Emma Jane Unsworth's breakout novel Animals featured two main characters – Laura and Tyler – and as with Zoes and Zeldas, you're either one or theEmma Jane Unsworth's breakout novel Animals featured two main characters – Laura and Tyler – and as with Zoes and Zeldas, you're either one or the other. I'm definitely a Laura, and Animals was powerfully resonant for me partly because of that. Adults, on the other hand, is narrated by the equivalent of a Tyler: Jenny, a loud, selfish character whose brashness is often a mask for uncertainty or loneliness. The opening scene sets the tone, as Jenny obsesses about how to caption a photo on Instagram: 'I am creating a social media post about a croissant that I am pretty sure will define me as a human.'
Adults follows Jenny as she stumbles through life, trying to get over her ex-boyfriend Art and thinking about her personal brand every five seconds. She's 35, so we're at the very tail end of the 'millennial woman figuring herself out' thing here, and that's kind of the point. This book's Laura, Jenny's more reasonable friend Kelly, is often relegated to the background. (We hear from her when she texts Jenny – pleas that often go unanswered – or when Jenny needs to bounce something off her. Like an email to Art or yet another Instagram caption.) The more important relationship here is between Jenny and her eccentric mother Carmen, a flighty and often neglectful fortune-teller who swoops in and out of Jenny's life and, it quickly becomes clear, is responsible for a lot of her neuroses.
There's more of a chick-lit vibe here than in Animals. If I hadn't known who'd written it, I'd have guessed Lisa Owens (Not Working) or Lauren Berry (Living the Dream). Jenny's narration is sparky and entertaining – and pretty exhausting too. I read the book quickly not because I was loving it, but because spending more time with Jenny felt detrimental. She's a solipsistic and arrogant character who's hard to like, even when her insecurities are laid bare. The very current tone of the satire doesn't really help: some of it already seems dated (especially the bits about the online women's magazine Jenny writes for). I did like the ending, and Jenny's various relationships are all wrapped up in ways that feel both satisfying and plausible.
I read Animals three years ago. There are lines and moments from that book I still think about regularly. I don't think I will remember the details of Adults beyond the next couple of weeks. I don't mean to be harsh; it's enjoyable, I guess it just didn't really speak to me. There's too much gloss and not enough grit.
I received an advance review copy of Adults from the publisher through NetGalley.
A sparky slice of 21st-century chick lit (that is, the type you absolutely don't call chick lit) about two friends in their late twenties, Living the A sparky slice of 21st-century chick lit (that is, the type you absolutely don't call chick lit) about two friends in their late twenties, Living the Dream fizzes with humour and intelligence. Emma, who always wanted to be a writer, is stuck in a job at an advertising firm; it pays the bills, but she hates it. Clementine has just returned from a year studying film in New York, and comes back down to earth with a bump when she finds herself living in her mum and stepdad's house, skint and apparently unsuitable for anything better than bar work. Though they don't necessarily realise it, the friends envy each other – Emma wishes she had the guts to just quit and do something more creative, while Clem admires the fact that Emma has a foot on the corporate ladder and can afford a few luxuries.
It's a relatable portrait of a life that's typical of city-dwelling older millennials, from cringe-inducing hen parties and work awaydays to money woes and worrying about ageing parents. (In particular, Emma's office is painfully well-realised: the passive-aggressive emails about tidying away your coat and bag, the 'sweet wrappers, cuddly toys, branded pens and photos' piled on the PR team's desks, the recycled bullshit everyone comes out with at meetings.) More importantly, the characters are deeply likeable and the story is hard to tear yourself away from.
It doesn't quite culminate in some grand, hilarious finale; I think on some level I expected there to be a big web of coincidence drawing everything and everyone together at the end. Without that, some of the incidents depicted throughout the book feel like they lack a punchline. I did, however, really like the reveal of the bitchy yet annoyingly perfect frenemy (a chick lit stock character) as someone who is not only more human than she first appears, but also more accomplished and professional – and perhaps someone more deserving of success and fulfilment than our two heroines, loveable though they are. There's generally a buoyant (but believable) sense of positivity about the story. It's just nice.
Living the Dream falls into the same bracket as Lisa Owens' 2016 debut Not Working, and if that book resembled a millennial Bridget Jones's Diary, this one is Sex and the City if Carrie had a 9-to-5, a blog and a more realistic financial situation.
I received an advance review copy of Living the Dream from the publisher through NetGalley.
The opening scene of I'll Eat When I'm Dead depicts the discovery of a woman's body. Hillary Whitney is found in a locked office at her place of work,The opening scene of I'll Eat When I'm Dead depicts the discovery of a woman's body. Hillary Whitney is found in a locked office at her place of work, the luxury magazine RAGE Fashion Book. The verdict: death by starvation, a cautionary tale about what the quest for extreme thinness might drive an otherwise sensible woman to. What follows, however, is mostly an entertaining, frothy comedy-drama and send-up of the fashion magazine world. The plot features a couple of mysterious deaths, but there's also the question of who will get promoted to Hillary's fashion director role at RAGE, and a love triangle involving Cat, the editorial heir apparent who emerges as the novel's main figure.
There are a few nods to deeper issues, but ironically (or deliberately?) they're about as superficial as the features about feminism and ethical fashion often found in women's magazines these days. I never felt the book was sure whether it wanted to condemn or celebrate the fashion industry and its attendant excesses, and I grew fed up of the exhaustive descriptions of everyone's outfits and beauty regimes. It's also pretty difficult to care about the professional fates of super-rich people who got their jobs through nepotism in the first place anyway.
Despite its edgy title, I'll Eat When I'm Dead is ultimately a bit of a silly confection; think cosy crime with a side order of couture and sex, rather than the 'viciously funny, sharp and satirical' affair the blurb suggests. (If this had been published in the 90s, the cover would've been pink with a loopy font and an illustration of skinny legs in high heels emerging from a New York taxi.) I'd say it's far more chick-lit than thriller, but that's no bad thing. It's fun, feather-light and sugary – I would say 'like a meringue', but the women of RAGE Fashion Book would probably break out in hives at the mere mention of one.
I received an advance review copy of I'll Eat When I'm Dead from the publisher through NetGalley.
Another paean to being young(ish) and not knowing what you want to do with your life, this debut is less acerbic than other recent novels of millenniaAnother paean to being young(ish) and not knowing what you want to do with your life, this debut is less acerbic than other recent novels of millennial ennui - such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - but no less enjoyable. If we're using labels, it's most accurate to call it chick lit; heroine Claire Flannery is like Bridget Jones for the 2010s (this is a good thing). (Since writing this, I've discovered that comparison has been made all over the place and is also featured in the US blurb for the book. It's accurate, though that shouldn't be taken to mean the book is exactly the same sort of thing as Bridget Jones's Diary.)
At the end of her 20s or the beginning of her 30s (I'm guessing; her age is never given), Claire quits her job - an amorphous marketing sort of thing - without another one to go to. With vague hopes of finding something 'meaningful', she winds up doing nothing all day, falling out with her mum, and accusing her boyfriend of cheating. And that's it, really; not so much an incisive, cynical examination of modern living as a charming comedy of errors. Claire, her boyfriend and family are all pretty well off (though not rich enough to keep 'not working' indefinitely, especially not in London), so there's never a real sense of actual peril, leaving the humour of the story to take centre stage. Again, the details - voicemails from Claire's mum, excruciatingly awful dinner parties - are pure Bridget Jones. But Owens' running commentaries on relationships and office life are surprisingly sharp for such a warm and feather-light story.
The narrative is also peppered with small observations and, I suppose, mini-stories Claire makes up as she goes about her days. Most are self-contained; many would fit into the category of microfiction. I have to admit I found them a bit distracting. Perhaps because the main narrative is often genuinely hilarious, many of them seem like non sequiturs or jokes without punchlines. That's my main complaint; in an alternative universe where I'm the editor of this book, I'd cut all of these sections.
Not Working is funny, incredibly readable and bound to be super-popular. It wasn't what I expected, but I was actually quite glad of that in the end - if I'd known to expect a chick-lit/comedy hybrid, it's unlikely I'd have read it, and I'd have missed out on a very entertaining book.
(I keep telling myself I've got to stop making references to other reviews in my reviews, but the Goodreads reviews for this - so far - really do make for fascinating reading in themselves. It's so interesting seeing how people of similar ages categorise themselves completely differently in terms of what generation they belong to and what they feel they should be 'relating' to. It's also interesting to see how the way the book has been sold to readers, or the angles from which they have approached it due to existing impressions - the Bridget Jones comparison vs. the idea that it's got some profound state-of-the-generation message at its heart - have affected responses.)
I received an advance review copy of Not Working from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I don't read or review a lot of YA or chick-lit or romance, and it's not just because I don't tend to like these books; it's because I approach them aI don't read or review a lot of YA or chick-lit or romance, and it's not just because I don't tend to like these books; it's because I approach them already knowing I probably won't like them, so my judgement is, in a sense, not really fair on the books. I'm not the intended audience, after all, and if I end up thinking they're crap, how much of that is because they are crap, and how much of it is because I just don't really like/get YA or chick-lit or romance?
I requested this on NetGalley because I really, kind-of-unexpectedly, liked Rowell's Fangirl. Fangirl is a romantic YA novel, so I should have hated it, but I was drawn in by the theme of - well - fangirlishness, and I found it charming and lovely, funny and touching. I loved what the author did with the characters, and how real they felt. It was a delightful surprise. Landline is also a romance, a sort of romantic comedy with an element of fantasy, but the characters are adults. Georgie McCool is a TV screenwriter whose husband, Neal, takes their two children to his mother's for Christmas when she is unable to get a break from work - she and her writing partner have just been given the opportunity to write a pilot for their own show, a lifelong dream, but they have to turn over six scripts in a matter of days. When Neal leaves, Georgie isn't sure if he's actually left her, and every time she calls, she can't get hold of him. Finally, she resorts to trying to call his mother's house from an ancient dial-up phone in her childhood bedroom. Through the phone, she finds a way to speak to Neal in the past (you just have to go with this, it makes sense in context) but isn't sure what she's supposed to do with this 'power', or whether what she says to him will impact on their future/present.
I haven't read anything else of Rowell's except Fangirl, so I can only guess, but (also basing this theory on how much people love Eleanor & Park) I think she's a lot better at writing teenagers than adults. As well as the phone thing, there are some flashbacks in this book, to Georgie and Neal's first meeting and fledgling relationship at university, and in these I found the characters far more believable than they were in the present-day storyline. I had plenty of reservations about the plot, and none of them were anything to do with the magic time-travelling phone... (view spoiler)[I thought Neal should have been more supportive of Georgie's career (although I did sympathise with his resentment of Seth), but I also thought it was fair enough that he went to his mother's without her, and that this wasn't indicative of an impending break-up. This was the major point on which the rest of the plot turned, but it was here that the authenticity of the characters as adults fell down for me. Surely only a teenager, or someone in a not-very-serious relationship, would think that a temporary geographical separation and not answering a few phone calls meant it was THE END - yet these people have been married for half their lives and have two kids.
So there wasn't any real tension in that respect - I never believed there was the slightest chance present-day-Neal would actually leave Georgie, or, for that matter, that past-Neal would decide not to propose. When I think about it, all the sources of tension in the book were the same - pretty nonexistent. Any change in Georgie's timeline would have led to her kids never having been born, and it was quite obvious nothing that drastic was ever going to happen. Neal having a girlfriend when he and Georgie got together clearly wasn't going to matter since we already knew they ended up married. Even Georgie and Seth's big break - they HAVE to write these six episodes at Christmas but in the end they don't and it's fine...?
I also felt the narrative was trying to set up a love-triangle dynamic with Georgie, Seth and Neal, which never really worked because it was always too obvious Georgie truly loved Neal, and then, when the payoff came (Seth confessing that he loved her), it wasn't explored at all (surely this would have serious implications for their working relationship? Which would be a big deal since Neal doesn't work, Georgie is the breadwinner and has spent her entire career writing with Seth?) (hide spoiler)]
I found the book quite oddly written, sometimes confusing, and the dialogue often artificial, which is funny as I don't remember thinking those things about Fangirl. Then again, I was reading an ARC and there was obviously some editing left to do - I came across several sentences which seemed to be in the middle of being rearranged. There were ellipses everywhere - sometimes one at the end of every sentence for several paragraphs - and too many parentheses. This could have been something that was still to be corrected, but if it was meant to be written like this, it was strange. I'd also like to have read more about Georgie, Neal and Seth and less about Georgie's mum and sister; I found those subplots pointless, I'm afraid.
If I said it didn't tug at my heartstrings just a bit at certain points I'd be lying, but I'm a soft person - everything tugs at my heartstrings, I've been known to cry at adverts.
I suppose after reading Fangirl I expected more from this than standard chick-lit fare, but that's what it is. To refer back to my opening paragraph, I didn't actually think it was crap - that would be unnecessarily harsh, I've read much worse. But it's just... meh. Not my cup of tea....more
Entry #145 in a series entitled 'I really need to look at what books actually are before I start reading them'. I knew this would be a very fluffy, guEntry #145 in a series entitled 'I really need to look at what books actually are before I start reading them'. I knew this would be a very fluffy, guilty-pleasures sort of book, but because of the vintage-style cover and the blurb talking about the setting of a traditional London department store, I had the impression it was actually historical fiction. I was hoping for something like The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, which might be girly as hell but is also a truly great book. However, when I started reading it quickly became apparent that the setting is contemporary, and Miracle On Regent Street is chick-lit, through and through.
Evie Taylor is your typical chick-lit heroine: a 28-year-old single Londoner, average-looking, average-sized, working in an average job, had her heart broken by the love of her life a few years ago and has never quite recovered, etc. She's also surrounded by an entirely predictable and clichéd cast of characters, such as the overachieving sister whose life isn't as perfect as it seems, and the beautiful and glamorous 'friend' who turns out to be a bit of a bitch. The twist in this book's case is that Evie's life revolves around Hardy's, the department store where she works as a stockroom girl. Despite having an 'invisible' job and being constantly overlooked by most of her colleagues - who don't even know her name - she's passionate about the store (where her parents met and fell in love), which represents her reverence for both old-fashioned romance and vintage style. So when she accidentally overhears that Hardy's is in danger of being shut down if sales don't improve over Christmas, she sets about using her creative ambition to give the departments a series of secret makeovers, aided by an offbeat group of fellow 'invisible' staff.
Of course, there has to be a romance as well: one that's equal parts predictable and ridiculously improbable. The main male lead's interest in Evie is completely unbelievable and all his actions (including the unexpected twists) are so artificial I couldn't see him as anything more than a plot device. I could tell from the first chapter who Evie was going to end up with; I won't spoil it for anyone just in case, but I'll be amazed if anyone who reads the book is remotely surprised by this development.
By far my favourite parts of the book were those that involved Evie's mission to save Hardy's. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I loved this element of the plot and wished it could ALL have been about this, rather than getting bogged down in nonsense like the dull-as-dishwater subplot about whether Evie's brother-in-law is having an affair. The camaraderie between Evie and her mismatched team of 'Christmas elves' is beautifully depicted, and as cheesy as it all undoubtedly is, I found myself drawn in and moved by their mission to revitalise the store and turn its fortunes around. As an ex-retail worker myself, I liked that the story didn't patronise its characters for not having done anything 'better' with their lives than working in a shop. And the happy ending made me smile, despite myself.
This isn't anything more than a light, throwaway read, but it's sweet and heartwarming. It's definitely seasonal - the entire plot is structured around Christmas, and I'd probably have enjoyed it a little more if I'd got round to reading it a few weeks earlier. Complete fluff, but we all need a bit of something soft and sugary sometimes, don't we?...more