Nothing Special (Annie May's Black Book - Debby Holt)

Member Name: NikkiH

Product:	Annie May's Black Book - Debby Holt
Date:	02/03/08 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read

Disadvantages: Confusing characters

I read a short review of this chick lit book last year in a magazine and bought it shortly afterwards from Amazon. I like to have a queue of books, so it took until February this year before I actually got around to reading it. The cover of the book does not give much away. It is a pale colour with scrawled writing across the front of it. The back briefly introduces Annie May, and explains that for many years she has kept a black book which details the names and actions of people who have wronged her. My immediate impression was an Adrian Mole style diary, which generally I tire of very quickly, but a quick flick through the pages highlighted a lack of dated entries which made me sure that my impression was indeed wrong.

The book starts by introducing Annie May as she prepares for her wedding to her fiancé Ben amongst the chaos that is her severely dysfunctional family. The whole book centres around the events that happened that day, and rather than put any spoilers in this review, I will not give anymore away about her big day. However, predictable as chick lit is, you know that there will be someone who has their heart broken and goes through life affected by this wrongdoing. This is no different, but there is an underlying message of forgiveness and acceptance.
There are some scenarios which made me laugh out loud, but they were titters rather than belly laughs, but I did sympathise a lot with Annie during the first half of the book, as a lot of the situations that were causing her distress were not of her doing. You are introduced to many characters, but we never really find anything about them past their names, and those of their immediate families, so I felt no connection with the characters, and at times forgot who was who, or married to who. There are a couple of offshoot stories which include the other characters, and those made the book more readable and enjoyable, but as I have said, had we got to know the characters some more then it would have been even better.

Holt tells the story at the a nice pace and the events flow nicely together, but as the books reaches it's climax, I did start to become quite impatient with Annie's dithering nature, as I was sure an intelligent woman such as she would not continue to act like a petulant teenager. That is where my main complaint lies with Holt's writing. We are initially introduced to Annie, the 20 year old, but when we catch up to Annie the nearly 40 year old, she has barely changed, and life does not seem to have matured her or her opinion in any way. The main gripe being that I am sure her enthusiasm for the Black Book would have run out of steam long before now, but as she is still acting like a lovesick teenager then Holt has to keep the book in place to fit in the with the character she has not developed.

I am not sure that I would hurry to buy another Debby Holt book, but if it was put in front of me, then I would read it, and I am sure would get some mild enjoyment from it. This was a good filler book, something that was easy to read and did not challenge my brain too much. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the book very forgettable which is where my opinion sits. The book was pleasant, easy to read but forgettable.

This book is still priced at £4.99 on Amazon.

Summary: Typical chick lit