Chick-lit comes in all guises

8th October 2013

... Comments

Wish Upon a Star - Olivia Goldsmith

This book was one I selected for my holiday - a feel good tale full of escapism. If you are a lover of the modern fairytale - Pretty Woman, Working Girl, Sliding Doors then this book ticks that box!

The central character has a caterpillar to butterfly transformation, but she also has realistic difficulties and challenges along the way - not least having no money, nowhere to live, & no visa to allow her to work!! But she is ingenious, likeable and has inner strengths - she will do anything to hang onto this new exciting life and not go back to the invisible, grey treadmill she used to walk, where she never felt as if she fitted in.

An interesting twist is that this book shows England through the eyes of a visitor (and it makes knitting seem groovy and hip!) Are you tempted to try it? It was the last book Olivia Goldsmith wrote, but I intend to read more of her work.

Growing Up Again by Catriona McCloud

Ever found yourself thinking that you would love to have your teenage years again, but knowing what you know now? This book might make you think differently!! Janie is nearly 40 and has just told her husband "it's over" and gone to sleep in the spare room - next morning she is back in the single bed in her parents' house, with a bad perm and double maths at school!! Janie's adult thinking/plain speaking gets her sent out of class, soon it gets her parents passing furtive, worried glances at one another, but Janie gets on with re-living her teenage life waiting to see when she will return to her grown-up self. Then she begins to wonder if she has to 'do something over differently' before she can return to the present .... and before long she has decided to take advantage of knowing the future - surely she can remember a Grand National winner or avert a disaster somehow!

Janie's story made me laugh to myself and sometimes out loud (people on public transport, avert your gaze - not only is that person reading instead of texting, now she is chuckling and wiping her eyes!!). I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting chick lit which, in the main, takes you out of yourself, but has a thoughtful side to it also - people's attitude to addiction and downs syndrome get put under Janie's magnifying glass and her advice and opinions are fairly harsh!! That said -I liked her - I wish she was a friend of mine!

The book which I am reading right now, which I cannot put
down, is one which was recommended on a blog I like to
browse. http://mummymisfit.blogspot.co.uk Mummy Misfit is
a writer herself and does a Friday interview with fellow writers
& bloggers, and I so much enjoyed the interview with Michelle
Betham that I downloaded her book onto my kindle (also it
was a bit of a 'deal' via Mummy Misfit's blog!)

Striker! by Michelle Betham

This novel is bubbling over with drama, intrigue, huge egos,
even bigger salaries & too much temptation of every kind,
including some racy bedroom action! It is a Brit version of
Jackie Collins, if you loved the first 2 series of Footballers'
Wives, you really ought to read this! No prior knowledge of football required!

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