Publishing year: 2013
After so much crime, I have started a light, humorous book.Quite a contrast as today is Good Friday!
The story is about Lottie, who is certain that her boyfriend Richard is going to propose. As I heard the voices of her mind, I feared that she might be up for some bitter disappointment. And I was right! Richard didn’t plan to propose at all. The big question she thought he was going to ask him was a simple question about how to spend his air-miles. When Lottie confronts the topic of marriage, his answers are vague and stilted. I have to say that Richard didn’t act very well, and the next thing we know is that Lottie breaks up with him. Lottie is devastated but she gets a grip and doesn’t crumble. The only person she finally shows her real feelings is her sister Fliss. Fliss is afraid that Lottie will do something desperate as from past experience she knows her sister tends to do bad choices after having a break up. This time Lottie tells her about going to San Francisco, where Richard has gone for two months for work, and propose to him, but Fliss manages to dissuade her. I feel sorry for Lottie; after the break up, I would think Richard should have tried to talk to her, but we know that the man doesn’t attempt to contact her. I don’t have much respect for Richard even though Fliss seems to think he was the man for her sister.
What Fliss doesn’t know is that this time Lottie’s wrong choice is not her surprise proposal to Richard, but something worse, in my opinion. Lottie receives a call from Ben, an ex-boyfriend, she hasn’t seen for fifteen years. She and Ben hooked up when she was in Greece in her gap year, and she remembers him fondly. And now when she sees him, he keeps saying that he has never forgotten her and they’ve wasted all these fifteen years. Then addled by alcohol (I guess), he proposes to her, and she accepts!!! She has only one condition: they won’t have sex until they are married. I don’t know much about Ben, and as for Richard, I don’t have a high opinion of him. Yet, I think Lottie is rushing into something as some kind of rebound thing. I believe she will be making a mistake to marry somebody she doesn’t really know much about, only what she knew about him fifteen years ago. I imagine that when Fliss learns about this, she won’t be very happy.
My Reading Journal 
I don’t usually read the so-called chick-lit, but I’ve to say that I’ve enjoyed the books written by Sophie Kinsella that I borrowed from my sister. The series about the shop-hacolic never interested me very much, the protagonist was a bit too silly and superficial for my tastes but I liked other books written by her.
The protagonist of this book makes and -apparently- hasty decision, but maybe she isn’t wrong in her choice and I’m sure Kinsella would develop the plot nicely as ever and the story would be pleasurable and credible at the same time, that something that I didn’t always find in some other chick-lit I read; often they are too sappy or unrealistic for me to like them!
Paola
I sometimes read chick-lit but only when it’s well written. When I start a book, and it sounds too childish and silly, I can’t continue. I read the first shopaholic book years ago, but I haven’t read any more. This book I’ve read is entertaining, but some parts are a bit unbelievable and crazy. The main character is a bit stupid, but well, all in all, it was good fun.