strange and random happenstance

Azur Like It by Wendy Holden
Published by: Plume
Publication Date: January 27th, 2004
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★
Out of Print

Kate Clegg dreams of no longer being trapped in a job whose prospects are ever dwindling in her small hometown of Slackmucklethwaite. The local newspaper she works for, The Mercury, has been nicknamed "The Mockery" since it was bought out by a dubious businessman and now concentrates it's energies on advertising and flattering puff pieces. But Kate's horrid new boss has a sexy son, Nat, who is to work alongside her and before long she's lying between the sheets with Nat and spilling her dreams of being a world class journalist covering the Cannes Film Festival while also writing racy romances on the side. Nat claims that he can get his dad to agree to Cannes if she will only pay for the two of them to go, he of course in first class and she in cattle class. Wiping out her savings they head to Cannes where she looses Nat and realizes that he didn't arrange anything and it was all a ruse for her to cough up the money for the plane ticket. Without a job to go back to or any savings or even hope, Kate finds that she's relying on the new people she's met in the small town of Ste. Jeanne, from the displaced wife of a tabloid columnist, to the taciturn staff at her hotel, to the elegant octogenarian Odile, to the dipsomaniac reporter Crichton, to the talented and sexy artist Fabien, she might have more then she thought she had.

I remember back when I first started picking up Chick Lit books at Barnes and Noble that Wendy Holden's books seemed to saturate the shelves with her mildly witty titles like Farm Fatale and Azure Like It. Looking at the shelves nowadays she is noticeably absent and after reading Azur Like It after it languished on my shelves for almost ten years I can say I am not in the least surprised that this and many of her other books are out of print, that's if this one is anything to go by. It wasn't just that the book goes for the cheap laugh or that I had no way to connect to any of the characters, it's mainly that Wendy Holden doesn't grasp that a book needs to be definable not such a mish mash of genres that you want to shake it to see if it can somehow be knocked into shape. But predominately the lead was so unlikable that I wouldn't have minded if she had had an accident on those lovely hairpin turns that litter the south of France.

Let me start with Kate's stupid and hateful nature. There's stupid and then there's stupid. Kate just might actually be so stupid that she is beyond this scale and in her own "special" category. How can someone be so naive and dumb, she's a gorram idiot! Firstly, the fact that she is in bed with her boss's unlikable son within five minutes of meeting him and then, despite the fact that he's supposedly rich, is gladly giving him money for him to head to Cannes... how, just how!?! Angry, rage, building in me. If she was someone I knew I'd drown her out of the goodness of my heart. How does she not see through Nat. No seriously, how!?! He says he can't call her because his father took his phone and then he's always texting in front of her? Say what? That lie right there should have triggered all her warning bells, which she obviously doesn't have. Then there's the whole, she lost her job because of him, because she blindly trusted someone for no reason other then he's hot. WTF! Then there's her dream of wanting to go to the Cannes Film Festival but once there her complete ignorance of anything to do with the festival. Seriously, what was the author thinking?

At first I might have felt a little, tiny, gnat sized iota of sympathy for Kate, because attraction and sex make us do stupid things, but then I realized she's just a hateful person. She blindly trusted Nat and I don't know if this made her hate everyone or if Nat was some aberration, but she is downright cruel to nice people. She thinks Odile is crazy and deluded and could never have been a beauty, whereas Odile has had a stroke so therefore her appearance has changed. The there's Ken, she treats him like garbage despite his always being nice and taking care of her friend. Also the cruel nicknames she gives people make me want to punch her. Kate is a hateful little bitch who just distrusts and dislikes everyone and I just want her to die. I'm not sure I've actually wanted to harm someone so much who is the heroine of a book in all my years of reading. Needless to say this book is quickly being sold, it would be burned in a ceremonial pyre, but I don't believe in book burning.

Then there's the genre issue. Yes, books can mix and mash genres. Genres aren't a hard and fast rule, but when you start throwing in so many that it makes the book bloated and convoluted, well, you have a problem. The genres that I was able to pick out where: romance, expose, celebrity parody, roman à clef, thriller, Gothic horror, and espionage... in fact, Chick Lit seems to not even be in there. It tries to be everything and ends up being nothing. But the straw that broke the camels back was when it decided to go into Gothic horror. When Kate is in bed and sees a hooded monk with a skull head she seriously just hides under the covers? Firstly, this isn't scary or funny, secondly, why did she never connect the skull to the skull in pretty boy's studio upstairs? Well, that's just her stupidity again and I just realized she's pissing me off so much I'm making exasperated hand gestures while writing this review. And why wouldn't you tell anyone about seeing a scary skull monk? It doesn't fit with anything before or after and is just a stupid plot device, like everything else in this book.

In summarizing this book that is not surprisingly out of print I have to just touch on the plethora of stupidity that fills it's pages. Kate is obsessed with condoms. Any person in this day and age who doesn't practice safe sex is an idiot but the fact that the safe sex is laboriously pointed out... um, no, and ew, in fact ew to all the sex in this book. Next, Celia, she says she deserved being beaten by her husband? WHAT!?! Ok, there is a victim's mentality, but no one should ever say they deserved this, especially in a book I picked up to be a fun and light read, just dropping in the fact that domestic abuse is ok, well, that's par for the stupidity of this book. The Bond jokes, including the title of the book are just groan worthy. And finally the painting! Fabien had painted a portrait of Kate years before he met her. Say what? Did he see her somewhere, have a vision quest, have an old picture of Kate's grandmother from during the war? Anything would have been better then no explanation and it just emphasizes the laziness of the writing in this book. Just one more thing to chalk up against this book which I shall now stop talking or writing about because it's making me cranky. Where's my old person stick to wave a whippersnappers?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, Azur Like It, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, Chick Lit, Farm Fatale, France, Gothic, James Bond, Wendy Holden

A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: April 9th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Sophie Apperly is the odd one out in her family. They are all academic and artistic, whereas she's more of a homebody who likes to upscale thrift store finds into interesting creations. Therefore as far as her family are concerned she's a bit dumb and a bit of a dogsbody. To that end they volunteer her to take care of their Uncle Eric in the hope that this little gesture will make the horrid old man remember them in his will. Of course things don't go to plan in that Sophie and Eric get on like a house on fire and she finds out about a lost family trust to do with an oil well. Sophie decides to try to help her ever skint family by investigating this trust and to that end she gets a short term job in New York and goes to visit one of her two best friends. It's Sophie's dream come true, she's always wanted to go to New York, so when the job falls through, well, it's sad, but then there's more time to play the tourist on her very restricted budget.

At a gallery opening the helpful Sophie comes to the aid of the elderly Matilda. They instantly hit it off and soon Sophie is going to Connecticut to spend Thanksgiving with Matilda, who's grandson, Luke, looks on Sophie as a gold digger. Matilda and Luke himself are both rather wealthy. Yet Sophie has a heart of gold and, though she may be almost flat broke, she would never take advantage of this situation fate has landed her in. A situation that might help both her and Matilda, as Matilda sends Sophie back to England with a request, to find the house Matilda spent her holidays in as a youth. This might seem like a wild goose chase, but it's quite fun, and with Luke coming along for the ride, maybe something more then an old house will be found?

Three years ago I picked up my first Katie Fforde book and it was instant dislike. Love Letters struck all the wrong chords in me and made me swear off Katie Fforde. Of course I am a fickle person and I felt bad for having sworn off an author with only reading one of their books. I mean, shouldn't I at least give that author a second chance? Therefore I could look back without regrets having given said author the benefit of the doubt. As it so happens A Perfect Proposal had electronic galleys through Net Galley and I thought, if they approve my request, here is the perfect opportunity as it where to see if my first impressions were wrong. I thank the stars, and the e-galley gods, that I gave Katie Fforde a second chance. A Perfect Proposal was just the book I needed to brighten my days during a bleak time. This book is funny and witty with characters I connected to. I am hoping that Love Letters was the aberration in Fforde's writing career and not A Perfect Proposal so that I have tons of new books to look forward to. It's just such a wonderful surprise to find an author that you feel you can embrace.

You know how in some books they just drop everything in your lap from page one, here is everything and everyone, wham, girl, guy, situation, lots of complications till they are together, the end, or till they go at it, whichever comes first. A Perfect Proposal though does the exact opposite. We meet Sophie and are given the time to connect to her. We learn about her quirky dreams about customizing vintage and thrift clothing. How she's always loved the ocean. We feel for her because her family takes her for granted and think her a little daft, and who amongst us can't relate to that? There was a wonderful luxury in getting to know someone before they were thrust into this romantic situation. Not only that, but how often is it that someone so fundamentally good is the heroine? She has flaws, but she has such a big heart, she helps people who need it, is willing to give back without taking, has morals and is virtuous, but not in a goody two-shoes way. This lent the whole book a Jane Austen vibe in my opinion. There was the good poor girl who we've come to love and then her helpfulness puts her in the path of the aloof rich boy whose heart she will eventually melt by her sweetness. A modern Lizzy and Darcy if Lady Catherine decided to play matchmaker instead of heartbreaker. Sigh. I kind of wish the book hadn't ended so I was still in this world.

But no book is 100% perfect, there is always the things the niggle me, even in my most favorite of novels. The first is I didn't feel like the author had ever actually been to the United States. First that people from Maine were picking Sophie up in New York... um... I've driven that distance... it's like ten hours, not a short little jaunt. For Sophie not to know this it's excusable, but for the people she works for not having her fly there, that's weird. Sophie never using the internet, that's just odd. But New York being all wrong really got to me. Firstly, not knowing how big New York state is, forgivable, messing up distances within New York City, no way! She did a full days walk in weird opposite directions in hours, and then there's The Frick. I have been to The Frick many a time, and well, it's small, so easy to see everything in a short amount of time, an hour would do you easy, but Matilda makes it sound like it's the size of the MET! Also, the timezones are all off, England is five hours ahead of New York, no more, no less. Just little things an editor should have picked up on... which looking at my review of Love Letters, that was my main complaint, a lack of an editor...

Yet what I really want to know is what is up with this trope of Chick Lit and holidays? So I did inadvertently do Chick Lit month around Easter, chicks, see, it's funny right? But so many Chick Lit books throw in holidays. Bridget Jones's Diary is all about the holidays, bonfire night, Christmas... same with Confessions of a Shopaholic, oh, and Going Home which I just read too was all about Christmas. And that's not even taking into account girly movies like The Holiday and Love Actually, which I actually really hate. Is there an unwritten rule that makes holidays a must for declarations of love and hookups? Personally I think it's a little tacky, but that's just me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Perfect Proposal, An Excess of Chicks, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Going Home, Jane Austen, Katie Fforde, Love Actually, Love Letters, Maine, New York, Shopaholic, The Frick, The Holiday, The MET

Going Home by Harriet Evans
Published by: Downtown Press
Publication Date: January 1st, 2005
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Lizzy has had a rough year of it, but little does she know that things are about to get a whole lot worse. Going back home for Christmas to her family's rambling home, Keeper House, she has to deflect questions about why she and David broke up. Lizzy doesn't want to get into the details with her family, but when he turned out to be a cheating bastard, well, you usually don't stay together. Thankfully the eventful arrival of her Uncle Mike with a new American bride draws the attention away from her and David... the David who just showed up. Luckily the Christmas traditions of the family serve to create a kind of normality when everyone is acting against type. Then everything goes into free fall when Lizzy's father tells them all that Keeper House has to be sold and there will be no discussion about why. The fact must be accepted, that is all.

Back in London, Lizzy's life has no anchor without Keeper House. She has done what her family has asked and posed no questions. Like most crises in her life she just ignores them and moves on. Her job with Monumental Films is going surprisingly well. She has a new boyfriend who happens to be a screenwriter for the company and her life has developed a new routine, one that avoids all thoughts of Keeper House. When an opportunity to transfer to the LA branch of the company arises Lizzy seriously thinks it over. Her life in England has been changed forever with Keeper House being taken away, so perhaps it's time for her to get a new one... unless a miracle happens.

Over the holidays I was looking for something Christmasy to read. I was in desperate need of some holiday cheer. For me I have a very odd sense of what I view as Christmas fare, I mean, seriously, I view LA Confidential as a Christmas movie. In fairness, it did come out around Christmas and the beginning does take place at Christmas... it's just not so much your Rosemary Clooney singing about snow and more noir and death. So I wanted some more traditional Christmas cheer. Seeing as I plan way way ahead of time I knew that April was going to be focusing on Chick Lit on my blog and when doing a goodreads search for Christmas books this came up I knew I had to read it... at least I can say that it got the Christmas vibe right... other than that, well... there was a lot that I felt was wrong.

The fact that Lizzy's life outside of Keeper House reminded me overtly of another book I didn't like, The Bronte Project, probably wasn't the best of starts. Not to mention that all the characters seem like stock characters, just cardboard cut outs of real people, it left me not caring about any of them. And as for Lizzy's cousin Tom... well, when you're going to just take a character straight out of someone else's book, maybe it's best to choose another genre then ripping him of from the queen of Chick Lit, Helen Fielding. Yes, Tom from Bridget Jones's Diary is oddly one of the main characters in this book.

But it's these stock character's flaws that just made me want to crawl into the pages and smack them upside the head. What I'm talking about is the fact that every single person loves to bury their head in the sand and live in ignorance. In my mind there's a clear division of knowing what is going on and avoiding it because you don't want to deal with it and not wanting to know anything at all. Lizzy is perfectly content to live in ignorance. We live in a world where ignorance, to me, is not acceptable. Her willfully refusing to even pose a question made me hate her to the very fibres of my being. She was like a two year old sticking her fingers in her ears and yelling at everyone that she wasn't listening. This is no way to live. Yes I know Chick Lit is supposed to be fun and funny and we relate and laugh at the foibles of the heroine, the misunderstandings that arise... but when that heroine is a willfully ignorant one, well, I'm going to hate her.

This ignorance on the part of Lizzy is coupled with the obviousness of the plot. I mean within ten pages I knew how everything was going to play out and that does not a fun read make. Though I'm not sure as to why the plot was so obvious, it could have been purposeful or not. The question all comes down to did the character flaws force Harriet Evans to have to write a more obvious plot so that we as readers wouldn't toss the book out the window because we were forced into the same dark ignorance as the characters, or was it just a narrative flaw on her part and had nothing to do with a willful choice... it's hard to tell. One makes me just hate the story, the other makes me hate the author. At least having read one of her later books first I know that she gets better than this first endeavour... because if I didn't have this foreknowledge, I might never pick her up again... like I am with Katie Fforde, she is dead to me because of Love Letters. Dead to me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Christmas, Going Home, Harriet Evans, Katie Fforde, Keeper House, LA Confidential, Love Letters, The Bronte Project, Tom, White Christmas

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding
Published by: Knopf
Publication Date: October 15th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Bridget Jones's life might just be getting a little better. Things have been hard since her husband Mark Darcy died. Being left a single parent was something she never thought she'd be faced with. Her kids have no father and she has lost the love of her life. Yet after a few years of just trying to do her best she realizes that perhaps her friends are right, perhaps she needs to get back out in the dating world. Thanks to modern technology, aka Twitter, she soon as a young boy toy, Roxster, who is just about to turn thirty and loves Bridget's "experience." She's back in the game and the envy of her friends. But can someone so much younger then her be willing to be with her as she gets older? Or is the delectable Mr. Wallaker, her son's PE teacher, a better option? Whatever happens, it could only happen to Bridget.

When the initial reviews started pouring in I was more then my fair share of nervous. Bridget had been off the scene for years, and while Helen Fielding may have started this subgenre, she has some stiff competition these days. Thankfully all my doubts were cast aside and Helen Fielding threw down the gauntlet and showed me that not only has she still got it, but there's a reason all other authors want to emulate and be her. She is the queen of Chick Lit, long may she reign! She has obviously grown and matured as an author, her dialogue is wittier, if sometimes a bit crasser, but priceless when the children speak, her situations more humorous, I now rate everything in my life by the standard of, if I haven't eaten a page of grated cheese for a meal, my life is good, and she made a book that switched up Bridget's life but evolved her while still being the same girl we loved. Though I won't forgive Helen Fielding for all the head lice in this book, my scalp is still itching!

Now to tackle the elephant in the room. The spoiler that broke and had fangirls weeping and angrily taking to twitter. Mark Darcy is dead. When I heard this I was willing to hold my comments till I had actually read the book. I remember years back when the second Bridget Jones movie came out, yes, the atrocious one that makes me cringe to even think about it, and they asked Colin Firth about the possibility of a third movie. His comment was perhaps the germ that planted Darcy's death in Helen Fielding's mind. He said that "really puncturing the fairy tale completely might be a way to take it." Not having things work out, not having a happily ever after per se for Bridget and Mark is how Colin saw success for the franchise, and you know what? He was right. Bridget and Mark as a couple would have been a book that wasn't true to Bridget. He was her rock, her center, her everything. Bridget was a different person with Mark. But take Mark away... and we have the Bridget we've always known and loved. A little sadder, a little older, but still Bridget. This could not have been possible without Mark's death. Darcy had to die.

Though the death of Darcy has led to one issue I do have with the book. Everyone in Bridget's life feels so bad for her because of Mark's death that they've kind of let her slide as a parent. Bridget really is an atrocious mother. Me judging her is, I know, a bit hypocritical, because a) I don't have kids and b) all parents are just making it up as they go along, like everyone with their own life, only parents have more lives to manage. Oddly enough the humor factor and the joy I got out of this took the sting out of her bad parenting, I'm just glad that she isn't my mother or like any of my friends who are mothers.

I think that is why the ultimate love interest works, because Mr. Wallaker constructively helps and knows, because of his own suffering, that Bridget can get through this. As for the happily ever after, while I still find it a little odd that the HEA was pulled off at the last minute, much like the first book, and they haven't spent much time together, much like the first book, and they are in love out of nowhere and it's Christmas and it's the end, much like the first book... it all works out. I really hope that this is Bridget Jones's final happily ever after. It ended well, it ended right, and I don't really want to see Bridget Jones the geriatric years... though if this book has taught me anything it's not to doubt Helen Fielding. Though if they do make this into a movie, don't cast Daniel Craig as Mr. Wallaker... that just seemed like too much wishful thinking that was placed in the book specifically for when it hits the big screen... because obviously Bond can replace Darcy... not in my book. Get someone like Philip Glenister, that would make my day. Sigh.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Colin Firth, Daniel Craig, Happily Ever After, Helen Fielding, Mad About the Boy, Mr. Darcy, Philip Glenister, Twitter

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Bridget Jones Book 2) by Helen Fielding
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1999
Format: Paperback, 338 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition then one reviewed)

Bridget Jones might finally have the man of her dreams, but Bridget is still Bridget and a happily ever after ending is hard to achieve when you are very good at self sabotage. Quickly loosing Mark Darcy and one again becoming a love pariah is exactly what you'd expect Bridget to do, and she does it with style. But luckily while her love life might be taking a hit... was that the evil Rebecca with Mark? Bridget's job prospects might be on the rise with a potential interview with none other then the "real" Mr. Darcy, Colin Firth! In Italy of all places! Well... he does live in Italy, but still, it seems so romantic and surely once he's met Bridget he will see that he has found his soul mate... now if Bridget could just get his shirt moistened. Though a vacation that turns into an international scandal might be just what's needed to get Bridget and Mark back together again.

Back to that fateful weekend when I started to devour the Bridget Jones oeuvre (read previous review for the background). I remember driving to Borders to pick up the book and having a run in with the manager. I had had the shit kicked out of me by Samuel Beckett and the manager there, well, he was a pompus jackass if ever their was one and I wasn't going to take his shit. The only joy I get out of Borders going out of business is seeing him sometimes around town in menial positions far below his "highness" at Borders and smiling... yes, sometimes right at him. The fight was a fight I had been having with him for awhile. It's corporate policy and city policy that non-service dogs can't be in stores that sell food, like Borders does with it's cafe. I should note that I have nothing against dogs, aside from severe allergies, but when you're in a bookstore and want to get that copy of Edge of Reason and there's a guy with his dog with a bag of dog poop in one hand and a book in the other... well, you complain. And then you storm out without getting the book... and yeah, things escalate quickly. So besides having the shit repeatedly kicked out of me, getting a copy of this book was an adventure in itself. There were tears.

Bridget herself had an ill advised adventure in Edge of Reason too. That first time I read this book the whole Bridget being arrested for drug possession in Thailand and then becoming queen of the prison overshadowed everything. Well, that and the fact that in the book it says that MI-5 helped Mark... well, MI-5 is for domestic not international disputes, so, this error really really annoyed me. In fact, this scene, which upon re-reading is so short and brief, I can't come to terms as to why it bothered me so much. Maybe it's just the quintessential Britishness of Bridget and her being in Thailand seemed out of place. Or over the years the mildly related second movie has so eclipsed the book in it's badness that upon picking up the book again I realized how fresh and funny it was, unlike the movie which just might be the worst film ever made. It also helps if you are trying to avoid reading the worst Doctor Who book ever written, just saying...

Taking it's plot from Jane Austen's Persuasion, the misunderstandings and the reconciliations hang off this basic spine, but it's the little things I love. The battle with the construction worker, and who hasn't had a worker show up and destroy your house and then disappear into the aether? That Colin Firth interview, seriously, that would be me interviewing Colin Firth! Also, the movie he's promoting isn't actually that bad, a little weird and it was renamed My Life So Far if you want to check it out, you'll learn a lot about curling and sphagnum moss. But it's Bridget's just, well, not obtuseness, but, she's a romantic, so she lives in hope but it is in fact her hopelessness that makes this book such a fun read. Also the whole taking self help books as spiritualism... it really is quite clever and it is a new religion. Long live Bridget Jones, the girl able to turn her problems into a system of belief.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, Borders, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Colin Firth, Helen Fielding, Jane Austen, MI-5, MI-6, Mr. Darcy, Persuasion, Thailand, The Edge of Reason

Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones Book 1) by Helen Fielding
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1996
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Bridget Jones lives the typical life of a singleton. She drinks too much, eats too much, smokes too much, worries about dying alone, worries about not having a boyfriend, has smug married friends who are no help at all in the self esteem department, and parents that are forever causing issues. If she could just get her act together and find a nice sensible boyfriend. Though that hardly looks to be the case for this year as she has just started seeing her boss, Daniel Cleaver, who is the exact person she meant to stop fantasizing about this year... then there's Mark Darcy, the man her parents wish she would start dating. A man she finds quite odd and off putting, at least at first. With emotional ups and downs like her yo-yoing weight, Bridget has her year cut out for her.

Back in 2001 things for me were rough. They were going to get far worse that summer, but at the time I didn't know that. I really needed an escape and Colin Firth was about to show me the way. The movie Bridget Jones's Diary might not have ever registered on my radar if not for Mr. Darcy. Knowing that it was based on a book, and you all being familiar with my tendencies, I just had to read it and picked up the tie-in. The book sat languishing for a little while. I was in the middle of a theatre production of Endgame that was about to end very dramatically with the Beckett estate shutting it down and confiscating the playbills, photographs, scripts... you see, Beckett has some very sticky rules that you have to abide by his vision, so no cross gender casting, no "interpretations," it's as he wrote it or you'll find yourself never getting to see your name in a playbill as "properties master" for the first time. The weekend that was to be our big opening instead became a bit of a wake and I needed something, anything, to distract me. I picked up Bridget Jones's Diary.

I powered through the first book, ran to Borders, powered through the second book and then took to the internet to learn more about this new genre I had just stumbled on, Chick Lit. It was kind of an avalanche after that, with me ordering Helen Fielding's other books, looking at the Amazon recommendations, finding other authors, you get the picture. Helen Fielding, besides being deemed the progenitor of this literary subgenre by others, was quite literally the starting point for me as well. If you don't view Helen Fielding as the doyenne of Chick Lit, we might just as well stop talking right now. With the newest installment of Bridget's adventures about to hit shelves this past fall I knew that it was time to reacquaint myself with Miss Jones. What's interesting is that, well, I didn't love it as much as I did. Perhaps it's just that others have taken off from where she started and done bigger and better since, so therefore this was a bit flat. Also, is it just me or is Daniel Cleaver a real dick? I wonder if somehow over time Hugh Grant and his ability to be a letch with also still being cute has worked it's way so far into my mind that I forgot the truth of the book. Daniel Cleaver is a dick.

I think in fact that the movie is the more successful of the two incarnations of this story, which is the exact opposite for the second. The movie hammered out issues and some of the unrealistic situations. That is what strikes me most as annoying in the book, things that are unrealistic, but not funnily so. Bridget's mum and her men. Bridget and her unrealistic weight issues. Now here I want to be clear, it's not the struggle with her weight I object to, nor her horrific eating habits, but the fact that using a BMI index, Bridget would have to be shorter then 5'4" (which is oddly how tall Renee Zellweger is) to be fat for the weight listed... do I think she's that short? No. I think that Helen Fielding needed to do her research here a little better. That or she totally has some sort of eating disorder herself and has bizarre expectations, which I think is best summed up when Tom asks Bridget that doesn't she need 2,000 calories a day to live?

Also, the deus ex machina of Bridget and Mark. They barely have contact or talk in the book and at the end he swoops in, fixes everything and they whisk off to a hotel and declare their love for each other. Excuse me? I know this whisking of to a hotel and happily ever after is kind of a trope of the genre, it even happens in the first Shopaholic book by Sophie Kinsella... but there needs to be some development to get to that point. Sure we KNOW they are destined to be together, that doesn't mean that you just put them together at the end because it's the end... sigh. I think I'm going to go watch the movie again instead of thinking about this anymore.

Actually, one more thing... the graphic designer in me CAN NOT be silenced. I bought this lovely Penguin edition, because, I mean, seriously, this is a lovely cover, even if Bridget is a little too svelte in my mind. But there's a big problem with how the front flap's illustration looks when you're reading. A picture is worth a thousand words... so here's a picture...

Here's the cute illustration, love the banner of "No Emotional Fuckwittage."

Now here's what you see when you're reading... yes, it does look like a boob is starring at you. It's very off putting. Now I have nothing wrong with boobs, I have two of them. But do I want one starring at me while I'm trying to read? No thank you. Also, now my mom won't stop laughing after I showed her this as the definition of bad illustration placement...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, BMI, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Colin Firth, Daniel Cleaver, Darcy, Endgame, Helen Fielding, Hugh Grant, Illustrators, Penguin, Samuel Beckett, Sophie Kinsella

When I was trying to define Chick Lit for myself awhile back, this is what I came up with:

1. a genre of fiction concentrating on young working women and their emotional lives
2. addresses issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and lightheartedly
3. Bridget Jones is every woman, so where’s my Darcy?
4. perfect for a theme month on my blog

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An Excess of Chicks, Becky Bloomwood, Bibliomanic, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones's Diary, Chick Lit, Darcy, Helen Fielding, Mr. Darcy, Sophie Kinsella