Review: Because She Can, by Bridie Clark

I'm on the fence about whether or not I like this book. Claire Truman is a rising young editor at a major publishing house with a wonderful boss and mentor. When Jackson decides to leave, Claire leaves and becomes an editor at Grant Books, under the infamously awful Vivian Grant, known for terrorizing her employees. Claire is a hard worker, but she always gets torn down in front of her colleagues for no apparent reason.

I didn't know whether to like this book or dismiss it as another peice of "I hate my boss" chick lit. Vivian seems like a caricature at times, and Randall, Claire's boyfriend, seems almost too perfect. I mean, he's a good looking, kind, and thoughtful investment banker, what's not to love? Seriously, I was rolling my eyes. Also, I thought it was completely unrealistic that someone living on Claire's salary lives on Christopher Street in the West Village. Although the book escapes other cliches (the crazy mother, the gay boyfriend), Claire comes off as trying to make herself into more of a martyr than she really is. Also, I thought she was kind of whiny at times. And the ending was predictable, to say the least.

So there are a few redeeming qualities about this book, but I think it wouldn't have been published if not for the antics of former publisher Judith Regan.

Also reviewed by: Foreign Circus Library

Comments

Miss K said…

Hi Katherine. Thanks for joining the historical fiction reading challenge. If you haven't already, you can sign up for the yahoo chat group by emailing me at anniebucknall at hotmail dot com.

May 15, 2008 at 5:03 AM

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...

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...

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