘I must not read chick-lit’ decision, more that their storylines didn’t really appeal anymore and I preferred other genres. Every so often, though, I’ll come across one which I stick with beyond the initial ‘ditzy girl breaks her heel’ opening chapter.

This book is not going to win any awards or be on a ‘top five books to read this year’ list. Whilst it starts out by making the reader fully away that Lizzy Harrison is not your typical chick-lit heroine, the storyline is pure rom-com and, for anybody who has had even a fleeting fling with a Richard Curtis film, entirely predictable. If you don’t spot who Lizzy is destined to be with upon his first arrival in the novel, you haven’t spent enough time reading Jane Austen. Even so, the characters were some of the more appealing ones I’ve come across recently and it was an easy read, which is always a help when you’re trying to read more than one book a week for a year.

This is a largely uninspiring review, I know, mainly because the best adjective I can come up with for the novel is ‘nice’ which is never really a good thing. Still, it’s better than ‘boring’ or ‘badly written’, both of which could apply to the book I discarded in favour of this (Divine by Mistake by PC Cast). So really this is quite a favourable review.

I’m still waiting for a realistic chick-lit novel about a teacher though.