Author: Marian Keyes
Published: 2003
Publisher: Penguin Books
426 pages (paperback)
This book took me forever to get through. It’s not that it was boring; it was alright, but just never quite interesting enough to hold onto my attention for longer than a few chapters.
If you’ve seen chick flicks such as Love, Actually or He’s Just Not That Into You, then you’ll understand the sort of structure this story has with its characters. There’s a bunch of main characters and they each have their own individual stories that somehow overlap with one another. Everyone is connected to everyone one way or another. Granted, this book has less characters than those movies I named, but you get the picture.
Anyway, because of this, it’s kind of hard to give a general plot overview but basically, there are three main female characters, and a whole bunch of secondary characters. The three main female characters — Ashling, Lisa and Clodagh — each are having different troubles in their romantic lives.
This book is about their troubles building up and eventually hitting a climax. Ashling — assistant editor of Colleen magazine — is a hard worker, but has trouble finding the right boyfriend for her. Lisa is Ashling’s boss (and therefore, editor of the magazine) and is more or less a complete bitch, encouraging her husband (whom she’s been separated for a year or so now) to divorce her, even though she is still madly in love with him. Lastly, Clodagh is Ashling’s friend and is married with two children. To everyone else she has the perfect family life, but Clodagh is horribly bored.
An issue I had with this book was that I never seemed to know where the plot was taking me. I mean, to be honest, I had a hard time putting my finger on what exactly the overall plot was, as I was reading. That’s not to say I found the book confusing or boring; it’s just that there’s nothing for me to anticipate and I had no expectations while reading the book, so I found it difficult to remain interested for long periods of time. I’d be mildly entertained for a few chapters, but found it incredibly easy to put the book down if I wanted to; this book had little addictiveness to me.
I personally didn’t find it that funny even though it’s categorized as humorous, though I admit it’s a little witty. Letting the story digest in my head for a few hours now, I think overall, this is a good, decent novel, but nothing really that special. It was a pleasant read, but nothing so amazing that you feel you just have to find out what happens next.
The characters were wonderful, I do have to say. Though I have probably nothing in common with most of the characters (them being thirty plus year old career women or married women and me … not), I think love and romance is one of those things nearly all women can easily relate to, as well as having to deal with crushes, unpleasant people, break-ups, etc. While I didn’t become attached to any of the characters, it was fun to read about their shenanigans, haha. Anyway, this was an alright book; I would try another book by this author.
PS. This book has very little to do with actual sushi, haha. Most of the characters are unfamiliar with sushi, actually. I think it’s used as a metaphor for trying new things in life :)
My Rating: 2.5/5
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