The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LeZebnik
Thanks to Hatchette Book Group for the ARC. The cover was really speaking to me, so I thought I'd check out some chick lit. Two sisters - Lauren a sweet, spendthrift fashionista and Ava a witty, yet plain lawyer - are reunited after their mom's cancer diagnosis. The banter between these two and their mom reads as a real conversation. As a result, it moves quickly as the sisters try to help one another through their rough patches - for Lauren it's debt management, for Ava it's style & confidence.
And oddly, I find that light reads like this provide me with space to think that deeper novels don't. For example, both girls struggle a bit with their roles - i.e. the pretty, irresponsible one vs the serious, smart one. And I started thinking about how I do that to my own children - they already have labels, one smart, one nice, one wild (hint: in that order). Not good, right?
And as an observation, I'm noticing a lot of breast cancer diagnoses in modern novels. This is the 4th book this week, and 8th this year (from my reading list) that contain a character with breast cancer. While I would never say "no more female characters with breast cancer please", I worry that it's becoming overused - there are other ailments that plague women. Saturation can be good and bad. But I don't know anyone that hasn't been touched in some way by it, so perhaps in this case (and others), it's merely an accurate reflection of society. Thoughts?
If you are looking for a fun, light, quick, end of summer book - here it is. I enjoyed it, with a couple reservations, but as you know I don't normally read chick lit. I need to take it lighter....it entertained and thus, served its purpose.
3 stars
The End.
hey...you still owe me this book...LOL
just teasin...no rush...its not like i dont have 150 other things to read :)
Posted by: Carrie K | September 02, 2008 at 11:54 PM