Bridget Jones (Top 100 #46)

By Helen Fielding
★★★☆☆

I just finished reading Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Edge of Reason consecutively, so I thought I’d do a joint review, since they’re kind of a package deal. As sequels generally are.

Three Things I Liked About Bridget Jones:
1. British-ness (slang, behavior, etc.)
2. Diary form
3. Secondary characters

Bridget Jones’s Diary

Believe it or not, this is actually on the Top 100 list, an accolade I don’t exactly agree it deserves and which I can only explain by a) acknowledging that it is a heavily British biased list and b) surmising that they wanted to include something modern and light to contrast the denser, darker material and prove that their literary heyday has not passed but they are, in fact, still producing worthy works of literature. Which I don’t doubt! But I’m not convinced Bridget Jones’s Diary was really the best example they could have chosen. Ah, well.

Bridget is a 30-something Singleton living in London, working in an entry-level publishing job and crushing on her boss. She’s supposed to be the hilarious mouthpiece of The Average Woman, worrying about her weight and how much she drinks (both of which she tracks in daily tallies before each entry) and her parents’ craziness and whether she’ll be single forever and die alone in her flat to be discovered by an Alsatian*, but I didn’t exactly identify with her all that much. Maybe because I’m not a 30-something, but I suspect I am simply just not a Bridget Jones kind of girl. Anyway, her escapades and daily dilemmas range from the frivolous to the completely over-the-tip, as do the appearances of the supporting cast: her mother and her mother’s boy toy Julio, her boss/sometimes boyfriend Daniel Cleaver, her potentially crazy friends, her frenemy Rebecca, and more. Actually, come to think of it, just about everyone in Bridget’s world has a screw or two loose. That’s what makes the whole thing almost campy in its outrageousness.

Also, I have to say it, you know I do: That is the most hideous eyesore of a cover I have ever seen, hands down.

The Edge of Reason

The Edge of Reason picks up four weeks after Bridget Jones’s Diary left off, and in it Bridget’s story becomes, if possible, even more ludicrous and over-the-top. I’m talking mother’s human souvenir from trip to Kenya. I’m talking an interview with Colin Firth**. I’m talking gaping hole in apartment wall covered with plastic for 6 months. I’m talking Thai prison. I’m talking amateur death threat. And I’m totally serious. All in one book.

Basically, The Edge of Reason is more of the same. I mean, I know sequels are by nature a extension of the original story (duh), but in this case the two could literally be combined seamlessly into one volume.

Overall, Bridget’s offbeat personality, over-the-top escapades, and zealous fretting about herself and her relationships based largely on the advice of self-help books makes her enjoyable like that friend you find amusing in small doses but who becomes exasperating and immature with overexposure.

*I am not sure what an Alsatian is. If you know, please fill me in.
**I found it delightfully ironic that Bridget would spend so much of the novel obsessing about Colin Firth as Pride and Prejudice's*** Mr. Darcy, when the Bridget Jones movie adaptation of one Mr. (Mark) Darcy is played by said actor. I hope that was done on purpose.
***Link to famous BBC Pride and Prejudice lake scene, so beloved by Bridget and her gang.

Books Read This Year: 55
Top 100 Progress: 46/100

Sisterhood Everlasting

By Ann Brashares
★★★★☆

Four Things I Liked About Sisterhood Everlasting:
1. Reuniting with old fictional friends
2. Location, location, location
3. Getting it right
4. Quick, enjoyable Atlas Shrugged detox

I am kind of perplexed as to why this book exits. Why did Ann Brashares feel the need to forcibly extend a series that had already reached a satisfyingly open-ended conclusion? Especially when this new book doesn’t appear to have been written with a specific audience in mind: It’s not really an appropriate companion novel for the first four, being very much an adult novel, not young adult as they were; nor will it appear to adult readers who haven’t read the original (young adult) series.  And especially when continuing the series meant XXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Well, I can’t tell you what it meant, because that would ruin a crucial plot point and element of surprise in the book. And I hate plot ruiners! (Ruiners can be a word if I say it is.) Suffice to say that something BIG and (in relation to the first four books, and in my opinion) unnecessary goes down in order to pave the way for this fifth installment.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series was a fixture on my teen and preteen bookshelf, right next to The Princess Diaries and Bloody Jack. So despite some exasperation with Ann for continuing the series in an obvious ploy to reach out to her old (and probably somewhat diminished since the series “ended”) readership, I must admit I was pretty pleased by the prospect of reuniting with Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget. And, in spite of XXXXXXXXXXXXXX, I was not disappointed.

As it says on the cover, Sisterhood Everlasting picks up 10 years after Forever in Blue left off. Not that much has changed. Sure, Carmen is a successful TV actress living in New York and engaged to be married to a TV producer, Bridget is living with Eric in San Francisco, and Tibby moved with Brian to Australia two years ago, while Lena – ever static – hasn’t left Providence or RISD but has taken a professorship there and continues to pine after Kostos, but the problems they’re facing are virtually just slightly grown up versions of what they dealt with before. They’ve also felt steadily more out of sync ever since they all scattered on the winds after losing their lease on the flat they shared in New York after graduation. Good thing Tibby sends them all tickets out of the blue for an impromptu reunion trip to Greece! Or so they think. It turns out XXXXXXXXXXXXXX happens in Greece and turns their already precariously organized lives topsy-turvy. In the aftermath, the girls struggle to come to terms with XXXXXXXXXXXXXX, each other, and themselves.

The danger of writing a book like Sisterhood Everlasting is tying up satisfyingly loose ends into too neat of knots. Fortunately, Sisterhood Everlasting frays enough more ends to require plenty of its own re-tying. (Whether those ends really needed fraying is another discussion.) As I said, one of the best things to recommend this book is the prospect of once again enjoying the company of Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget. So although the end (predictably) comes together pretty neatly and as a stand alone novel this would only merit about 3 stars, as long you’re a fan of the series, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy the trip down memory lane.

Comment Questions:
1) If you’ve read the series, which sister was your favorite, or which did you most identify with? Mine was Lena, as much as her inertia frustrated me.
2) Will you read Sisterhood Everlasting, or are you over this series?

Books Read This Year: 51
Top 100 Progress: 44/100

What Happened to Goodbye

By Sarah Dessen

★★★☆☆

Three Things I Liked About What Happened to Goodbye: 

1. Easter eggs*

2. Dave

3. Deb

(4. Restaurant business)

No matter whether it’s a new one or one I’ve read a couple times already, Sarah Dessen’s books always have an inherent familiarity about them. It’s partly her tradition of setting every book within about a 50-mile radius of each other, and partly the ever-reliable Dessen formula. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially for Dessen fans – you know exactly what to expect, and you get just that. And what you get is a (usually, if you ignore Dreamland) likeable heroine with some confidence/identity/family issues who meets some friends and a guy in a welcoming, quirky, and usually new (to her) setting that help her to conquer her issues just in time for a satisfying but just shy of perfectly tidy ending. You also get a series of really hokey covers. That’s part of the deal. Just try to ignore them.

Note: The fourth Thing I Like About What Happened to Goodbye is in parentheses because it’s an honorary Thing. I enjoyed the book enough to give it four stars, but docked it one penalty star for not measuring up to my favorite Dessen book (The Truth About Forever).

Mclean Sweet (um… let’s not even discuss this name) has lived in four towns in two years since her parents’ messy divorce. She lives with her father, a restaurant contractor called in to resuscitate restaurants in their dying throes, staying only as long as it takes to get the restaurant back on its feet before moving on to the next one – and the next town. In each different town, Mclean takes on a different identity, from theatre noir Lizbet (really, where does Dessen come up with these names?) to social butterfly Beth. She makes a policy of never staying long enough to get attached and always leaving too quickly for goodbyes. That is, until she moves to Lakeview. In spite her of efforts, her real name sticks before she can establish her new one, and suddenly, for the first time in two years, Mclean finds herself being… Mclean. As she falls in with an endearingly flawed group of friends (the best kind), including the brilliant and charming boy next door, Dave, Mclean rediscovers the joy of being anchored to people and place. When her life threatens to be uprooted yet again, she finds she still has no interest in goodbye – but this time, it’s because she wants to stay. 

More than a romance, What Happened to Goodbye is a story about navigating the choppy waters of divorce, making peace with your past, and settling into your own skin. Mclean’s relationship with Dave trails in importance behind her relationships with her mom, her dad, and herself. 

My biggest problem with Mclean (other than her name) was that she was more of a narrative voice than an actual character. The personalities of the secondary characters – especially offbeat and headstrong Deb, full of acronyms and surprises – far outshone Mclean’s bland brand of identity confusion. For a novel focused more on character development and emotional growth than the romantic relationship, Mclean failed to really come off the page for me. That said, the Dessen narrative voice is ever enjoyable, and fans will certainly not be disappointed.

*Characters from her other books that make minor reappearances.

Books Read This Year: 44

Top 100 Progress: 42/100

The Last Little Blue Envelope

By Maureen Johnson
★★☆☆☆

Release Date: April 26th, 2011*

Two Things I Liked About The Last Little Blue Envelope:
1. Rainy New Year’s in Dublin.
2. English uncle.

Another sequel review, I’m afraid. I’m in the mood to keep it short and sweet, though. So bear with me.

The Last Little Blue Envelope is the sequel to 13 Little Blue Envelopes, which came out several years ago. Ginny’s aunt Peg, an eccentric artist, traipsed off to Europe two years ago, and hadn’t been heard from since. That is, until a letter arrives unannounced from the recently deceased Peg, informing Ginny of her secret battle with brain cancer and her final wish that Ginny follow the instructions in the 13 envelopes enclosed with the letter, as well as a few rules: no cell phone, laptop, company, or plan. Never one for adventure, Ginny nonetheless embarks on a European tour directed by clues in the 13 envelopes. The letters lead her from England to Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, and Greece, and help Ginny forge a farewell connection with her beloved aunt as the letters paint a picture of Peg’s final years and introduce Ginny to many of Peg’s friends and loved ones scattered across the continent. Unfortunately, Ginny’s backpack gets stolen in Greece before she can read the last letter, and so her trip comes to a premature end. But before she goes home, she stops off in London to discover and sell a collection of her aunt’s paintings left behind as Ginny’s inheritance.

The Last Little Blue Envelope picks up a few months after 13 Little Blue Envelopes. It’s December of Ginny’s senior year, and she’s wondering how to turn her summer experiences into a college essay, why her summer romantic interest – Keith, a harmless bad-boy poseur artiste she met in London – isn’t communicating as much as he used to, and what ever happened to her 13th letter and her key to closure. A couple weeks before Christmas break, she gets an email from someone in England, informing her that they have her letter and want to meet up with her. So, on a whim, she flies to London to spend the holidays with her British uncle (who married Peg before she died) – only to be faced with a couple of back-to-back setbacks: 1] Her romantic interest has a new romantic interest, and 2] Oliver, the devastatingly handsome bearer of her letter, isn’t about to just hand it over. The letter contains instructions to obtain the parts to a final piece of Peg’s art for Ginny to sell, and Oliver wants a finder’s fee of half the proceeds. Instead of spending the holidays cuddled up with Keith with mugs of tea in front of a cozy English fireplace (or something), Ginny finds herself crammed into the backseat of Keith’s dilapidated automobile with Keith, his new girlfriend, and Oliver, driving across Europe to complete Peg’s final project.

The Last Little Blue Envelope wasn’t terrible, and it had its moments – I especially got a kick out of a scene where Keith’s girlfriend, used to driving on the opposite side of the road, has to navigate the infamous Arc du Triumph traffic circle – but overall it had that stale sequel aesthetic, as if perhaps Maureen spent a little too much time away from the characters before going back to tie up the loose ends from the first novel. Oliver’s bad boy standoffishness as a mask for financial and emotional insecurity was a little too predictable, as was Ginny’s transition of romantic interest from one bad-boy to another, without enough swoon-factor to compensate, and the story in general was a little too much more of the same of the first 12 letters. Maureen said she only decided to write this sequel after getting a multitude of requests for one, and it shows – The Last Little Blue Envelope reads like an afterthought, not a planned finale.

Books Read This Year: 34
Top 100 Progress: 42/100

* I received an advance copy of The Last Little Blue Envelope through NetGalley.com

Where She Went

By Gayle Forman
★★☆☆☆

Two Things I Liked About Where She Went:
1. All-night private tour of NYC.
2. Intense impromptu cello/guitar duet.

Can we just start with a collective “ugh!” for the cover? UGH! Who approved this? It’s an eyesore! I really despise when publishers put actual human faces on covers. Drawings: okay. Profiles: if you must. Faces: abort!

Where She Went is the sequel to a novel that came out last spring and made waves on the young adult circuit, called If I Stay. If I Stay is part love story (romantic, of course, but also familial and musical) and part tragedy. In the aftermath of a car crash that kills her parents and younger brother, Mia – comatose and barely stable in the ICU, while her spirit somehow (it’s fiction, after all) roams the hospital, observing the chaos of grief for her family and fierce hope for herself amongst her remaining loved ones, including her boyfriend, Adam – is faced with the ultimate decision: should she let go, or should she stay? The story is wrenching, but it is also beautiful and moving. I read it in one sitting, tucked into the backseat of a car speeding along the autobahn in the dark, with the melancholy melodies of classical music (fitting, as music is a powerful theme in If I Stay, Mia being a Juilliard-bound cellist) sealing me into my own little bubble of story and sound, which only made it all the easier to be swept up by the emotional currents of the novel.

Not so Where She Went. I will allow that the fact that I couldn’t read it in one sitting may have impeded some of the story’s emotional momentum, but I don’t think that can be held wholly, or even mostly, responsible. Where If I Stay was a deeply felt tale of love, loss, and the ties that bid (to each other, to life), with a cast of characters, a plot, and a point of view that were refreshingly and captivating original in a genre prone to cliché, Where She Went made up for that originality in spades by conforming to clichés of the genre, the characters becoming nearly unrecognizable for the generic corruption wreaked on them. If If I Stay was as piercing and individual as a personal experience of loss, as hauntingly beautiful and melancholy as a cello solo, then Where She Went is the Hallmark card you receive from your coworker a week after the funeral.

Where She Went shifts from Mia’s point of view to her boyfriend – now ex-boyfriend – Adam’s. If I Stay explored the onset of Mia’s loss, and Where She Went explores the ongoing burden of Adam’s. Not only did he also lose Mia’s family – who had accepted into their fold – but a few months later, he lost Mia as well, when she left for Juilliard and inexplicably stopped communicating. He turned his compounded hurt and confusion into music, writing an entire album in 2 weeks, an album that gets him and his band, Shooting Star, signed and chart topping in a matter of a few whirlwind months. Now, 3 years later, he’s a bona fide rock-star with a celebrity girlfriend, constant attention from the paparazzi, a world tour – and a new smoking habit, anxiety meds, and a falling out with his band mates to show for it. He may have millions in the bank and thousands in the audience, but he’s a sad, lonely, and strung-out soul who can’t remember what he loves about the only thing he used to care about as much as Mia.

Then the night before Adam flies to London to kick off a 67-show world tour, when his manager gives him a night off to pull himself back together (he’s on the verge of a mental and ideological breakdown), he stumbles on a poster outside Carnegie Hall, advertising a concert that evening for a promising young cellist – who is, of course, none other than Mia. After the concert, Mia has him called backstage, and thus begins a night spent touring Mia’s New York and tending to old flames – to be extinguished or rekindled, depending on what the night brings.

I had a few deal-breaking issues with this book. The biggest is that I really wish Gayle hadn’t made Adam and Mia such rock-stars. This book would have been exponentially better if Shooting Star had retained its relatively anonymous indie status, and Mia was just an above average but not headlining Juilliard student. One of the fabulous things about If I Stay was the normality of the characters and their lives. The story was so affective because the characters involved weren’t so much different than you. The moment Gayle decided to make Adam a rock-star and Mia a renowned cellist, she axed that accessibility. I just couldn’t really relate as well to them anymore, especially to Adam, who spent a significant chunk of the novel hiding and running from fans, whining about his impending world tour and clingy celebrity girlfriend, and losing his temper with paparazzi.

Other qualms: The lyrics at the start of each chapter, supposedly from Adam’s career-launching record, were melodramatic and cheesy; I wish more of the novel had been spent in the present, rather than switching back and forth every other chapter to the past; Mia needed a stronger presence, because even though the novel was told from Adam’s point of view, it felt entirely too Adam-centric, compared to If I Stay, which gave a rounded portrayal of Adam even though it was told through Mia’s lens.

All things considered, I’m not sure I would even recommend Where She Went to fans of If I Stay. I felt more satisfied by the open end of If I Stay than I did by the resolution of Where She Went.

Books Read This Year: 34
Top 100 Progress: 42/100

Before I Fall

By Lauren Oliver

★★☆☆☆

Two Things I Liked About Before I Fall:

1. Thinking about appreciation for the simplest and most important things in your life.

2. Butterfly effect.

I didn’t like this book. I thought it was inexpertly and unsubtly written – the themes and morals were heavy-handed to an extreme, holding up signs that read, “Look at me! I’m important and meaningful!” in sloppy black sharpie – and the characters, oh boy. Talk about unsympathetic.

Samantha Kingston is your average* high-school girl: she skates along in her classes, has 3 best friends and a boyfriend she’s crushed on since middle school, overcame her un-cool former self, and spends her weekends at parties with the high-school upper crust. Everyone envies her, her life is perfect**, yadda yadda … And then in one split-second on the ride home from a typical Friday night, her life as she knows it comes to an end – literally. That is, until she wakes up again in the morning. Now Sam has seven chances to relive her last day, to untangle the knot of actions and inactions that led to that last moment, and make sense of a senseless tragedy.

This is one of those books where you’re supposed to grow with the character as they learn what makes life beautiful and how to be a better person. Okay, fine. I often like those books – even love them. The problem is that the whole book aimed to add substance to a character that was by nature substanceless, a collection of stereotypes more than an actual person.

Perhaps you think I am not being fair. Perhaps you’d like more evidence.

Samantha and her best friends Elody and Ally are basically the minions of their ringleader, Lindsey, and are apparently so grateful to have been chosen into popularity that they’ll follow Lindsey’s every whim, no matter how reckless or shallow or even cruel, no questions asked. Samantha’s transgressions range from the (relatively) minor: isolating herself from her family, ignoring the (wonderful) boy who’s been in love with her since the 3rd grade, dating an (decidedly un-wonderful) idiot just because he’s hot and popular, and belittling underclassmen and peers alike; to the contemptible: frequently skipping class, smoking and drinking, and flirting with her math teacher; to the unforgivable: relentlessly tormenting a girl to the point of suicide because of some vendetta Lindsey has against her, without ever questioning why.

The kicker? Samantha closes the prologue with the line, “Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does? Is it really so much worse than what you do?”

Well, yes, actually. Yes it is.

Uggghhh. I know I’m supposed to sympathize with these characters – I mean, Samantha’s dead, after all, and via a means I wouldn’t wish on anyone – but they’re just so inherently clichéd and unlikeable that instead of sympathizing I just thought, “You brought this on yourself.”***

* Read: Generically stereotyped popular girl with "Real Thoughts" and "Substance" buried deep down under her cruel and conformist façade.

** Rule #1 of character development: never, ever tell me your character is perfect. Seriously. It will turn your readers against you and undermine every attempt you make to give the character substance later.

*** And she did; misdeeds aside, Samantha’s fatal mistake was being stupid enough to get in a car with a drunk Lindsey at the wheel, who’s a dangerous driver even when she’s sober. I mean, come on. It’s sad, of course, but it wouldn’t have happened if she’d made better choices. I get so mad when people end up throwing their life away for stupid things like underage drinking.

Same Story, Different Review:

The Crooked Shelf

Books Read This Year: 18

Top 100 Progress: 38/100

Real Live Boyfriends

By E. Lockhart
★★★☆☆

Three Things I liked about Real Live Boyfriends:

1. Clever footnotes.

2. Ruby using Tums as pebbles at her boyfriend’s window.

3. Adorable and witty rapport with said boyfriend, including dates planned by the ‘Mutual Admiration Society.’

I have a running list in my head of fictional characters I’d like to befriend* and Ruby Oliver definitely makes the cut.  A vegetarian film buff and perpetual list-maker who lives on a houseboat in Seattle, has a personal dress code of fishnets and vintage dresses, overanalyzes everything, and hums heavy metal to ward off anxiety attacks that flare up when she’s stressed, Ruby is a little too quirky to quite fit in at Tate Prep, the private school she attends on scholarship. To earn spending money, she works in a zoo mucking animal stalls (while discussing life, love, and the pursuit of happiness with her favorite pygmy goat, Robespierre) and in a shoe store where she sells Birkenstocks to hippies with horrid feet. Oh, and she’s on an ongoing mission to consume the ultimate deliciousness in cake form. Don’t you like her already?

This is the fourth installment in Lockhart’s Ruby Oliver quartet. It’s the summer before senior year, and Ruby’s relationship with her new Real Live Boyfriend Noel is perfection… until it’s not. Noel comes back from a trip to visit his brother in New York subdued and uncommunicative, refusing to admit anything’s wrong. The strain causes them to fall out and Ruby must continue her senior year (including making a documentary for her film school applications, dealing with her erratic and eccentric parents, attending her shrink appointments, and repairing an old friendship) alone. Will Ruby survive senior year while sorting out the chaos that is her life? Will she learn to control her panic attacks? Will she work things out with Noel? And most importantly, will she achieve success in her pursuit of deliciousness? Your guess is as good as mine**.

In my opinion, there’s a fine line between amusingly quirky and outright ridiculous, and this Ruby Oliver installment aired on the side of ridiculousness. Exhibit A: Her mother (whose behavior is more childish than her daughter’s, Exhibit B) hatches a plan to start Seattle’s (and the world’s, no doubt) first meatloafery, a Coldstone-esque, make-your-own approach to meatloaf. Fortunately, her family puts the kibosh on her plans before it ever leaves the kitchen. Exhibit C: Her father, morose over the recent loss of his mother, forgets to come home one night due to being cheered up by playing Guitar Hero Metallica with a buddy until 4 a.m. The list goes on. Some of the ridiculousness is amusing, and some of it is simply scoff-worthy (meatloafery, ‘nuff said).

Verdict? As my mother often says, “It is what it is.” Real Live Boyfriends is a quick*** and entertaining read, but don’t expect more than that.

Side Note: Is it just me, or are covers with Real Live People on them irritating?

* Such as: the Harry Potter trio (obviously), James Sveck, Elizabeth Bennett, Rory Gilmore, Veronica Mars, Juno MacGuff and Paulie Bleeker, Mary “Jacky” Faber, etc.

** Oh, play along. It’s more fun if you pretend like you don’t know what’s coming.

*** I read it in a grand total of about 3 ½ hours.

Same Story, Different Review:
The Crooked Bookshelf

Books Read This Year: 11

Top 100 Progress: 39/100