Hello, dahlings. It is I, Marian Keyes. If you haven't suspected before now, I have actually kidnapped your adorable little Nicole and locked her in a closet so that I could take over her blog and promote my books. Here's another one!
On a lark, my heroine, Lucy Sullivan, goes with three coworkers to visit a psychic one evening after work. The fortune teller's prediction for Lucy is that she'll be married within a year. Lucy brushes this off with a "Bah!" That is, until her coworkers' predictions start coming true, and she meets the lovable, unemployed Gus, an Irish musician who charms his way into her pants and her pockets. Perhaps Gus is undependable and fond of the drink, but he's an artiste, moppets. He is a free spirit. Meanwhile, Lucy's best friend Daniel begins dating her roommate Karen, but this doesn't bother Lucy in the least because she simply doesn't find Daniel attractive.
You may be able to guess where the story goes. (I know, but dearies, I wrote it.) Gus turns out to be a worthless cad, Lucy realizes that her father is an alcoholic and that she's been beastly to her mother for years without understanding what the latter goes through, and Daniel is a dream.
Go buy it.
Showing posts with label marian keyes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marian keyes. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Title Fifty Five: Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes
I like Brit chick lit, we've established that. I dig the slang and the settings and the phrasing and the pace. I prefer Keyes' Walsh sisters stuff to her standalones, but the latter are serviceable enough. I feel like I've reviewed enough of her books here over the last several months that if I get all analytical it's just going to be boring, so to sum:
Lisa is a hotshot magazine editor based in London who is ruthless, bitchy, and almost guaranteed to snag a promotion and posting in NYC. To her shock, she's sent packing to the backwater of Dublin to launch an Irish women's magazine, Colleen. Lisa loathes everything about it but is determined to claw her way back to the top. She acquires a sexy new boss in Jack Devine and a doggedly loyal assistant in Ashling Kennedy. Keyes gives you interesting characters, and it's fun to watch them move through the process of launching a new magazine. Ashling is the most endearing, but Lisa becomes a sympathetic figure and is redeemed by the end of the book. Ashling gets betrayed by her best friend and her boyfriend, but lands on her feet. Jack smolders his way along and gets his own happy ending.
Really, I don't have much more to tell you. It's a fun book if you're into this kind of thing, and Keyes doesn't really hit wrong notes that often. Sushi for Beginners holds up nicely.
Lisa is a hotshot magazine editor based in London who is ruthless, bitchy, and almost guaranteed to snag a promotion and posting in NYC. To her shock, she's sent packing to the backwater of Dublin to launch an Irish women's magazine, Colleen. Lisa loathes everything about it but is determined to claw her way back to the top. She acquires a sexy new boss in Jack Devine and a doggedly loyal assistant in Ashling Kennedy. Keyes gives you interesting characters, and it's fun to watch them move through the process of launching a new magazine. Ashling is the most endearing, but Lisa becomes a sympathetic figure and is redeemed by the end of the book. Ashling gets betrayed by her best friend and her boyfriend, but lands on her feet. Jack smolders his way along and gets his own happy ending.
Really, I don't have much more to tell you. It's a fun book if you're into this kind of thing, and Keyes doesn't really hit wrong notes that often. Sushi for Beginners holds up nicely.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Title Forty Three: Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
Rachel Walsh, the middle sister of the Dublin Walsh clan, is living the glam life in New York City, rooming with her best friend Brigit and enjoying a passionate relationship with the sexy Luke Costello. Sure, she likes to party a little much, but isn't coke the NYC version of coffee? And Valium is no big deal - she just needs it to come down. As for the (high-dose and illegally prescribed) painkillers, well, cramps are the scourge of every woman's life, aren't they? Rachel doesn't get out of hand any more than her friends. When they get on her case, she just thinks they need to loosen up a bit. And if she can't hold onto a job, that's not her fault, because everyone knows bosses are pricks. And maybe she owes her friends a fair bit of money, but we all get in a pinch sometimes.
Until the morning Rachel wakes up in the hospital after the agony of having her stomach pumped. It seems she took a bit too much coke the night before and, desperate to come down and get some sleep so she could go to her shitty job the next day (she has been calling out sick a bit too much lately) she may have overdone it on the Valium. No one will listen when she protests that it wasn't a suicide attempt, and in short order she finds herself packed off to an Irish rehab facility called The Cloisters; Brigit is no longer speaking to her and Luke has ditched her. No matter; loads of celebs have been there and Rachel is almost looking forward to two months' stay in a posh facility, getting massage and seaweed wraps and eating fresh fruit and doing aromatherapy. Until she gets there, that is, and realizes that she's just a step above institutionalized.
What follows is an account, both wrenching and darkly funny, of Rachel's coming to terms with the fact that she is a serious addict. Horrified by the people around her, Rachel steadfastly believes that it's all a mistake, until one day she can't hide from the truth anymore and everything around her crumbles. Your heart breaks for her as she realizes that she's anesthetized herself from life and alienated everyone who ever cared about her, that her self-esteem is shit, and that her life is a wreck. She has to break to get stronger, and Keyes does such a great job with the material that it's poignant and true and slightly horrifying while still maintaining a slightly funny edge.
The ending isn't rosy, but it is quietly satisfying, and Rachel's Holiday is a solid installation in the lives of the Walsh sisters and in Keyes' body of work as a whole.
Until the morning Rachel wakes up in the hospital after the agony of having her stomach pumped. It seems she took a bit too much coke the night before and, desperate to come down and get some sleep so she could go to her shitty job the next day (she has been calling out sick a bit too much lately) she may have overdone it on the Valium. No one will listen when she protests that it wasn't a suicide attempt, and in short order she finds herself packed off to an Irish rehab facility called The Cloisters; Brigit is no longer speaking to her and Luke has ditched her. No matter; loads of celebs have been there and Rachel is almost looking forward to two months' stay in a posh facility, getting massage and seaweed wraps and eating fresh fruit and doing aromatherapy. Until she gets there, that is, and realizes that she's just a step above institutionalized.
What follows is an account, both wrenching and darkly funny, of Rachel's coming to terms with the fact that she is a serious addict. Horrified by the people around her, Rachel steadfastly believes that it's all a mistake, until one day she can't hide from the truth anymore and everything around her crumbles. Your heart breaks for her as she realizes that she's anesthetized herself from life and alienated everyone who ever cared about her, that her self-esteem is shit, and that her life is a wreck. She has to break to get stronger, and Keyes does such a great job with the material that it's poignant and true and slightly horrifying while still maintaining a slightly funny edge.
The ending isn't rosy, but it is quietly satisfying, and Rachel's Holiday is a solid installation in the lives of the Walsh sisters and in Keyes' body of work as a whole.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Title Twenty Four: Angels by Marian Keyes
I've already noted my love for Keyes on this here blog, but somehow I managed to miss Angels, which is strange, because Lord knows I love me some of those crazy Walsh sisters. Angels is Maggie's story, and it takes place after Rachel's Holiday and before Anybody Out There? for those of you playing along at home.
Maggie is married to Garv, her first boyfriend, and they have a pretty decent life - he's an actuary, she works in entertainment law, and they have a house in Dublin. Maggie's the good Walsh girl who's never let her parents down, which makes it quite a shock when her marriage ends and her job is terminated in the span of 24 hours. After fleeing to Casa Walsh and spending several days in its bedlam trying to figure out what to do next, Maggie decides to get on a plane and head to Los Angeles to visit her best friend Emily, who is trying to make it as a screenwriter. Over the course of a month, Maggie is submerged in the sterotypical L.A. culture - everyone drives everywhere, all of the people are beautiful, the drinks are complicated, the waitstaff are out-of-work actors/models/writers, and each day is spent waiting for an agent to call. In the meantime, Maggie tries to be supportive of Emily, who is desperately trying to sell her latest screenplay (if it doesn't happen, she'll have to move back to Dublin in disgrace because her money is gone) and spends her days at the beach and her nights drinking at hotspots, trying to understand how she ended up several time zones away from her old life. There are a couple of romantic interests (male and female - Maggie tries hard to shed her good girl image), funny haircuts, and amusing shopping expeditions as well, but under the surface Keyes does what she does best: she exposes the story, layer by layer, so that the reader figures out how Maggie got to this point at the same time that Maggie does.
It's not fair to give away the answers because it would take away from the reading experience. I will say that Keyes shifts so smoothly from the present-time action of the book and Maggie's flashbacks that it gives the novel a very organic and realistic feel while avoiding being jarring or confusing. The further you read, the more pieces click into place, and that's why I love reading Keyes' books so much, whether they're about the Walsh sisters or not. Her stories are both light and serious, making you think but at the same time keeping a steady flow of action, priceless characters (including, of course, the awe-inspiring Mammy Walsh), and enjoyable dialogue coming. Now if she would just write Helen's story...
Maggie is married to Garv, her first boyfriend, and they have a pretty decent life - he's an actuary, she works in entertainment law, and they have a house in Dublin. Maggie's the good Walsh girl who's never let her parents down, which makes it quite a shock when her marriage ends and her job is terminated in the span of 24 hours. After fleeing to Casa Walsh and spending several days in its bedlam trying to figure out what to do next, Maggie decides to get on a plane and head to Los Angeles to visit her best friend Emily, who is trying to make it as a screenwriter. Over the course of a month, Maggie is submerged in the sterotypical L.A. culture - everyone drives everywhere, all of the people are beautiful, the drinks are complicated, the waitstaff are out-of-work actors/models/writers, and each day is spent waiting for an agent to call. In the meantime, Maggie tries to be supportive of Emily, who is desperately trying to sell her latest screenplay (if it doesn't happen, she'll have to move back to Dublin in disgrace because her money is gone) and spends her days at the beach and her nights drinking at hotspots, trying to understand how she ended up several time zones away from her old life. There are a couple of romantic interests (male and female - Maggie tries hard to shed her good girl image), funny haircuts, and amusing shopping expeditions as well, but under the surface Keyes does what she does best: she exposes the story, layer by layer, so that the reader figures out how Maggie got to this point at the same time that Maggie does.
It's not fair to give away the answers because it would take away from the reading experience. I will say that Keyes shifts so smoothly from the present-time action of the book and Maggie's flashbacks that it gives the novel a very organic and realistic feel while avoiding being jarring or confusing. The further you read, the more pieces click into place, and that's why I love reading Keyes' books so much, whether they're about the Walsh sisters or not. Her stories are both light and serious, making you think but at the same time keeping a steady flow of action, priceless characters (including, of course, the awe-inspiring Mammy Walsh), and enjoyable dialogue coming. Now if she would just write Helen's story...
Monday, January 5, 2009
Title Eleven: Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes
Anna Walsh is in the front room of her family home in Dublin with a busted knee and a Frankenstein-esque stitch job down her face and, in an interesting touch, missing two fingernails (I don't know why, but that detail really gets me). Anna is fuzzy on the accident that brought her back to Dublin, but she knows that she needs to get back to New York, her cosmetics PR job, and her husband Aidan right away. As readers and fans of Keyes' Walsh girls know, Clan Walsh is loud, boisterous, and batshit insane, in a good-but-still-get-me-out-of-here kind of way. The second the doctor clears Anna and her "gammy" knee, her older sister Rachel comes from NYC to Dublin to collect Anna and take her home, away from youngest sister Helen (now a private investigator) and their parents. It's only when Anna exits the airport and has a small anxiety attack at the prospect of getting in a cab does Keyes start to pull back the curtain a little bit on what the hell, exactly, has happened here.
Told from Anna's point of view, the novel uses a cute mix of present narration and flashbacks to describe Anna's life after her accident, her friends, and her job along with the backstory of her move to America and the development of her relationship with Aidan. But where is Aidan? Anna emails him every day and leaves messages on his voicemail, but he doesn't return them. She obsesses over reading his horoscope each day, bristling when it refers to a new start or relationship. Interestingly, she does not discuss Aidan with anyone - her sister, her friends, or her coworkers, leaving a puzzle in place - if Aidan is so wonderful, then where the hell has he gone? If you're not an idiot like me, you've already figured it out. If you are as thick as I am, the answer will punch you in the solar plexus right around page 154.
Woven through Anna's new life without Aidan and her ways of dealing with it are hilarious descriptions of her job - she reps a line that requires her to dress like a cross between Lily Allen and Chloe Sevigny and battle tooth and nail for product mentions in newspapers and magazines while contending with a boss who bears a close resemblance to Anna Wintour - and touching scenes between her and Rachel, a recovering addict who does her very best to help Anna however she can, along with email dispatches from home regarding Helen's job and their mother's overenthusiastic involvement in it. Keyes manages to shift seamlessly between lightheartedness and deeper emotion while never feeling contrived for most of the novel, until she throws in a plot twist that seems a little trite and which I found irritating at first. However, by the end of the book I came around because it keeps the entire thing from being too pat and gives it a greater sense of depth and realism.
Anybody Out There? is one of my two favorite Keyes novels, the other being Rachel's Holiday. I actually love every Keyes book I've ever read, because she's estrogen-friendly without the trappings of chick lit. Her characters are all likeable but flawed, and that's probably her greatest strength; you can't help but fall in love with them and want to see more of them. While I wouldn't recommend this novel for a discussion on gender studies, it's the perfect read for a beach or snow day.
Told from Anna's point of view, the novel uses a cute mix of present narration and flashbacks to describe Anna's life after her accident, her friends, and her job along with the backstory of her move to America and the development of her relationship with Aidan. But where is Aidan? Anna emails him every day and leaves messages on his voicemail, but he doesn't return them. She obsesses over reading his horoscope each day, bristling when it refers to a new start or relationship. Interestingly, she does not discuss Aidan with anyone - her sister, her friends, or her coworkers, leaving a puzzle in place - if Aidan is so wonderful, then where the hell has he gone? If you're not an idiot like me, you've already figured it out. If you are as thick as I am, the answer will punch you in the solar plexus right around page 154.
Woven through Anna's new life without Aidan and her ways of dealing with it are hilarious descriptions of her job - she reps a line that requires her to dress like a cross between Lily Allen and Chloe Sevigny and battle tooth and nail for product mentions in newspapers and magazines while contending with a boss who bears a close resemblance to Anna Wintour - and touching scenes between her and Rachel, a recovering addict who does her very best to help Anna however she can, along with email dispatches from home regarding Helen's job and their mother's overenthusiastic involvement in it. Keyes manages to shift seamlessly between lightheartedness and deeper emotion while never feeling contrived for most of the novel, until she throws in a plot twist that seems a little trite and which I found irritating at first. However, by the end of the book I came around because it keeps the entire thing from being too pat and gives it a greater sense of depth and realism.
Anybody Out There? is one of my two favorite Keyes novels, the other being Rachel's Holiday. I actually love every Keyes book I've ever read, because she's estrogen-friendly without the trappings of chick lit. Her characters are all likeable but flawed, and that's probably her greatest strength; you can't help but fall in love with them and want to see more of them. While I wouldn't recommend this novel for a discussion on gender studies, it's the perfect read for a beach or snow day.
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