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court_en_ey's review against another edition
1.0
This book didn't appeal to me at all. Didn't seem to have a proper plot which just felt every where and parts of this book just seemed to be shoved in for no point at all. All the characters felt the same to me and we're all annoying and had barely any good qualities. Oops. Not much else I can say on this one.
buntyskid's review against another edition
1.0
Had to abandon this. Kept waiting for the laugh out loud funny (which I needed at time of reading) and it never happened. What kept me going was the glowing review from Stephen Fry who said it was 'desperately funny'. Got to page 258 then did an obligatory skim to the end.
Writing very choppy, with declarative sentences, one after the other. Meant to be a deadpan style, I guess. But it just didn't work, the way, say Brigitte Jones Diary did.
Wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about the main character, Millie. Was she empty-headed, smart, or what. It bounced around, never really settling into a believeable character. She swallowed the Feng Shui thing whole, plus read self help books and The Secret without questioning, yet was meant to be a fairly successful writer and adept poet. Nobody else in the book made up for Millie's lack, either.
Writing very choppy, with declarative sentences, one after the other. Meant to be a deadpan style, I guess. But it just didn't work, the way, say Brigitte Jones Diary did.
Wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about the main character, Millie. Was she empty-headed, smart, or what. It bounced around, never really settling into a believeable character. She swallowed the Feng Shui thing whole, plus read self help books and The Secret without questioning, yet was meant to be a fairly successful writer and adept poet. Nobody else in the book made up for Millie's lack, either.
briarfairchild's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this, which I wasn't sure I would. It was silly, but in a good way. I personally found the humour dry rather than laugh-out-loud, but highly enjoyable in any case. There were some great characters, especially the main character Millie, who in some ways was quite selfish and obnoxious but somehow likeable despite it. The one thing that annoyed me was the constant use of 'complimentary' for 'complementary'. But that's a pretty small issue really!
katheastman's review against another edition
4.0
Losing It centres around Millie and because it is very much ALL about her – she can be pretty self-absorbed especially at the beginning of the novel – Millie dominates the book. She’s such a great character that some of the others have a hard time asserting themselves and were more of a chorus to Millie’s daily dramas. It would have been easy for Millie to become a comedic monster over the course of the novel but Helen avoids that by putting the joke as much, if not mostly, on Millie herself. Millie may sometimes be biting and very close to the mark in her observations of others but she is also highly critical of herself. Her own worst enemy, if you like. This leads to Millie getting herself embroiled in painfully humiliating situations. But each time she fails or suffers a setback, she never gives up on life or gives up trying, including at those things which she perhaps shouldn’t have been trying in the first place.
I hope I wouldn’t do half the things that Millie does but I couldn’t help rooting for her and hoping that she would come through everything with a modicum of dignity left intact. She is desperate, behaves desperately but she is also desperately funny. And oh, so very flawed and human. Her thoughts run in every direction and we’re happily privy to them, while her friends and family and business contacts thankfully only get the highlights. And it’s this that makes Losing It so funny and why it worked so well for me. I enjoyed hearing the unedited version of someone’s commentary on their life and everyone in it.
Losing It made me laugh. Big belly laughs. It made me laugh at Millie, at myself and at the crazy things we put ourselves through, and the stupid pressures to which we fall subject. But it also made me think about those very same things: what we sometimes do to get a job, a date, a drink, or simply some notice, or validation. Cloaked in humour and very visual jokes, Helen makes some acute observations about a woman of a certain age in today’s society. Learning to laugh about that might just be the best way of dealing with it all when it spirals out of control and it could help us become more accepting of ourselves and our lives, so we can concentrate on what’s actually important.
I hope I wouldn’t do half the things that Millie does but I couldn’t help rooting for her and hoping that she would come through everything with a modicum of dignity left intact. She is desperate, behaves desperately but she is also desperately funny. And oh, so very flawed and human. Her thoughts run in every direction and we’re happily privy to them, while her friends and family and business contacts thankfully only get the highlights. And it’s this that makes Losing It so funny and why it worked so well for me. I enjoyed hearing the unedited version of someone’s commentary on their life and everyone in it.
Losing It made me laugh. Big belly laughs. It made me laugh at Millie, at myself and at the crazy things we put ourselves through, and the stupid pressures to which we fall subject. But it also made me think about those very same things: what we sometimes do to get a job, a date, a drink, or simply some notice, or validation. Cloaked in humour and very visual jokes, Helen makes some acute observations about a woman of a certain age in today’s society. Learning to laugh about that might just be the best way of dealing with it all when it spirals out of control and it could help us become more accepting of ourselves and our lives, so we can concentrate on what’s actually important.
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