Sophie Kinsella is one of my favourite chick lit authors. That’s not a large niche because I don’t read that much chick lit. Still, I’ve enjoyed most of her novels even though her characters embarass themselves a lot mostly through lying.

This novel had more characters than the typical Kinsella book, and the two women narrate the story. It’s interesting because it gives perspectives on some intimate relationships. It is the theme for all the characters that they have to be reminded by others about taking things too far. It’s a story about seeing yourself objectively.

I realized during this book that here is a lack of women of colour in Kinsella’s novels. I am not sure why it took almost ten of her books for me to realize, but perhaps those other ones distracted me long enough to realize it.

This book did drag for me a bit. I thought the slapstick antics were too much even if I did laugh during the couples quiz. While I found the female characters the same as her other books, foolish but still relatable, it got a bit too much for me. I just thought it could have been cut down by about fifty pages.

I like the fact there was more than one ending because of the larger cast of characters. I hope Kinsella does that again, but I also felt the men were short-changed as a result. Kinsella can write some amusing leading men, but not enough of them here though.

I’ll read Kinsella again, but I do not think this was one of her better novels.

Read June 15 2013.