Meg Cabot, Carole Matthews, Sarah Mlynowski, Louise Bagshawe and Adele Lang
2004, Chick Lit
Red Dress Ink, $13.95, 325 pages, Amazon ASIN 0373250746
Grade:
B
Sensuality:
N/A
Girls' Night In is a collection of short stories to benefit War Child, a relief agency aiding children in war-torn areas. Some of the biggest names in chick-lit have contributed stories, and although not every one was my style, a pretty respectable number were. Since there are twenty-one stories and the book is only 325 pages, these really are short stories, very short in some cases. Instead of commenting on each story, and having this review run on forever, I mention my favorites, the ones that make me recommend this book even aside from the fact that it's for a good cause.
Chick Lit In Meg Cabot's Party Planner, an event planner in New York City is charged with putting on a holiday party the whole company will never forget - and does she ever. Told entirely in email (plus one police report), it has a few over-the-top moments, but is still very funny. Grade: B+Chick Lit Cat Lady by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is about a woman who turns thirty-five and decides to give up men and get some cats instead. She sets out to find cats, and finds a handsome veterinarian who convinces her she's still more Cat Woman than cat lady. It's the closest thing to a romance in the anthology. Grade: B+Chick Lit Carole Matthews' Traveling Light sounds like a stereotypical vacation fling story, but is nicely done all the same. An English bride-to-be travels through China on one last pre-nuptial solo trip and meets up with an American surfer dude. Now she's no longer traveling alone, and she's not so sure she's going to make her wedding, either. A little bit distant in the storytelling, but I liked it. Grade: BChick Lit I didn't like Sarah Mlynowski's Know It All when it began, but by the end of the story, I did. The heroine goes to great lengths to keep her ex-boyfriend from meeting someone else, until she finally has the ah-ha moment about why she's doing it. I found the ending quite poignant, actually. Grade: BChick Lit What Goes Around by Louise Bagshawe was quite possibly my favorite of them all. It starts off with a man trying to end his marriage over dinner on his 20th anniversary, and ends with his wife turning the tables and walking out on him. Frankly, the other diners should have given her a standing ovation. A feel good story for every woman who's ever been dumped, and just desserts for every cheating husband. Grade: AChick Lit And finally, Adele Lang's Do You Know Who I Am? is too, too funny. It's not really Chick Lit, and it certainly isn't romance, but if you've ever wondered what it's like to be Britney Spears, here's one entertaining interpretation. Grade: BI thought these seven stories alone made the book worthwhile, although they were by no means the only good ones. There's probably something here to appeal to every fan of Chick Lit, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
-- Diana Ketterer
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