July 28th 2004
The End
I finished reading this book a couple of months ago, and it was a strange and interesting read. On the one hand I wasn't entirely impressed with Lauren Henderson's new direction; she seemed to have lost a lot of the banter and sharp dialogue that initially drew me to her writing in favour of - God forbid - emotions. I know that she's dealing with different characters, but so few writers are really gifted at writing good dialogue, and I was looking forward to it. The story, also, wasn't entirely my cup of tea and was a fairly formulaic chick lit book. Dare I say it, my beloved Lauren Henderson has become mediocre. Well, she would have been had it not been for one key element that kept me hooked through the novel, and that is that I have been in the same exact position that Sally found herself in (obviously I wasn't skinny and rich, but that aside...).

So, Jude (the girl whose point of view the book is written from) and Sally are best friends. In a sickenly Friends style living arrangement they live in the same apartment building, and their friend, and Sally's ex, Michael lives across the way. Michael is a player, and goes from one  identical Sally-clone to another with startling regularity while Sally watches from the sidelines and plays the role of best friend and confidant, all the while Jude thinks they should be together. And then along comes Katie, who blows their comfortable world apart.

So yeah, I've been Sally (sad but true), and so it was interesting to see the situation from the outside, and watch as the whole sordid mess unfolded.

I didn't really enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped to, and perhaps it was spoilt by the anticipation of it. I really hope Lauren writes another Sam Jones book soon, as they're what I really enjoy from her and I miss her antics.