After The Party by Lisa Jewell

We read another book by Lisa Jewell back in August 2009, so we thought it was about time we tried another one of hers.

This book is definitely chick-lit, it deals with the trials and tribulations of a 30-something couple who have been together for nearly a decade, have two children but aren't married.  The story follows both sides of the relationship which is wobbly to say the least.  It was an easy read and it was definitely a page turner but it was quite annoying at the same time.

I really wanted to knock their heads together and just get them to talk to each other, it's not hard and would have saved them a lot of dithering.  We didn't really like any of the characters, I wonder if the author made them deliberately unlikeable; Ralph was an annoying flighty artist, who had to continually 'find himself', Jem was quite shallow and we hated her for being 'too thin' for her wedding dress (like that ever happens), Jem's sister was too perfect, Joel was just weird, Joel's grown-up son was unbelievable (as in we didn't believe that a 25 year old would fancy a 38 year old who has just given birth), do I need to continue?

We really didn't like the ending, very contrite and it could have been so much better.  Our suggestion is that Joel murders Ralph in the end, that would make the novel very dark and quite likeable.

Concept: 4/10
Plot: 6/10
Ending: 1/10
Cover: 2/10
Page Turner: 9/10
Slap?  Everyone except Jessica
Cheese: Ralph's painting which magically made everything alright
Recommend?  4/5
Better as a ... murder mystery

Total: 5/10

Lisa chose our next book, 'Snow Falling on Cedars' by David Guterson which we'll be reading for May.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 9th April at my house.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

I shall start this post by saying that only 1 out of 4 of us finished this book (and we think she cheated by listening to it on audio book :-)), so that speaks volumes.

A few of us had read some of Bryson's other books so his writing style isn't totally to blame on why we just didn't like this book.  It was mostly to do with the reminiscing about America in the 1950s, something we couldn't relate to at all and the fact that not much happens, but what should we have expected from an auto-biography?  It's a list of anecdotes, some of which are amusing, some of which I think you had to be there (or alive in 1950s America) to appreciate.  It just didn't do it for us.

Concept: 5 (an auto-biography is an OK concept)
Plot: n/a (we don't think this is applicable to biographies)
Ending: 2
Cover: 4
Page Turner: 2 (see my above comment on how many of us finished it)
Who to slap?  Bill Bryson (of course)
Where's the cheese?  The thunderbolt kid, the link between the name and Bryson is tenuous at best.
Would we recommend? 0/4
Better as a ... TV documentary about 1950s America.

Total: 3/10

Our next two books will be:

For February: Last Orders by Graham Swift
For March: After the Party by Lisa Jewell