Skip to main content

Review: Turning Tables, by Heather and Rose MacDowell


In Turning Tables Erin Edwards, 28, gets a job waitressing, after being let go from her high-profile marketing job. With no experience under her belt, she's immediately thrust into the fray at Roulette, one of the most upscale restaurants in New York. Along the way, she begins dating Phil, a sous chef at the restaurant, but finds herself attracted to Daniel, a TV producer and restaurant customer. It's an interesting look at the inside of a restaurant as told from the point of view of a member of the waitstaff.

As with all books in the chick lit genre, there are good and bad things about this novel. It's a fast-paced, easy read, with some interesting characters. Having never worked as a waiter, I don't know how true-to-life this book is, but it made me not want to ever be a waiter myself! Even being a receptionist looks good in comparison. However, I thought the Erin-Daniel relationship was a little too far-fetched. Parts of the plot were extremely predictable. I thought the authors could have fleshed out a little more the reason for why Erin left her marketing job (there's a reason, but it gets lost in the rest of the story). And its a juicy reason for leaving, so I wanted to learn more! I also thought the ending was corny as a cornfield. But in all, this was an enjoyable look at what it's like to be a "penguin."
Author interview at: Trashionista

Comments

Anonymous said…
Chick-lit usually isn't the best written, but it definitely entertains. It sounds like this one did it's job.

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

2015 Reading

January 1. The Vanishing Witch, by Karen Maitland 2. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen 3. Texts From Jane Eyre, by Mallory Ortberg 4. Brighton Rock, by Graham Green 5. Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey 6. Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert 7. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy 8. A Movable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway 9. A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf 10. Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote 11. Maggie-Now, by Betty Smith February 1. Middlemarch, by George Eliot 2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 3. Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate, by Cynthia Lee 4. Music For Chameleons, by Truman Capote 5. Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious 6. Unrequited, by Lisa Phillips 7. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 8. A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather March 1. Persuasion, by Jane Austen 2. Love With a Chance of Drowning, by Torre DeRoche 3. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 4. Miss Buncle's Book, by DE Stevenson 5. One Hundred Yea...