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.
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