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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
You know what to expect in terms of a story when you pick up a book like this, but oh dear, I couldn't help but wonder if it was the authors own prejudices that she used to create her character or just a collection of dull clichés cobbled together. (35 on the shelf over and over again, long legged, beautiful, flat shoes, dull underpants...) Either way I cared not a jot about whatever her name was or the wee dog or the friend oh or any bloody one. Disappointing.
Monday to Friday Man is a delicious escape into a West London world of friends, family, dogs, and or course, love. The journey to self discovery by the title character Gilly is an inspirational one, with a rewarding, if unexpected, ending. Great read! I'm off to download her next book!
Loved it! Really well written, well thought out story. Knew what the outcome would be but loved reading this book. Highly recommeneded.
A easy chick-lit read that has a little more grit than some comparable books. I really enjoyed it!
Great feel good chick lit, great if you want something that is easy to read and you want to smile.
Predictable ending but hey, aren't most of them, didn't detract from a lovely story :)
Predictable ending but hey, aren't most of them, didn't detract from a lovely story :)
Нічого собі так книжка непогано, думала буде гірше і взагалі не сподобається. Але вийшла доволі мила історія.
At first I thought this was just going to be your typical froth. And okay, yeah, it kind of was. The plot revolves around Gilly; a woman who was five minutes shy of being jilted at the altar and has been unlucky in love ever since. Her grand idea, put forward through advice guru estate agent Robert, is to get a lodger - more specifically a Monday to Friday man.
So the plot thickens when attractive and high flying Jack answers her advert. Gilly's dog walking circle are at first ecstatic but as they find out more about Jack (or more to the point, less) they start to become less sure...including hat wearing Guy who is kind, a good friend and...oops, engaged.
You can see where this will go and it isn't so much the destination as the journey which earned this such a high rating. The way the author pulls all the strings together, adding in a sub-plot about Gilly's disabled sister who died aged three, comes off charmingly. And there is something of a hot cup of tea and a cosy blanket. This will not win any Booker Prizes any time soon but it fulfils the purpose of creating a light, feel good read which I got through in just two sittings.
So the plot thickens when attractive and high flying Jack answers her advert. Gilly's dog walking circle are at first ecstatic but as they find out more about Jack (or more to the point, less) they start to become less sure...including hat wearing Guy who is kind, a good friend and...oops, engaged.
You can see where this will go and it isn't so much the destination as the journey which earned this such a high rating. The way the author pulls all the strings together, adding in a sub-plot about Gilly's disabled sister who died aged three, comes off charmingly. And there is something of a hot cup of tea and a cosy blanket. This will not win any Booker Prizes any time soon but it fulfils the purpose of creating a light, feel good read which I got through in just two sittings.
This is a pretty decent example of comic romance though it does take a while to warm up. The female characters are far stronger than the male ones who aren't terribly interesting, sadly. Personally I would have preferred less airtime for Jack and Guy, and a greater focus on Gilly's friends and her marvellous boss - I think that would have made for a far more gripping read.
That said, aspects I very much enjoyed and which were very well written were Gilly's relationship with her twin brother and his irritating wife, and also her relationship with her life-limited sister. Really, the sister story is a tour de force of writing, and it made me cry on several occasions - and I don't even like families or children, so you can see just how powerful it was!
One plot line I found irritating or nonsensical, however, was the "deep, dark secret weekend life" Jack keeps from everyone, and which - in the Big Reveal - is supposed to make us like him even less. Um, I'm sorry? The kind of secrets he's keeping are actually rather sweet and he should definitely be congratulated for his compassion and sense of duty. I have no idea why Gilly and Guy think Jack is so dreadful for what he's done here. He most certainly is not - and I began to lose a great deal of interest in Gilly and Guy, and certainly in their opinions, at that point.
I also groaned very deeply indeed when Gilly's confusion about her lack of career is miraculously solved by her instantly becoming a best-selling writer - honestly, this was a cliche when it first arrived as a plot solver in the 1980s, and I wish writers would stop it! It's dull, unrealistic and a serious cop-out of the storyline. Besides of which, if writers were actually being realistic about the writing life, then Gilly would need to endure ten years of serial rejections, several nervous breakdowns, one or two scam publishing deals, at least one sweet-talking but ultimately useless agent, an incident involving foreign lawyers and a nasty email campaign, poor reviews (amongst some good ones), the silence of her family and the embarrassed sympathy of her friends. Put that in your pipe, Gilly, and smoke it is what I say. Harrumph already! So, writers: please get over yourselves and stop writing about writing. For the sake of all our sanities. You've got an imagination - venture outside your own heads once in a while and stop being so damn lazy.
Verdict: some good writing, but a tendency to laziness. 3 stars.
That said, aspects I very much enjoyed and which were very well written were Gilly's relationship with her twin brother and his irritating wife, and also her relationship with her life-limited sister. Really, the sister story is a tour de force of writing, and it made me cry on several occasions - and I don't even like families or children, so you can see just how powerful it was!
One plot line I found irritating or nonsensical, however, was the "deep, dark secret weekend life" Jack keeps from everyone, and which - in the Big Reveal - is supposed to make us like him even less. Um, I'm sorry? The kind of secrets he's keeping are actually rather sweet and he should definitely be congratulated for his compassion and sense of duty. I have no idea why Gilly and Guy think Jack is so dreadful for what he's done here. He most certainly is not - and I began to lose a great deal of interest in Gilly and Guy, and certainly in their opinions, at that point.
I also groaned very deeply indeed when Gilly's confusion about her lack of career is miraculously solved by her instantly becoming a best-selling writer - honestly, this was a cliche when it first arrived as a plot solver in the 1980s, and I wish writers would stop it! It's dull, unrealistic and a serious cop-out of the storyline. Besides of which, if writers were actually being realistic about the writing life, then Gilly would need to endure ten years of serial rejections, several nervous breakdowns, one or two scam publishing deals, at least one sweet-talking but ultimately useless agent, an incident involving foreign lawyers and a nasty email campaign, poor reviews (amongst some good ones), the silence of her family and the embarrassed sympathy of her friends. Put that in your pipe, Gilly, and smoke it is what I say. Harrumph already! So, writers: please get over yourselves and stop writing about writing. For the sake of all our sanities. You've got an imagination - venture outside your own heads once in a while and stop being so damn lazy.
Verdict: some good writing, but a tendency to laziness. 3 stars.