Review: I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

Title: I’ve Got Your Number
Author: Sophie Kinsella
Category: chick-lit
Publisher: The Dial Press, February 14, 2012
Pages: 448
Source: ARC via netGalley, read on my Kindle
Star rating: 5 out of 5

When it comes to books, I have terribly happy memories of the early-2000s. I discovered chick-lit, probably on one of those lovely three-for-two tables Borders used to have near the front door. I read them all: Jane Green, Jennifer Weiner, Marian Keyes, Helen Fielding, and others I’ve forgotten. I loved the formula: single career girl in a big city (the best ones were always in London) looking for love. They were comfortable and predictable, and I gobbled them up.

Those authors have changed and shifted their styles over the years, to topics a little more serious. They’re a bit heavier in their tone, with the drudgery of life in the suburbs (authors: there are happy people in the ‘burbs!), with two kids and a minivan and a husband who may or may not be unfaithful. I miss the old stuff. I miss the carefree and sweet stories, even if they all followed the same pattern.

And that’s why I still adore Sophie Kinsella (a.k.a. Madeleine Wickham). She can still write the single-girl-in-London story so well. Her characters are always lovable, and quirky, and a bit disheveled, and you can’t help but root for them.

In her latest, Poppy is engaged to Magnus, a genius from a genius family. At a bridal shower, Poppy loses her engagement ring, an expensive emerald, a family heirloom. Someone pulls the hotel fire alarm and the scene is chaotic. The ring is lost, and Poppy is distraught, and to make matters worse, her phone is stolen right out of her hand on the street. In the hotel’s lobby, she finds a discarded phone in a trash can and uses it to put out the alert about her lost ring and stolen phone.

But it can’t end there. No, Poppy has found a phone belonging to an important company, and an important man, Sam Roxton, wants it back. The ensuing events are mad-cap and a bit zany (in a good way) and Poppy’s life unravels just before an unlikely someone starts to put it back together again.

Only Sophie Kinsella can write a story like this. She takes the most unlikely people and events and makes them seem utterly believable. Her writing skill is impressive, to boot. I hope she never abandons this format completely. Sometimes you just want to read something fun.

As an aside, I’ve been obsessed with greatly enjoying Downton Abbey so much lately. And even though Sam Roxton as described in the book looks nothing at all like Dan Stevens, that’s who I pictured through the whole book. A visual:

I guess I could’ve gotten stuck on the guy who plays Carson.

Review: Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale

Title: Midnight in Austenland
Author: Shannon Hale
Category: chick-lit
Publisher: Bloomsbury, January 31, 2012
Pages: 288
Source: ARC via netGalley, read on my Kindle
Star rating: 1 out of 5

Charlotte is a recently-divorced mother of two. She’s feeling left behind and lost and needs a vacation and a bit of her old zing back. She finds Austenland through her travel agent and books a trip to England to role-play for two weeks and re-set her heart and mind.

I adored Austenland, the first book in this series (review here). I was overjoyed by it and gobbled it up in a day. I still think of it fondly and was thrilled to learn it was the first in a series.

But something’s wrong with this one. There’s no life. There’s no excitement. There’s no thrilling aspect that kept me turning the pages. I read Austenland in a day, rooted to my couch, laughing and crying. Midnight in Austenland has none of that thrill for me.

And the writing. Oh, my word, the writing has some truly dismal moments. Here are two I highlighted on my Kindle:

Charlotte met eyes with the sofa. That is, if the sofa had eyes, she would have met eyes with it.

And…

An impatient sort of patient face, like an impatient face dressing up as a patient one for Halloween.

What? That’s just dreadful. Those are the two I highlighted, but there are more.

I usually try to go into the whys and hows of my feelings toward books, but this one was just so bad, such a disappointment, that I can’t write any more. I could barely finish the book, and I can barely finish the review, either.

Review: Save the Date by Jenny B. Jones

Title: Save the Date
Author: Jenny B. Jones
Category: Christian chick-lit/romance
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Page Count: 320
Source: ARC from the publisher, via netGalley (read on my Kindle)
Star rating: 5 of 5

In general, I have a bit of a problem with Christian fiction of the romance/chick-lit variety. I get tired of the wooden, stereotypical characters, the unrealistic holiness, and the too-good-to-be-true heartthrob. (And let’s not even get started on that other creature, Amish fiction. Ugh.) So I’ve vowed a hundred times that I’ll never read Christian romance/chick-lit again. Well, let’s just say I’m very glad I broke my own rule with this one.

I puffy cartoon hearts adored this book. I know, that doesn’t sound very professional or Book Reviewer-ish, but it’s true. Start to finish, every single word, I loved Save the Date.

Lucy has had some hard knocks in her life. She grew up poor, the only child of a house-cleaning single mom. She worked her way through college and has been on her own since her mother’s death. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and runs Saving Grace, a home for young women who have aged-out of the foster system but still aren’t quite ready to be out on their own. Her best-friends are a group of self-described science fiction nerds. Things seem to be going okay for Lucy. She’d been dating Matt, a reliable but boring accountant. Just when Lucy thought Matt would propose to her, he broke up with her and moved away.

Fast-forward and Saving Grace loses most of its funding. Lucy is lonely and worried about Saving Grace, wondering how she’s going to keep it all afloat. But then Alex Sinclair comes along. He’s an old classmate from Lucy’s childhood, a former NFL quarterback, and a congressional hopeful. He also happens to be irrevocably tied to the foundation that’s just cut Lucy’s funding.

What happens next seems implausible but is completely believable in the hands of Jenny B. Jones and her gift for storytelling. And I’m not going to tell you what that something is, because the book is so good you should read it yourself. It’s often laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly sweet and endearing, and more than just a little romantic.

What I love the most about Jones’ writing is her characters. She has quite a knack for creating fully-formed folks you think you could know. I want to be friends with Lucy. I want her to be real! And call me crazy, but I had a hard time not picturing Eli Manning as Alex. I mean, come on.

Hotty Toddy!

Save the Date strikes that perfect balance between secular and Christian romance/chick-lit. It’s not profane as some secular offerings are, and it’s not at all sickly-sweet as some Christian ones are. It’s instead a delightful read full of delightful characters from an author whose other books I’ll now seek out and gobble up.

Review: Austenland by Shannon Hale

Title: Austenland
Author: Shannon Hale
Category: chick-lit
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2007
Page count: 194
Source: Paperback Swap
Star rating: 5 out of 5

Jane Hayes has hit her 30s and is still single and unlucky in love. Like millions of women her age, single or not, she’s got a thing for Regency England, the novels of Jane Austen, and the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. She fears her head-in-the-clouds romanticism is causing her love problems, so she vows to set aside Mr. Darcy and all her hopes for ever finding one of her own. But then her great aunt dies and wills to Jane a trip to Pembrook Park, a country estate in England where women like Jane can immerse themselves in Regency fashion, language, and customs, for three solid weeks of fantasy role-playing with other women and with actors. Jane is tempted by the gardener, Martin; the rich young officer, Colonel Andrews; and most annoyingly of all to Jane, the aloof and sometimes rude Mr. Nobley.

I loved this book. The reactions to it among bloggers and on Goodreads are either soaring with praise or dripping with disdain. The wildly opposite reactions surprise me. It’s chick-lit, which means it’s somewhat predictable, and certainly fluffy, but isn’t that the point? And who read most Jane Austen novels for the first time without being able to predict at least part of the outcome? She was, after all, the mother of chick-lit!

I thoroughly enjoyed the main characters. There are obvious parallels between Austen’s Mr. Darcy and Hale’s Mr. Nobley. The connections between Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Hayes are less obvious. But the end result is still delightful, with a twist at the end that really had me guessing, and then crying happy tears. There are a number of laugh-out-loud moments throughout, too. Any reader familiar with Mr. Darcy will love Mr. Nobley, and, if like me, have a hard time not picturing Colin Firth. He’ll always be Mr. Darcy, despite the weak parade of not-Firths who have played the part since 1995!