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Books (242)

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- Life Below Stairs (1)
- The True Lives of Edwardian Servants
- By Alison Maloney
- Finished on Nov 7, 2012
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- Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (1)
- But Money Can Be Her Worst Enemy...
- By Jenny Colgan
- Finished on Nov 16, 2012
  
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Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

Light, funny reading

I picked this book basically for two main reasons: because I wanted to relax with a light reading and because I wanted to find once again that type of characters Mrs Colgan had managed to create for a previous book of hers I had read not that long ago - Sweetshop of Dreams: well described, funny, do ... (continue)

I picked this book basically for two main reasons: because I wanted to relax with a light reading and because I wanted to find once again that type of characters Mrs Colgan had managed to create for a previous book of hers I had read not that long ago - Sweetshop of Dreams: well described, funny, down-to-heart as if they were real.
Well. If I was not at all disappointed by the second, definitely I was by the first. OK, I told you, I chose this book 'cause I was looking for a reading I could easily carry on with even when I was knackered at late night. But maybe in this case reading was too... easy. I soon found out that the plot of this book, which in Sweetshop of Dreams started to lack only by the last third of the story on, was really shabby indeed.
Sophie Chesterton is awfully rich, deeply loved and extremely beautiful. She has all a girl can dream of and if she wants more she doesn't even need to ask. Her dad loves her to bits and would do anything - anything! - to make her happy. Until the day this rich lifestyle comes to an end and Sophie finds herself forced to learn how to carry on on her own.
Of course this is a girlish book. No doubts on that, non even the slightest. The title, the sparkling cover, the layout: this book is nomore than a girls' magazine - just packed in a book. Still maybe I expected a bit more than those hundreds of romantic clichés Jenny Colgan generously squeezed within its pages. Sophie's new life is turning up being surrounded by fortunate events and stunningly beautiful guys, and even when crap is at its highest there's always a well-breed lower-class bloke ready to support her. OK, fair enough I thought. I understand this is what one looks for in such a book, to find an ideal life in an ideal world - no one would dream to find in there the same bitter crap they face day by day in their own, wouldn't they? - and I do understand that that's what the target this book was written for expects to find, so... no surprise I found it sappy. The reason why I still give it a 3-star rating despite all the above is because characters didn't disappoint me. Once again they were as real as fictional people can be. Standing ovation to that. If only also the plot was as real, I'd have given it a full 5-star rating.

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— Nov 17, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Below stairs (12)
- By Margaret Powell
- Finished on Nov 13, 2012
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- When I Was a Nipper (1)
- The Way We Were in Disappearing Britain
- By Alan Titchmarsh
- Not Started
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- Christmas Carol (1591)
- By Charles Dickens
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- The Sealed Letter (16)
- By Emma Donoghue
- Not Started
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- The Girl You Left Behind (8)
- By Jojo Moyes
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- The Silver Locket (1)
- By Margaret James
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- Gabriel's Angel (2)
- By Mark A. Radcliffe
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- The Casual Vacancy (658)
- By J.K. Rowling
- Started on Oct 12, 2012
  
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The Casual Vacancy

2 people find this helpful
I'm sorry, I couldn't finish it...

I read about a third of the book before deciding to stop. It took me a month to get there. I'm afraid I couldn't get into the plot, nor I was interested in doing it. My feeling is that the story is too messily introduced and there are too many names to remember. Also, the way characters are introduc ... (continue)

I read about a third of the book before deciding to stop. It took me a month to get there. I'm afraid I couldn't get into the plot, nor I was interested in doing it. My feeling is that the story is too messily introduced and there are too many names to remember. Also, the way characters are introduced to the reader doesn't help to keep track of their personal affairs. Actually, now that I think about it I didn't give a monkey to any of them. I was not interested in what happened and why the death of a member of the Council was so important to those people.
Problems start when Barry Fairbrother, head of the Parish Council of Pagford, suddenly dies leaving a vacant seat that more than one are willing to get. Fairbrother's death provokes an internal war among the other members of the Council and among their relatives and friends willing to support them in this fight to occupy the highest position in their small community.
In addition to that we are presented the lives and sins of every person involved in this internal war. That's where the issue starts, in my opinion. I couldn't follow the story anymore. I had to make a great effort to remind who the author was talking of every time she went back to a character we had seen last time maybe a dozen pages before.
Messy, messy, messy. According to the reviews I found on the Web, I'm not the only one thinking that it's quite difficult to remind who is talking about what and why.
I knew this would be a completely different book from HP saga - of course! - but at least I expected to find the same passion JKR used to put in her characters, making them look incredibly real and passionate and... well, living despite being fictional. Characters in this book are instead flat, dull, even meaningless sometimes. The only one I cared a little of was Krystal Weedon: a slighlty real-looking character in a world of meaningless characters.
That's what made me abandon this book. No feelings, no emotions, no passion. A sense of emptiness all along. A flat story. I told you, I couldn't get into it and I kept wandering around, paying neither the slightest bit of attention to the book.
I didn't care of what reviews said the day I decided to start reading this book, honestly. I actually didn't know what to expect from it. Still, of all I would expect from that reading, disappointment was at the bottom of the list.
I don't know if one day I'll pick it up again and finish it. Honestly, I'm not that sure I ever will.

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— Nov 4, 2012 | Add your feedback