strange and random happenstance

To me, and I think the majority of viewers, Masterpiece Theatre has always been about period dramas. Yes, there is the occasional series set in the present day, and let us never forget that there's technically a Masterpiece Contemporary. Because when Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery! were incorporated under the umbrella of Masterpiece we somehow ended up with a third show, Masterpiece Contemporary, which, since 2008, has only aired fifteen movies and three series, which isn't much. The point being, whenever a contemporary show airs on Masterpiece Classic as I will call it for this one time only because otherwise you might think I'm talking about the contemporary iteration, I almost never watch it. Looking back I've literally only watched Us, for Tom Hollander, and King Charles III, because I had heard good things, when they initially aired. As for Me and Mrs. Jones? I don't know when I first saw it, but do know it was during the halcyon days when my second PBS station started reairing Masterpiece Theatre at midnight on Sunday. Those were the good old days. As for Me and Mrs. Jones? I had remembered very little about it and I really don't think it would have felt so painfully of it's time if I hadn't seen it in over twenty years. Salmon colored faux marbling with wall sconces with actual candles!?! Oh no, we are not going back to the Venetian vampire look ever again thank you very much. What I couldn't get over, besides the wall treatments, was that this feels like Richard Curtis wrote an episode of Masterpiece Theatre. Like people were brainstorming new ideas for a romantic comedy and they said, Bridget Jones but make her PM! So Love Actually actually. But hang on a minute! One of my most hated movies of all time didn't come out until 2003, so, where'd you get the idea for my mom's most hated plotline in that movie Richard Curtis? And seriously, if you think my hatred of that movie is all-encompassing, my mom when she'd get on a tear about how Martine McCutcheon's character was obviously based on Monica Lewinsky could not be contained. Flames on the side of her face! Of course she'd totally approve of this movie, she did love her Robson Green. As for this movie? I can't actually justify any reason that this possibly aired on Masterpiece Theatre other than it's like if House of Cards was a gender swapped romcom. So, the same amount of sexual tension just less murder. Caroline Goodall and Robson Green have great chemistry, but I couldn't get over the hurdle that she was able to totally forgive him for lying to her because in the end it cost him his career. Which, to be fair, was a nice about-face. He did have genuine feelings for her and he didn't betray her and she went on to lead her country the way she wanted because he encouraged her to just be herself and not follow in the shadow of some man. So, it was, on one level, very empowering for women, but on another, she was behaving like a schoolgirl... Which I guess is empowering in it's own way? She can be silly in love and rule the world? So girl power? Yeah? Too bad this movie was a year too late to capitalize on the mantra made famous by The Spice Girls. Oh, and I totally just remembered that Baby Spice has a small role in the sequel to House of Cards, To Play the King. Maybe I am onto something here...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bridget Jones, Caroline Goodall, Fifty-Five Years a Masterpiece, Girl Power, House of Cards, King Charles III, Love Actually, Masterpiece Contemporary, Me & Mrs. Jones, Richard Curtis, Robson Green, Romcom, The Spice Girls, Us

My Dad has issues with the first episode of TV shows. He doesn't like to spend the time getting to know the lay of the land. He wants the story to just start immediately without bothering to learn character names or relationships or any details that might be relevant. No matter how many times I explain that this worldbuilding is important for the audience to form a relationship with the characters which will pay off in later episodes he almost always will declare by episode two that "this episode is so much better." Sigh. It's a cross I will forever bear. On the other hand, his weird predilection for being thrown into a story with no context means that Queenie should have been the show for him. It wasn't. I don't know who this show is for. I tuned in because of the commentary on how calling Queenie the black Bridget Jones was doing the show a disservice. And it is, because one bunny suit and Sally Phillips does not make this Bridget Jones. In fact I would willingly watch the abysmal Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason several times versus watch this show again. This show is just so depressing. Queenie wallows in bad life decisions as a result of not dealing with trauma. A trauma whose reveal is drawn out so long that you think it has to be really bad, sexual abuse, physical abuse, something earth-shattering. Well, let me save you the trouble of having to watch this piece of shit. Her mother left her alone so that her partner wouldn't hurt Queenie. Now, yes, you can have severe abandonment issues which lead to relationship problems later in life, but compared with what was happening with her mother and what could have happened to her, Queenie comes across as an entitled bitch who might just be the most self-centered character I've ever seen in a television show. A show that every aspect of it is a mess. First, there's just the confusion that is this show. You don't know who anyone is and therefore you don't care. The texts and memes and messages that flash up on the screen are too quickly removed to be read and are in such color and font choices that they can't be read even if you cared to. Everything is just whirling confusion. The visuals of this series are just a mess. But I guess they compliment the mess that is my second point, the characters are a mess and I hate them all. Queenie is not likable. She's not relatable. At eight episodes this felt like it was a hundred, half of them wallowing in shit and then half of them trying to get out of that shit. Oh, and how does she get out of that shit? By being a hypocrite and taking money from her mother who she won't talk to. And as for her job that she royally fucks up by having sex with a married coworker on the bathroom floor, what is it? What does Queenie actually do other than make bad life choices? I have no idea what her job is. And worse, I don't care. This show was about a miserable person who makes horrible decisions and then gets rewarded for admitting she needs therapy? Just no. All the no. These actors deserved better. Oh, and Cabbage Patch Kids weren't out in 1979.  

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Abuse, And the Emmy Goes To, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, British, Cabbage Patch Doll, Candice Carty-Williams, Cheating, Corgis, Dionne Brown, Miserable, Queenie, Sally Phillips, Sex, Therapy

A Winter's Tale by Trish Ashley
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: November 17th, 2008
Format: Paperback, 405 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Sophy Winter spent her formative years living in her family's stately home, Winter's End, until she was one day whisked away by her hippie mother without a backward glance. Her life then took on an itinerant feel, never really settling down until she got married and got pregnant. The pregnancy scared the husband off and she made do as a single mother working in great estates like the one she grew up in. Her daughter is now all grown up and teaching in Japan and Sophy is at loose ends, having lost her job and her home in a matter of minutes. That's when the miracle happens; she inherits Winter's End. A cousin she never knew about, Jack, has come to tell her of her good fortune and to offer to buy the house from her. He explains that Winter's End isn't in the best of shape, her grandfather funneled all the money into the restoration of the gardens at the expense of the house. Therefore Jack's solution would solve Sophy's money problems and sooth the wounds inflicted on Jack when he found out he only inherited the title. It's win win. But when Sophy arrives home she realizes she could never sell Winter's End, even to family. She doesn't care how desperately she needs to find money for it's upkeep or how upset Jack will be or how cantankerous the gardener Seth is, she only knows that she will find a way to do what is in the best interest of the house. Her home.

Several people over the years have recommended A Winter's Tale to me knowing of my love of grand English estates and chick lit. So the book had made it's way onto my shelves and languished, until this past December when it sounded like just the right read for a cold Christmas day. The thing is, there's not much Christmas in it... yes, Christmas is there, but it's almost an afterthought, the book actually getting it's title from Shakespeare not from being all yule. Yet for my love of country estates this was perfect. It's not so much a fairy tale as other books I've read go, though it would be a dream come true to inherit such a house, it's more a realistic fairy tale if that makes sense. We are given insight into the nuts and bolts of the day to day struggles to keep a grand house running. Basically the more down and dirty reality of owning Downton Abbey. Keeping the staff happy, keeping the house repaired, finding money to keep the restoration of the garden underway. Finding a happy balance between wants and needs. Prioritizing that which must get done. And cleaning. Seriously, the amount of cleaning a place like this takes, well, if you hadn't thought about it before in your fantasies about becoming on heiress, you will now. And not that that's a bad thing. In fact reading all about this minutiae, it gives you a stronger connection to this way of life than if you were to the manor born.

The minutiae is where this book lives. In the purchase of special beeswax for banisters and brushes for paintings. There's a languid feel that makes this book the perfect bedtime read. You slip into bed and you sink into the story that lulls you into a safe world of hard work with wonderful rewards. The pacing for most of the book continues on in this vein. Hundreds of pages of day by day tasks to have it abruptly changed. As Christmas nears the pace is picked up, soon we aren't spending languid days seeing the house brought back to life slowly, we're zooming along until it's later the next year at the happily ever after is thrust upon us. This is where the book kind of lost me. It's weird when the pace is abandoned in favor of some new narrative style. The book lost some of it's charm by changing tempo. I didn't feel as connected to these characters I had spent so much time forging a bond with. I felt like the bond was severed and I was left on the outside looking in as everything came together, but without me. Yes, if Trisha Ashley had continued the narrative style throughout A Winter's Tale might have been a doorstop of a book, but as I've said before and I'll say again, I don't care how long or how short a book is, it should be exactly as long as it takes to tell the story and do it justice. This book needs a little of the justice that came Jack's way.

Speaking of Jack. He is the major thorn in my side in this book. He is sleazy and scheming yet everyone thinks he's God's gift and why not let Jack have the house? He couldn't possibly do something underhanded, insert ominous music here. I give credit to Sophy that she stays the course, but there is too much of her waffling. Too many times she questions herself and doesn't stand up to Jack. So while Jack is the villain of the piece, with his dirty deals and his desperate ways, the main problem I have is that he illuminates the flaws of our heroine. Sophy is so strong of will and motivated by hard work I find it hard to believe that she'd buy any line coming out of Jack's mouth, no matter how seductive and silken. I mean, how can she be so naive? She just lost her job and her home because of a scheming relative of her employer and here she is in a similar situation and yet she's all, oh Jack, you're so pretty, you could never love frumpy me with my frizzy hair. Gaw. Just no. I know it's a staple of chick lit to have the to go to be true bad boy and the brooding good boy with the befuddled heroine in the middle not knowing what to do, but seriously? Sophy is so much stronger than the average Bridget Jones that I am baffled that she didn't call shenanigans sooner.

What sets this book apart from the run of the mill chick lit or Downtonesque book is the olde thyme stuff, IE Shakespeare! I admit about a few pages in I should have gotten that the title was from Shakespeare, given all the references in the text, but sometimes I'm not quite on the ball and as I mentioned before I seriously thought this was a Christmas book. This Shakespearean element also elevates the book to a kind of historical fiction chick lit fusion that is fun for fans of both genres. But the downside is that I think you'd have to be somewhat to fairly knowledgeable about Shakespeare and his life to get the personal references peppered throughout the story. The extracts from Alys Blezzard's journal are purposefully very cryptic and written for those with knowledge of the Bard. Therefore this book can be read on two levels, the plain old chick lit HEA, and the fusion level. Personally, if I was only reading it on the chick lit level without my knowledge of Shakespeare, I'm not sure I would have been as drawn into the book. It's the mystery woven throughout about Alys being dark of complexion, that connects with Shakespeare's sonnets to "The Dark Lady." The Shakespeare angle adds so much that without it I just don't know if it would work.

Yet that "Dark Lady" Alys is still a questionable addition to the book in my mind. Not her connection with Shakespeare, nothing like that. It's her "other" qualities. IE, the magic of it all. By bringing in a paranormal aspect I think it might be stretching the narrative's credulity to it's breaking point. The Shakespeare secret, the history of the family and the house, that's all well and good, but the magic? I could see it if there were just ghosts and Alys having been condemned as a witch, because well, any smart woman was a witch back then, but that magic... That tangible real magic that gives Sophy insight and visions. It's just a step too far. It's almost like this book so wanted to be everything that it threw in everything and the kitchen sink and sometimes enough is enough. Sometimes being descended from Shakespeare is a big enough twist. Sometimes getting your HEA is enough. And sometimes just saving your family estate is enough. There doesn't need to be "real" magic too. Because isn't everything else magical enough? Apparently not according to Trisha Ashley. But then again, some people just don't know where to draw the line, like Sophy with her "relationship" with Jack.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Winter's Tales, Bridget Jones, British Country House, Chick Lit, Christmas, Downton Abbey, Downton Denial Denouement, Downtonesque, Gardens, HEA, Magic, Shakespeare, Sonnets, The Dark Lady, Trisha Ashley

That Summer by Lauren Willig
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: June 3rd, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Julia Conley has inherited a house in England. A house on Herne Hill has been left to her by an unknown great-aunt. Julia and her father left England when she was six and her mother was killed in a car crash. Since her life in New York hasn't been going that well lately as one of the many unemployed, she decides to go to England and spend a few months sorting out the house and hopefully sorting out her life. For Julia who has viewed her family as just her and her father she finds it hard to come to gripes with the fact that this was where her mother came from and she still has family here with a few cousins, who of course feel slighted with great-aunt Regina's will. The more time Julia spends in the house the more she wishes she had been given the chance to know her great-aunt.

For Regina might have held the key to a lovely Pre-Raphaelite painting in one of the rooms of the house, which has a matching painting hidden deep at the back of one of the cupboards. Why was the one painting displayed and the other hidden? Who is this artist Gavin Thorne? Going back to 1849 we learn about the painter Gavin Thorne and his muse, Imogen Grantham, who happened to be the mistress of the house on Herne Hill and married to a wealthy and significantly older collector who was occasionally visited by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who doted on his historical relics. Yet why hide the painting? What connection does this painter and this wife have to Julia? More importantly, after 160 years can Julia find out?

Sometimes life is staggering in it's synchronicity. The very day that I received That Summer in the mail my Great-Aunt Vicki died. My family got the call that she had passed in her sleep and that the rest of the family was to descend on Madison to take care of her estate. My Great-Aunt was the last of the older generation, being preceded in death by all my Grandparents and even an Uncle. While sadly I have never been bequeathed a mysterious house, because she was the last of that generation I have gotten quite used to clearing out ancestral homes, my Grandparents farm having accumulated over a hundred years worth of ephemera, with sadly not a rare painting or a secret stash of cash in sight, but a random piano being used as a tool bench and much mouse effluvia. As I spent the following weeks sifting through the rooms of her house, picking what to keep and what to give away, I couldn't help but think of all the things I don't know about my family and where I come from. There is a strong ancestry bug that my family has, but I have not yet been bitten, and there's a part of me that keeps thinking, better now before it's too late.

The detritus is all we have left of our family's history. Random paintings around the house, Aunt so and so painted this, Cousin so and so did that one; just what if the painting was something more? What if the painting was a closely guarded secret that would unlock some mystery about yourself? The search for your own identity is caught up in the past, in where you come from. While Julia's search for what happened in her own past with her mother as well as to her ancestor's is something that might be uncommon, the search is something we can all identify with. Lauren has tapped into something deep within everyone, a longing to know where they're from in order to find out where they belong. This gives us a strong connection to the characters, we are on their journey with them and I wouldn't want it any other way.

While the time slip genre is nothing new, Lauren is able to create a more accessible story then some authors who mire their books in overly flowery details and descriptions that go on for so many pages you lose the thread of the story. This isn't to say the writing is sparse, it's exactly what it needs to be to conjure this world, no more and no less. Though there is a part of me that wishes at some time in the future Lauren would go all out and write a doorstop of a novel. Yet in Lauren's time slip she is able to capture the best of all worlds, with a little Kate Morton, a little Somewhere in Time, a nod to Du Maurier's Rebecca, a Keats Bridget Jones call out with a wink to Nancy Mitford's silly season. There are also echoes of Victorian literature, from Imogen's marriage mirroring Dorthea's in Middlemarch, to Gavin bringing a little of the John Thornton vibe from North and South. Yet these homages aren't derivative, they give us a touchstone for the time period but then become so distinctly their own story that while you remember the connections at the back of your mind they are inconsequential as the story takes on a life of it's own.

As for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, I will admit that this subject matter is what made me swoon when I heard over a year ago about Lauren's next planned stand alone. I think that I have adequately covered my love of them in previous posts and writings, but I will say that even in the BBC production of Desperate Romantics, they have always been a band apart. Outsiders who verged on Gods in their ways of self aggrandising each other and mythologizing their lives and works. They were Romantics in every sense of the word, demanding the capital letter "R". Yet Lauren brought them down off their pedestals. Packed into the snug sitting room on Herne Hill we see a human Rossetti with his schemes and ideas and his future spiraling out before him. The ways the Brotherhood sought out collectors of antiquities to give an authenticity to their paintings adds a realism to them and their works.

These men aren't Gods, no matter how many posters in English classrooms and dorm rooms might say otherwise, they are men. They have loved and lost and with Gavin we have a true romantic hero that is swoonworthy. And like all good writing, this one aspect of the book, the Brotherhood, it doesn't overpower the story, it compliments it, it strengthens and adds to it. You will fall into this book and even if you are just a fraction of a romantic the Pre-Raphaelite's were you will find yourself falling in love with both couples in the different time periods. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did, and if you're coming into this book from Lauren's Pink Carnation series, there are a few gems hidden in the book, but like these painters who would hide the Brotherhood's initials in their paintings, you might have to have a keen eye to spot them.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bridget Jones, Daphne Du Maurier, Desperate Romantics, Kate Morton, Lauren Willig, Middlemarch, Nancy Mitford, North and South, Pink Carnation, Pre-Raphaelite, Rebecca, Somewhere in Time, That Summer

That Summer by Lauren Willig
ARC Provided by the Publisher
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: June 3rd, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Julia Conley has inherited a house in England. A house on Herne Hill has been left to her by an unknown great-aunt. Julia and her father left England when she was six and her mother was killed in a car crash. Since her life in New York hasn't been going that well lately as one of the many unemployed, she decides to go to England and spend a few months sorting out the house and hopefully sorting out her life. For Julia who has viewed her family as just her and her father she finds it hard to come to gripes with the fact that this was where her mother came from and she still has family here with a few cousins, who of course feel slighted with great-aunt Regina's will. The more time Julia spends in the house the more she wishes she had been given the chance to know her great-aunt.

For Regina might have held the key to a lovely Pre-Raphaelite painting in one of the rooms of the house, which has a matching painting hidden deep at the back of one of the cupboards. Why was the one painting displayed and the other hidden? Who is this artist Gavin Thorne? Going back to 1849 we learn about the painter Gavin Thorne and his muse, Imogen Grantham, who happened to be the mistress of the house on Herne Hill and married to a wealthy and significantly older collector who was occasionally visited by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who doted on his historical relics. Yet why hide the painting? What connection does this painter and this wife have to Julia? More importantly, after 160 years can Julia find out?

Sometimes life is staggering in it's synchronicity. The very day that I received That Summer in the mail my Great-Aunt Vicki died. My family got the call that she had passed in her sleep and that the rest of the family was to descend on Madison to take care of her estate. My Great-Aunt was the last of the older generation, being preceded in death by all my Grandparents and even an Uncle. While sadly I have never been bequeathed a mysterious house, because she was the last of that generation I have gotten quite used to clearing out ancestral homes, my Grandparents farm having accumulated over a hundred years worth of ephemera, with sadly not a rare painting or a secret stash of cash in sight, but a random piano being used as a tool bench and much mouse effluvia. As I spent the following weeks sifting through the rooms of her house, picking what to keep and what to give away, I couldn't help but think of all the things I don't know about my family and where I come from. There is a strong ancestry bug that my family has, but I have not yet been bitten, and there's a part of me that keeps thinking, better now before it's too late.

The detritus is all we have left of our family's history. Random paintings around the house, Aunt so and so painted this, Cousin so and so did that one; just what if the painting was something more? What if the painting was a closely guarded secret that would unlock some mystery about yourself? The search for your own identity is caught up in the past, in where you come from. While Julia's search for what happened in her own past with her mother as well as to her ancestor's is something that might be uncommon, the search is something we can all identify with. Lauren has tapped into something deep within everyone, a longing to know where they're from in order to find out where they belong. This gives us a strong connection to the characters, we are on their journey with them and I wouldn't want it any other way.

While the time slip genre is nothing new, Lauren is able to create a more accessible story then some authors who mire their books in overly flowery details and descriptions that go on for so many pages you lose the thread of the story. This isn't to say the writing is sparse, it's exactly what it needs to be to conjure this world, no more and no less. Though there is a part of me that wishes at some time in the future Lauren would go all out and write a doorstop of a novel. Yet in Lauren's time slip she is able to capture the best of all worlds, with a little Kate Morton, a little Somewhere in Time, a nod to Du Maurier's Rebecca, a Keats Bridget Jones call out with a wink to Nancy Mitford's silly season. There are also echoes of Victorian literature, from Imogen's marriage mirroring Dorthea's in Middlemarch, to Gavin bringing a little of the John Thornton vibe from North and South. Yet these homages aren't derivative, they give us a touchstone for the time period but then become so distinctly their own story that while you remember the connections at the back of your mind they are inconsequential as the story takes on a life of it's own.

As for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, I will admit that this subject matter is what made me swoon when I heard over a year ago about Lauren's next planned stand alone. I think that I have adequately covered my love of them in previous posts and writings, but I will say that even in the BBC production of Desperate Romantics, they have always been a band apart. Outsiders who verged on Gods in their ways of self aggrandising each other and mythologizing their lives and works. They were Romantics in every sense of the word, demanding the capital letter "R". Yet Lauren brought them down off their pedestals. Packed into the snug sitting room on Herne Hill we see a human Rossetti with his schemes and ideas and his future spiraling out before him. The ways the Brotherhood sought out collectors of antiquities to give an authenticity to their paintings adds a realism to them and their works.

These men aren't Gods, no matter how many posters in English classrooms and dorm rooms might say otherwise, they are men. They have loved and lost and with Gavin we have a true romantic hero that is swoonworthy. And like all good writing, this one aspect of the book, the Brotherhood, it doesn't overpower the story, it compliments it, it strengthens and adds to it. You will fall into this book and even if you are just a fraction of a romantic the Pre-Raphaelite's were you will find yourself falling in love with both couples in the different time periods. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did, and if you're coming into this book from Lauren's Pink Carnation series, there are a few gems hidden in the book, but like these painters who would hide the Brotherhood's initials in their paintings, you might have to have a keen eye to spot them.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Bridget Jones, Daphne Du Maurier, Desperate Romantics, Kate Morton, Lauren Willig, Middlemarch, Nancy Mitford, North and South, Pink Carnation, Pre-Raphaelite, Rebecca, Somewhere in Time, That Summer

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

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

The official patter:
"What do you do when your girlfriend’s sixtieth birthday party is the same day as your boyfriend’s thirtieth?

Is it better to die of Botox or die of loneliness because you’re so wrinkly?

Is it wrong to lie about your age when online dating?

Is it morally wrong to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice?

Is it normal to be too vain to put on your reading glasses when checking your toy boy for head lice?

Does the Dalai Lama actually tweet or is it his assistant?

Is it normal to get fewer followers the more you tweet?

Is technology now the fifth element? Or is that wood?

If you put lip plumper on your hands do you get plump hands?

Is sleeping with someone after two dates and six weeks of texting the same as getting married after two meetings and six months of letter writing in Jane Austen’s day?

Pondering these and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of loss, single motherhood, tweeting, texting, technology, and rediscovering her sexuality in—Warning! Bad, outdated phrase approaching!—middle age.

In a triumphant return after fourteen years of silence, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is timely, tender, touching, page-turning, witty, wise, outrageous, and bloody hilarious."

Um... new Bridget Jones? I'm kind of split on this. The books were never as good as the movie (first, not second, ug). Also... yeah... I'm not sure. Will I read it? Duh.

Behind the Shattered Glass by Tasha Alexander
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: October 15th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A ruined abbey on a beautiful estate in Derbyshire, a murdered peer, and a most unlikely romance make New York Times bestseller Tasha Alexander's new novel absolutely irresistible

Anglemore Park is the ancestral home of Lady Emily Hargreave's husband Colin. But the stately calm of country life is destroyed when their neighbor, the Marquess of Montagu, bursts through the French doors from the garden and falls down dead in front of the shocked gathering. But who has a motive for murdering the young aristocrat? The lovely cousin who was threatened by his engagement, the Oxford friend he falsely accused of cheating, the scheming vicar's daughter he shamelessly seduced or the relative no one knew existed who appears to claim the Montagu title? Who is the mysterious woman seen walking with him moments before he was brutally attacked? The trail takes readers into the gilded world of a British manor house and below stairs to the servants who know all the secrets. One family's hidden past and a forbidden passion are the clues to a puzzle only Lady Emily can solve."

Oh, this sounds so fabulous as well as having yet another luscious cover! Can not wait to read!

Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George
Published by: Dutton Adult
Publication Date: October 15th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 736 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"#1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George delivers another masterpiece of suspense in her Inspector Lynley series: a gripping child-in-danger story that tests Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers like never before.

Barbara is at a loss: The daughter of her friend Taymullah Azhar has been taken by her mother, and Barbara can’t really help—Azhar had never married Angelina, and his name isn’t on Hadiyyah’s, their daughter’s, birth certificate. He has no legal claim. Azhar and Barbara hire a private detective, but the trail goes cold.

Azhar is just beginning to accept his soul-crushing loss when Angelina reappears with shocking news: Hadiyyah is missing, kidnapped from an Italian marketplace. The Italian police are investigating, and the Yard won’t get involved, until Barbara takes matters into her own hands — at the risk of her own career.

As both Barbara and her partner, Inspector Thomas Lynley, soon discover, the case is far more complex than a typical kidnapping, revealing secrets that could have far-reaching effects outside of the investigation. With both her job and the life of a little girl on the line, Barbara must decide what matters most, and how far she’s willing to go to protect it."

New Lynley? Yes please!

Copperhead by Tina Connolly
Published by: Tor
Publication Date: October 15th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
" Copperhead is the sequel to Tina Connolly's stunning historical fantasy debut.

Helen Huntingdon is beautiful—so beautiful she has to wear an iron mask.

Six months ago her sister Jane uncovered a fey plot to take over the city. Too late for Helen, who opted for fey beauty in her face—and now has to cover her face with iron so she won’t be taken over, her personality erased by the bodiless fey.

Not that Helen would mind that some days. Stuck in a marriage with the wealthy and controlling Alistair, she lives at the edges of her life, secretly helping Jane remove the dangerous fey beauty from the wealthy society women who paid for it. But when the chancy procedure turns deadly, Jane goes missing—and is implicated in a murder.

Meanwhile, Alistair’s influential clique Copperhead—whose emblem is the poisonous copperhead hydra—is out to restore humans to their “rightful” place, even to the point of destroying the dwarvven who have always been allies.

Helen is determined to find her missing sister, as well as continue the good fight against the fey. But when that pits her against her own husband—and when she meets an enigmatic young revolutionary—she’s pushed to discover how far she’ll bend society’s rules to do what’s right. It may be more than her beauty at stake. It may be her honor...and her heart."

100% cover lust.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Behind the Shattered Glass, Bridget Jones, Copperhead, Elizabeth George, Helen Fielding, Inspector Lynley, Lady Emily, Mad About the Boy, Tasha Alexander, Tina Connolly

My friend Misty over at Book Rat (yes, she has her own label below, see below, and is tickled by that) is having a month long celebration of one of my favorite writers, Jane Austen. I just could not not participate. I remember the first time and each successive time I've read all her books. I remember scouring bookstores for anything, from unfinished stories to childhood riddles that she'd written just to get a little more Jane. I've seen, probably, almost every adaptation there is from Bollywood to Bridget. I have developed an unhealthy obsession with Andrew Davies' adaptations and have finally come to realize the greatness of Northanger Abbey. So in the spirit of the month long event I will be having posts about my introduction to the word of Jane, both good and bad, reviews, recommendations and just plain Jane! Even if she could really never be further than plain.

To kick the month off right there will be a giveaway, Austen themed of course, but a little closer to my heart than some of the other giveaways I've run. This time I'm giving away something I've created! A few years back when an undergrad, we were assigned an art project centering on the concept of a series. It could be a series of anything really, the pictures just had to relate. I decided to do a Jane Austen series. For years I'd been enamoured by the illustrations done by the Brother's Brock and thought that they needed a little updating, and a little context, and perhaps, just that little bit of femininity and color. So to work I went. This piece, from Pride and Prejudice, is entitled "It is enough to know they are discovered." For this piece I did a watercolor and gesso painting on fibrous paper that had plant particles. You could win you very own Giclee (ie, high end printed reproduction signed and number by me! You know you want my signature!) So enter here! Also be sure to check out the others in the series, all trying to capture a little more of the feeling that I think the scene conveys that the Brocks lacked.

THIS GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED


The Prize:
Oh, pretty Giclee depicting a scene from Pride and Prejudice, signed and numbered!

The Rules:
1. Open to EVERYONE, just because you haven't been following me all along doesn't mean you don't matter, you just get more entries if you prove you love me by following.
2. Please make sure I have a way to contact you if your name is drawn, either your blogger profile or a link to your website/blog or you could even include your email address with your comment(s).
3. Contest ends Wednesday, June 30th at 11:59PM CST
4. How to enter:

Answer me this: Favorite Austen book and favorite Austen adaption... they definitely don't have to be the same!

5. And for those addicted to getting extra entries:

• +1 for answering the question above
• +2 for becoming a follower
• +10 if you are already a follower
• +10 for each time you advertise this contest - blog post, sidebar, twitter (please @MzLizard), etc. (but you only get credit for the first post, so tweet all you like, and I thank you for it, but you'll only get the +10 once). Also please leave a link!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 24 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, Book Rat, Bridget Jones, Brocks, Giclee, Giveaway, Jane Austen, Jane in June, Misty, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Watercolor

A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans
Published by: Downtown Press
Publication Date: 2006
Format: Paperback, 531 Pages
Challenge: Typically British
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Laura is a desperate, hopeless romantic. She believes in the dream of a white knight on a gallant steed. From Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer, she has spent her life looking for "the one" who will match her romantic ideal. Of course this leads her to nothing but trouble. She has the worst taste when it comes to men, but she always bends the facts of the situation to fit her romantic daydreams. Take Dan. Sure he has a girlfriend, sure it's technically an affair, but that doesn't stop Laura and her daydreams that he will leave Amy and that they will be together on their summer holiday to Florida. When it all comes crashing down she realizes that she has jeopardized her friends, family and job for a man who would never, could never be hers. She decides it's time to leave the clouds and wake up to reality. Eschewing all that she once held dear, gone are the novels and the movies, save one. She keeps behind Rebecca, no longer viewing the sweet new Mrs. de Winter as the reason for reading it, but Mrs. Danvers. Now there's a lady who is no nonsense, stiff backbone and who would never fall for this romantic waffle.

The new Laura throws herself into getting her life sorted out, starting with a family holiday in Yorkshire. While yes, it is extremely boring looking at heritage sites and historic windmills, Chartley Hall has it's allure... and no, not the paintings or the grounds, but Nick, who Laura takes to be the groundskeeper. But now that Laura is new and "improved" will she be able to snap back to the hopeless romantic she was before Dan to see that she has landed herself in her dream story and she might just have found her prince charming?

This book was pretty excruciating to get into. Laura and Dan together were an unbearable time bomb waiting to happen. Hundreds of pages of slow self implosion. I get that we needed this exposition to lead to Laura's hardening and throwing off the rose tinted glasses, I just don't think we needed as much as was there. But once she was in Yorkshire, it literally became a book I did not want to put down. The dull, flat, two dimensional characters were gone and in their place was funny people who I could get along with, after all they watch Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm! Of course there were cliches of the genre, the ending was both expected, sad and then a bit of a Bridget Jones clone in the extreme, which almost knocked it down a star. But it was good escapist and romantic fun. Also, is it just me or did anyone else think the "butler" Charles was really the ideal man? Cause, he's up there with fictional characters who I'd give my number to.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 1 comments  

Labels: A Hopeless Romantic, Arrested Development, Bridget Jones, Charles, Chartley Hall, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Georgette Heyer, Harriet Evans, Jane Austen, Laura, Mrs. Danvers, Reading Challenge, Rebecca

Shopaholic & Sister: Shopaholic Book 4 by Sophie Kinsella
Published by: Dell
Publication Date: September 28th, 2004
Format: Paperback, 388 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Becky might have changed her name from Bloomwood to Brandon, but other than that things seem eerily similar. She miraculously pulled off not one, but two, dream weddings, and is now basking in the glow of an ill earned year long honeymoon traveling the globe with her husband Luke. Of course, Becky being Becky, she's secretly buying "mementos" everywhere they go... even if Luke said he didn't want the giant giraffes, he'll surely regret it once they're settled back in London. A christening announcement from Suze makes Becky realize just how much she has missed in her time abroad and Luke and her decide to cut their sojourn short. With a stop off in Milan, Becky maxes out her credit card on "the" fashion accessory of the moment, an Angel Bag, and makes a promise she might not be able to keep to a thuggish, yet oddly fashion conscious man, Nathan Temple, who aids her in the bags procurement. Once home Becky feels out of joint. Her parents are not thrilled to see her, Suze has a new best friend to go with her two new babies, and Luke is back at work and has reverted to the workaholic he was before. Plus, what is she to do with the lorries full of honeymoon mementos... she really didn't think she bought that much?!? With a little help from eBay, she's able to declutter, but then there's all those vintage coats that could be bought with her succesful sales, instead of paying off her bills... But once her parents drop the bombshell that she has a sister, everything else seems insignificant. Of course a sister with whom she has nothing in common, who despises shopping and who doesn't want Becky in her life could be a bit of an obstacle. But when things hit their lowest, it's to her new sister, Jess, that she seeks help. If Jess is willing that is...

I started reading this series last year due to the hype of the coming film coupled with the desire for some good chick lit. The books are light, fluffy and totally lacking in substance, in other words, what you expect from chick lit and a worthy successor to Bridget Jones. But I think, perhaps, I've had enough of Becky Brandon, nee Bloomwood. The first two books were fun and amusing watching Becky and her addictive personality successfully claw her way out of the pits of compulsive buying. But by the third book, she's not just hurting herself, but manipulating others... how she pulled off the two weddings seemed contrived and also not fair, she really didn't deserve a happy ending. At this point the books turned in a new direction, a tad more unbelievable and mean spirited. Plus, is anyone surprised that she's back to her old ways? Each book has an epiphany moment followed by her vowing to change. But by the next book she's back to her old ways. Becky is a cycler... she will never change!

It's this lack of growth that pisses me off, you'd think she'd learn something? But this time around things seem even worse and her marriage seems in jeopardy because of her old tendencies coming back to the front. Becky and Luke are the mismatched lovers that we're supposed to root for. But Luke is a workaholic who is abrasive and not very nice in this installment, looking down on Becky, the woman whom he supposedly loves but won't take advice from, while Becky is the same, self deluded Becky. These ill matched, mistaken fools, who don't seem to respect or understand each other, really grated on my nerves. Neither changes yet they expect the other to. I'm really curious as to what makes them likable? I finished reading them because they are diverting, but diverting like a train wreck. Eventually you reach the end of the line, and I think they have with me. Bye Becky and Luke... have fun with that baby you've got in the oven, it's sure to be messed up by the two of you!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Becky Bloomwood, Book Review, Bridget Jones, Luke Brandon, Nathan Temple, Shopaholic, Shopaholic and Sister, Sophie Kinsella, Suze