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Archive for the ‘Chick-Lit’ Category

How the Other Half Hamptons by Jasmin Rosemberg

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 320 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: Remember that episode of Sex and the City where the women get a place in the Hamptons and craziness happens, especially with Charlotte pretending to be younger in order to date someone? I figured any place that brought that out in people was worth a revisit in book form (with different characters, of course).

Synopsis: Forty people, five-person bedrooms, more booze than a person should see in a lifetime, and a strange body in your bed: this must be a share-house in the Hamptons, where the rich and famous summer…or where 20-something New Yorkers with $2000 (and endless patience) can grab a handful of weekends in a party house that might not be quite on par with the celebrity lifestyle they’re trying to buy a piece of. Three friends with very different attitudes find themselves trying to navigate a share-house in an attempt to find love, random hookups, or just a hell of a party…

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Posted in Fiction, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 321 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I already read and enjoyed two of the three of Crane’s previous novels, Everyone Else’s Girl and Frenemies.

Synopsis: Courtney Cassel has just gotten engaged to the most wonderful, just-right-for-her man in the world - now if only she could force her family to be equally wonderful. Her mother lives in her own world, her sister Norah is a control freak who’s been in a rage since their middle sister, Raine, ruined her wedding and fled for California - six years ago - and hasn’t been in contact since. Courtney decides to confront the past in hopes of making her wedding truly about family, but to top off all of the sisterly trouble, there’s another issue with facing her first love…

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

Forget About It by Caprice Crane

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 355 pages, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I hadn’t yet read Crane’s first novel, Stupid and Contagious, but that’s no reason to delay reading her second book, right?

Synopsis: Jordan Landau is a pushover, and her life seems to be full of people willing to take advantage of that fact: the boyfriend that cheats, the boss that steals her marketing ideas, even her own mother can’t believe she’d do anything worthwhile without her pushy ideas. So when Jordan is hit by a car when riding her bicycle, she does the only reasonable-seeming thing: she decides to fake amnesia. A do-over. Life on her terms, with a whole new attitude. But as Jordan will start to see, ‘fake it till you make it’ isn’t so simple, and despite her dedication to keeping up the act, she may hurt a lot of people while selling herself short…

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Posted in Fiction, Chick-Lit | 2 Comments »

Carpool Diem by Nancy Star

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 327 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: While I never personally experienced having an over-the-top soccer mom, I witnessed a few through teammates when I was in grade school so this seemed like it could be a funny read.

Synopsis: Annie Fleming is out of a job - but not out of ambition. So what better way to channel it than into her twelve-year-old daughter’s soccer ‘career’? Between her daughter and her completely insane coach, her attempts to revive her corporate career, and the growing distance between her husband and herself, Annie is discovering that not having a steady job is somehow proving to be much harder to handle than her ‘real’ job…

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit | No Comments »

Because She Can by Bridie Clark

Thursday, April 12th, 2007

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 275 pages, 2007

Rating: 7/10

Reason for Reading: I liked the idea, but not the execution, of Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, so I was hoping Clark would have better luck with the boss-from-hell story.

Synopsis: After years of ups and downs, Claire Truman has nailed it: she has the perfect job at a major publishing house, and a gorgeous, successful (and nice) guy that wants to marry her. But very quickly, she starts to wonder if her boss, the notorious publisher Vivian Grant, isn’t merely ‘ambitious’ and ‘creative’…Maybe she’s crazy, in a spirit-crushing, marriage-wrecking, flat-out vicious sort of way. With everything tumbling down on her, Claire is about to find out - the hard way - what really matters to her.

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 291 pages, 2007

Rating: 8/10

Reason for Reading: Chick-lit always comes through when I’m in a reading slump.

Synopsis: Harper Roberts is smart, attractive, successful - and so, so single. Convinced that her success (she’s the youngest attorney at her firm to be made lawyer, and she’s got an amazing salary to show for it) is what scares men away, she lets her friends talk her into a social experiment: are men just after the dumb blondes? She’ll try to play the part to see if happiness - and true love - are just a hair flip and a giggle away.

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Posted in Fiction, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

The Continuity Girl by Leah McLaren

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 339 pages, 2006

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: All these years of reading chick-lit and I’d never read an author from Toronto, my hometown - it practically seemed mandatory.

Synopsis: Meredith Moore excels as a ‘continuity girl’ - the girl on film sets that makes sure each take fits in perfectly with previous ones - no cigarettes mysteriously jumping from hand to hand, no fly-away hairs dancing up and down during a scene. It’s her job to make it look like everything flows, in other words. Her own life seems to be on a similar track of careful consideration - until she turns thirty-five and a trip to the doctor sends her fleeing from her job in Toronto to London, England, which is home to her batty mother and a host of genetic possibilities: Meredith has decided to become a ’sperm bandit’ in order to have a baby before it’s too late. She doesn’t actually want to become involved with a man, but her seemingly-simple plan seems to lack the ease of a Hollywood movie…

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

It’s About Your Husband by Lauren Lipton

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 340 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: It’s that weakness for chick-lit.

Synopsis: Thirty-three-year-old Iris Hedge has left California for a dream job in New York City, only to lose it to ‘restructuring’ before she’s even settled in. Now she’s broke and stranded in a city where she barely knows anyone, although it would seem that’s all it takes to accidentally land herself a new job…as a private investigator, checking up on possibly-cheating husbands. Not exactly what she was cut out for, but eventually a real job, and a real life, will come through…won’t it?

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

Miss Understanding by Stephanie Lessing

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 342 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I loved She’s Got Issues, and after having the opportunity to interview Stephanie Lessing last year it was a sure thing that I’d be reading her next book as soon as it came out.

Synopsis: Renegade Zoe Rose is hardly the target audience for most women’s magazines - she’s clueless about fashion, not interested in marriage (despite her wonderful boyfriend), she’s anti-establishment, she simply doesn’t fit in - and that’s exactly how she likes it. Despite all of that, she’s just taken a position as deputy editor at Issues magazine, and she’s determined to shake things up and have women look at how they treat each other rather than at the latest styles from Paris. Her feminist ideals dictate that she change the world, but she’s facing an industry that won’t change its MO as easily as it changes its preference of shoes. Can Zoe infiltrate and change the world of fashion and women’s magazines, or will they ultimately break her, once again leaving her behind as the girl that doesn’t fit in?

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit, Humour | No Comments »

Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 593 pages, 2006

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: I love Keyes - I’ve read all of her books except for Further Under the Duvet.

Synopsis: Anna Walsh is in a terrible state - mentally beaten down and physically battered, all she wants to do is leave her parents in Ireland and get back to her life in New York City. She has an amazing job (featuring endless makeup freebies), a great group of friends, and it’s also where her husband, Aidan, is supposed to be. But whatever Anna is trying to tell herself in Ireland, the life she has waiting for her on the other side of the ocean is not the life she left behind…

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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Chick-Lit | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘Chick-Lit’ Category

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 320 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 321 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 355 pages, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 327 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 275 pages, 2007

Rating: 7/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 291 pages, 2007

Rating: 8/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 339 pages, 2006

Rating: 10/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 340 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 342 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 593 pages, 2006

Rating: 10/10

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