Though my opinion was that this wasn’t worth consuming, I would hope that everyone else would read it and make their own judgements, especially because I seem to stand alone on this. This is the third Marian Keyes book I read, and while I thoroughly enjoyed the first two, I felt as if I was doing nothing more than trudging through this one.

This story is about Claire, a woman who’s husband springs on her the fact that he’s having an affair and leaving her only moments after she gives birth to their baby. Depressed, she heads home to Dublin to stay with her family and let them help her take care of her baby and herself. Once out of her funk, she begins to try and figure out all the things in her life, like what she’s going to do, why her husband left her, etc. etc. Within this little life journey, she meets a friend of her sister’s, a younger college student who seems to completely sweep her off her feet…when he’s not acting like an emotional wreck himself.

As I read this book, I kept trying to figure out why I didn’t like it. Upon finishing, I realized there were several reasons. For one, too much monologue. Maybe I’m just not in the mood for it, but the story didn’t seem to move at all. I felt like all I was doing was listening to the main character drone on her own little world, and in that world, half the time she was trying too hard to be witty.

Even when the story seemed to be really going, it would be ruined for me by her incessant thoughts. It was like trying to watch a movie and having to hear the person next to you talk the whole time. I would have really been into the sex scene if she hadn’t analyzed it the whole time in her monologue.

I will admit that toward the end, the story seemed to move alot better, but by then I was ready to throw the book. The husband was a condescending asshole, the mother, though probably well meaning, seemed to think that the answer to Claire’s problem was to give the husband another chance, and the one character that I really really disliked through the book was the only one making sense by that time.

I’m still going to attempt to read the books about the other Walsh girls though. It could have just been a fluke, or it could have just been this character. I explained to the friend who referred this book that the main C reminded me alot of myself, but seeing all those things there in black and white was really irritating.

While I think everyone else should formulate their own opinion, I didn’t like this book. It won’t deter me from reading more MK though…I’ll be starting the next one sometime later this evening.