Laced With Romance and Clichés

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Review: "After The Party"

Five or six years ago I stumbled over a novel called "Ralph's Party" by an author named Lisa Jewell. I found it in a thrift store for next to nothing, I was a poor student and picked it up hoping for a fun, light read and that's exactly what I got. At the time I was going through a chick lit phase where that was more or less all I read - maybe because I spent so much time reading boring ol' study books? :-)
Anyway since then I have read "Ralph's Party" several times, it is one of those comfy books that always make me smile, especially the eating-raw-chilli-competition. Then a few weeks ago I was on a London tube station and I spotted a large poster for a books called "After the Party" by Lisa Jewell. Turns out now there is a sequel to the wonderful "Ralph's Party" and of course I had to get it.

It has been eleven years since Jem and Ralph went home from Ralph's party together. Back then they were sharing a flat with Jem's devious, deceiving boyfriend Smith who was using Jem to make Cheri jealous and now they have a house in South London as well as two kids and lots of issues. Ralph is feeling detached from his small family and Jem is entirely consumed by her wonderful kids, the bright Scarlett with the fierce personality and the little baby Blake who is growing every day. Ralph is struggling to find his painter mojo and though he is making a living as a painter, a good living, he feels that he has lost the love for his art. So in a desperate attempt to find his passion for art, for Jem, for the family, he goes to visit Smith in Los Angeles leaving Jem alone in grey, rainy London with two screaming kids... Alone to go to the playground and meet a nice dad whose daughter is the same age as Scarlett. So while Ralph goes to a Christian concert with the gorgeous Rosey, Jem goes to have tea with soft single dad Joel. And from there it all goes wrong, more than wrong.

I liked it. Not as much as I like "Ralph's Party" but it was a decent sequel. Great to catch up with Jem and Ralph again and to reminisce about that chilli fight. Also I found the discussions about spirituality and Christianity very interesting. Religion is a topic that is rarely dealt with in chick lit but I think that Lisa Jewell did a really good job of showing how Christianity can make a difference in the rushed, modern lives we life.

Read it if: You've read "Ralph's Party" and wondered what happened next or if you want to read a strong chick lit novel about the difficulty of being a modern family striving to have it all and lead the perfect life.

Review: "Notting Hell"

Normally I don't read a lot of chick lit but since I have been spending a lot of time lying around eating pain killers and trying not to use my newly operated foot, I have had plenty of time to read but not having the energy to read anything too heavy. So I settled down with Rachel Johnson's "Notting Hell", a comedy about the self-obsessed, vain people living on a communal garden in Notting Hill. Rachel Johnson is the editor of the "Lady" magazine and from her bio on Wikipedia and articles in various media, she sounds like a lady who knows about the people that she is writing about in this novel.

The real main character in "Notting Hell" is actually the Notting Hill neighborhood. Now I've never lived here myself but according to this book, the neighborhood is defined by bankers and other professionals that leave early in the morning and return home to sleep and their high-maintenance wives who spend their days lunching (on something fat-free), exercising and shopping - and of course on raising their accomplished children. Sounds horrible doesn't it? Well, just wait till you read this book, I was so repulse by the people in it... especially the narrators of which there are two.

Meet Mimi. Mother of three, wife of Ralph (who btw. sounds pretty amazing) and dumber than a box-full-of-rocks. Living in Notting Hill defines her identity and justifies her entire life even though she and her sweet husband are living way beyond their means to stay in the attractive post code. Mimi is friends with Clare, her neighbor and the other narrator of this story. Clare is a neat-freak who loves gardening and who really wants a child but apparently cannot become pregnant. She is married to a successful ecotect (i.e. a fancy and expensive architect) and spends her days in the communal garden taking care of the flowers. Clare is a lot easier to like than Mimi even though she is a bit snobbish.

Mimi and Clare tell the story of life on a communal garden where everyone sleeps with everyone else's wife/husband and where a race to ensare the new millionaire in the garden means that the women all get their claws out. Charming. Or maybe not.

Now the people in this book are really not likeable. Mimi made me cringe and at times I wish she wasn't a narrator because it was impossible for me to like her. Clare is okay though and Mimi's husband is a sweetheart but most of the other characters range from slightly annoying to outright idiots. The plot and the descriptions of the neighborhood is hilarious though. It is the details that make it so funny, the try-hard attitude of minor characters and the constant greed that all of the characters represent. It is actually a really funny book and if you like chick lit where the characters are not very likeable, you will probably like this on.

Read it if: you subscribe to "Tatler", "Vanity Fair" or you enjoy reading the Times Rich List and imagining what goes on behind closed doors.

Review: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Have you watched the film "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"? Otherwise please please please don't watch it until you have read the book "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" by Rebecca Miller" because as so it is so often the case, the book is much better than the film. Which is intriguing in this case because the film actually follows the book to the letter but somehow the film doesn't have the same soul as the book even though the visuals are great and it is somehow very pretty. But the emotions and the pain of the book has not translated well into film - at least I don't think so.

Pippa Lee is the perfect wife. She has devoted her life, her entire being to the role as best supporting act in the life of her much older husband Herb. She cooks, she decorates, she looks stunning at the age of 50 and she has raised two successful children. But now that Herb has turned 80, they have moved to Marigold Village, a last stop for the elderly and retired where Pippa is among the youngest. And maybe that is why she is so restless and why she finds herself thinking about her past lives. Not in a reincarnation sense but in the sense that Pippa is a woman who has led many different lives in her lifetime. Pastor's daughter and adored child, bohemian artist-groupie in New York and the other woman... She carries with her a sense of guilt for her past and it seems to fill the present.
This book is beautiful. The language is simple, in no way cluttered or dramatic but it captures everything so well. I liked the movie but I fell in love with the book. It made me think a lot about growing up and growing older and about the choices we make in life.
A stunning tale about living life to the fullest or paying the prize of wasting a precious gift.

Read it if: You are tired of the cliches and lack of food for thought in chick lit.

"Love in Idleness" - Idling in the sun

Have you ever felt the Tuscan summer sunshine on your skin? If yes, then you will have a bit of an idea about the atmosphere in "Love in Idleness" by Amanda Craig. It takes place in Cortona in the heart of Tuscancy and the pages are soaked with golden sunshine and the smell of Italian herbs. I must say that I enjoyed that part of the book, it enveloped me in a wonderful summer feeling.
The author acknowledges that the plot is heavily inspired by Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Nights Dream", it is not the first book to be inspired by this wonderful tale and it is a great plot. In "Love in Idleness" it has been updated and changed but the main topics remain.
There are several key figures: Polly the banker's wife and stay-at-home mum married to workaholic Theo, the doctor and single mother Hemani, gorgeous designer Ellen, eligible bachelor Daniel, the notorious Ivo Sponge and the meanest mother-in-law that I have encoutered in a long time.
As you can probably imagine, many many things happen and love strikes in the strangest places.
To be honest, the plot is a bit too easy to guess, I think. There really were no surprises at all and though it was great to meet Ivo Sponge again (he played a central role in "A Vicious Circle"), there was not enough excitement to really keep me interested. It is a nice, sweet story and I laughed a few times but it is a little bit too chick lit-ish for me - I preferred "A Vicious Circle".

"The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy" - Bridget Jones meets Anne of Green Gables

This must be the fourth or fifth time I read the "The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy" by Fiona Neill and though I am not normally a lover of chick lit, I love this book. Simply love it. It is a comforting as a hug or a cup of warm chocolate. Basically it is the story of Lucy Sweeney, wife of neurotic/perfectionistic architect Tom and mother of Sam, Joe and Fred. She is a stay-at-home mum who battles through mountains of spaghetti bolognese to be cooked and laundry to be washed. It is a constant battle and Lucy rarely wins. Instead she gets into a number of mishaps and scrapes, one more embarrassing than the other. Like dying her eyebrows black (a perfect Anne of Green Gables moment), breaking and entering into the home of Yummy Mummy No 1, dealing with bailiffs and not-so-secretly fancying Sexy Domesticated Dad who is a stay-at-home dad with the perfect organic life.
It is a wild rollercoaster ride of funny stories and great moments and I have to say that I love Lucy. Actually the whole story of Lucy began in The Times where Fiona Neill has a column about Slummy Mummy and her many (mis)adventures among the Alpha mums and Yummy Mummies of North London - and she is still there. So every now and then when I need a boost of smiling energy, I google slummy mummy and see what happens in Lucy's life.
Here a little something from a column from 2006 - it features in the book as well:
Spot Yummy Mummy No 1 on the pavement outside school on the first day of term. She is sporting that inverted panda look favoured by Easter skiers: white eyes set amid a deep brown tan.
'Good holiday?' I ask her after the drop-off.

'Les Arcs, with friends,' she says. 'Fantastic snow. How about you?'

'Les Mendips,' I say in a French accent. 'With my parents. There was a fresh cover over Easter.'

'I haven't heard of that resort. Is it in Bulgaria?' she asks.

'It's a bit farther west,' I say vaguely.

'Off piste? Tricky runs?' she asks, using verbal shorthand to indicate the imminent closure of our incipient discussion on the merits of ski resorts. Sure enough I see a herd of yummy mummies with identical tans waving at her from the other side of the road.

I think of the tense hour spent roaming small villages in the Avon Valley after I simultaneously forgot to tell Husband on a Short Fuse to turn off the M4 and then discovered that a key page covering said villages was missing from our road map.

'Dramatic,' I say. 'We covered a lot of ground.' Including arguments about 1) why our clothes were packed in plastic bags instead of suitcases, 2) how despite the plethora of plastic bags in the boot, there were none available for episodes of car sickness, and 3) on what grounds we ever considered ourselves compatible enough for marriage.