09.10.26
Despite TJR being very, very keen to show off her extensive research at the expense of pace, despite the boringly self-righteous main character, despite the sometimes overwhelming sentimentality, even despite no-one from her previous Celebrityverse books wandering into scenes as they usually do... I really enjoyed this.
47%
03.04.26I like TJR's vivid stories from the world of Evelyn, Carrie and Daisy but her contemporary relationship novels (see also this and this) might as well be by a different author. Everyone was just a cipher and, despite each person presenting a different aspect of long-term relationships versus independence, the ending was deeply conservative, with everyone ending up (spoiler) traditionally coupled up.
It also made America seem very foreign, highlighting their strange food (sweet potato at Christmas? Pigs in blankets with pastry at a baby shower?) and traditions and approaches to life.
08.05.24
It's a short story, really, so I won't give it a grade, but TJR's work is always entertaining. I mean, it's no Clarissa (what is?) but the epistolary structure worked well in the context and had a few intriguing twists (spoiler: the evidence of the affair was not the letters). But was it really set in the mid-1970s? More like the 1950s - that cultural part didn't ring true.
11.03.23
This suffered from the usual TJR problem of under-editing (endless exposition; a predictable romance; another page, another eye roll, another unnecessarily detailed description of what someone is wearing). As usual, it didn't have anything particularly profound to say... but yet, it was a hugely engaging read, despite the tedious tennis. I like the way names pop in and out of the ever-increasing TJR alternate celebrity universe. And the truculent and tenacious Carrie proves you don't need to identify with a character to root for them. Game, set and match!
29.01.23
I think this was TJR's last novel before she found herself a niche in fake celebrity memoirs. Those are better. Perhaps it's the more focused characters in the later books - the two men in this seemed to be exactly the same so no wonder the narrator struggled to choose between them. And I have no idea what they saw in her. Unsurprisingly, that made the whole premise a little rocky.
24.07.22
This was TJR before she hit her stride with fictional celebrity memoirs and it's not good. It's hard to care about any of the self-centred protagonists. It's hard to care about what happens to them. It's certainly hard to care, or even read, about their fluffy thoughts on love and fate.
02.06.22
I was really looking forward to reading this but it turned out to be a struggle to finish. Why should I care about these rich, entitled people with their everyday problems? As well as the trend to set stories in the past just because people don't have cellphones, there seems to be a whole new genre about the relationship dynamics among four or more adult siblings, as if those of us from smaller families should be envious. Meh.
08.03.22
No, not Victor Hugo. Now, that would be interesting. This, on the other hand, while diverting, was like an early Daisy Jones and the Six (by the same author) - the story of an alluring woman in a glamorous world reflected through the medium of the media. And, like that book, not as profound as it would like to be.
