Review: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

Eligible (The Austen Project #4) by Curtis Sittenfeld
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: April 19th 2016
My rating: 1 star/DNF
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A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice

This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.

Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . .
And yet, first impressions can be deceiving. 

My Thoughts:

Eligible is supposed to be a re-telling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but I found it more of a mocking shell of that beloved classic than any re-telling.  There’s no way I’m going to imagine that the original version would’ve ever devolved into this story. I didn’t care for or respect any of the characters, maybe with the exception of Jane.  Just the fact that Bingley was in a Bachelor type reality dating show gave me pause. Didn’t care for the situation they were in when I stopped reading.

I was utterly frustrated that Liz would waste so many years (twelve? I don’t care enough to check) on a man that was (highlight for spoiler) taken either by a girlfriend or later by his wife! Oh, and they had a toddler when Liz and Jasper finally got together! I’m sorry, Liz, but you brushing your hair away before Jasper could do it all those years ago didn’t foil your meant-to-be relationship! He was/is an ass and you were/are an idiot! ( (end of spoiler) I was very underwhelmed by her relationship with Darcy. Had Liz been a likable character or one that I could relate to in any way I might have enjoyed this story even with the abundance of hateful people. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

When I got to the 52% mark (a little over 250 pages) I just couldn’t read any further.

Review: Always the Designer Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker

Title: Always the Designer Never the Bride

Author: Sandra D. Bricker

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Publication date: 1st April 2012

Source: Netgalley

My rating: 1 star

I went into this book with the assumption that it would be a bit like the film 27 dresses. The title kind of gave me that impression and because I really loved that film you could say I sort of got over excited. But as per usual the title was kind of deceiving.

Audrey Regan has been into designing wedding dresses ever since she was a little girl, when she was just nine years old, her friends were busy playing with Barbie dolls, Audrey was creating  “haute couture” for her dolls, so it’s not surprising that Audrey grew up and became a wedding dress designer. However everything’s not as easy as Audrey thought it would be, she took the chance and moved to New York, aiming for the big clientele, but it’s been tough, brides are typically going for the recognised designers and Audrey is just managing to scrape by. However with her best friend Carly’s wedding looming Audrey has to put everything on hold and fly out to Atlanta in the middle of her big chance of winning over socialite Kim Renfroe. But things go from bad to worse as Audrey’s big chance slips through her fingers and she knows her hopes and dreams of becoming a well established designer are fading away. While she’s in Atlanta however she meets her best friends fiancé’s brother J.R. who’s a whole different kettle of fish, for one he hasn’t stopped gawking at her, but he also seems a lot different to the other guys she’s known.

The thing about this book was that everyone was so nice all the time, it’s like something bad would happen to someone but then everyone would gather around and cheer them up with a sleepover or something else pointless. I felt the bad things weren’t even that bad but because Audrey had all her “girlfriends” around her who she had known for all of two minutes everything would be hunky dory!

The secondary characters from Sherrilyn to Emma I didn’t really get the point of; their constant chirpy moods, knowing friends of friends who could work miracles, basically it’s frustrated me how everything always fell into place for everyone. Is it so wrong of me to want some drama or mayhem?

J.R. didn’t really do it for me either, I know he was meant to come across as a dapper hot guy who rides a Harley, but the only image that remained in my head was J.R. from Dallas, certain names are a no go with me, once I get a certain image in my head about a person it’s kind of hard to get rid of.

Some of the writing was also full of info-dumping, paragraphs and paragraphs about the amount of detail Audrey had to put into measuring mannequins, cutting and measuring fabrics then details about lunch, it was at times pointless. A couple of conversations also went down the same pointless track;

“Please be careful on the road J.R. I will

and wear your helmet.

I always do

oh, that’s right. It’s me who doesn’t she realised

with a giggle. Well zip your jacket and all that.

Will do, and you do the same”

“Dual head stainless steel head gas grill, Andy

continued without notice, with forty- five

thousand BTU, full rotisserie and eleven hundred

square inches of cooking surface. It’s the

champion of excellence and precision in grilling

my friend”

I wished I had liked Always the Designer Never the Bride more, but it had too many always happy characters and perfect endings for my liking.

Thank you Abingdon press and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Review: Jersey Angel by Beth Ann Bauman

   Title: Jersey Angel

   Author: Beth Ann Bauman

   Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books

   Publication date: 8th May 2012

   Source: NetGalley

   My rating: 1 star

Where shall I start with this book? Well the blurb was what drew my attention to the book in the first place. I read it and thought a perfect summer read, this is just what I need. I thought it would be along the lines of Jenny Han’s Summer series, but my assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong

Angel is having a break from her on-off boyfriend Joey, Angel doesn’t want to be tied down with a guy for too long; she likes to be care free and having fun. So after Angel’s had enough fun, she decides she wants Joey back, but this time Joey decides to put his foot down, he’s sick of Angel running from one guy to another, he’s sick of the breaks, he genuinely loves Angel and he wants her to his girlfriend, so he refuses to take her back. Angel finds herself in a dilemma she wants to be with Joey; he understands her, whenever she needs someone she knows she can turn to him, he’s a reassuring presence but she’s unsure whether she loves him back and she’s still so young there’s plenty of time to settle down.

I had several issues with this book, and thus my reason for giving it 1 star. First the characters lacked depth; they were flaky with no idea what was going on. Angel just kept flitting back and forth from one guy to another, she had the perfect guy who wanted to be with her, openly admitting his feelings for her, standing right in front of her, but Angel was so caught up in her own little world that when she realised what she wanted it was a little too late. Her messing around with her best friend’s boyfriend aggravated me and her continually going back on her word aggravated me. That by the end of the book I was so utterly fed up with her that I couldn’t care less what she did.

I also couldn’t connect with the secondary characters at all, they were under developed in places, were at times like back ground noise; completely unnecessary. Inggy the best friend was clueless and couldn’t see what was going on in front of her, Cork Inggy’s worthless boyfriend; who knows how many girls he was playing around at the same time? The only character I initially liked was Joey; he was strong, put his foot down when Angel came wallowing back. But then his decision at the end kind of tarnished the impression I had of his character.

The plot kind of went round in endless circles, Angel unsure of what she wanted so hooked up with a guy, Joey still turning her down so she hooks up with someone else and so on. I thought that when a life changing situation did happen that Angel would take something from it, but no the story continued to trundle along its same tortuous pointless path.

I really wished I liked this book and had more positive things to say about it but it really wasn’t my cup of tea.