Dinner for Two - Mike Gayle

There comes a time in every person's life that you question what you are doing and who you are with. Thankfully I avoid this by never thinking too deeply. In fact I am so shallow that if you scratch the surface, there is just more surface underneath. Going into deep thought over relations is one of the things that traditionally separates men from women. I worry that my partner is thinking all many of things and is waiting for me to pick up on them - she will be in for a long wait with my lack of observational skills. To develop my sensitive skills (or powers of evil as I call them) I sometimes read the male equivalent of chick lit - lad lit. One author has always ...  Read the complete review

Author: Mike Gayle Published: 2002 Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton For those who recognise this review, I've had to resubmit it after I deleted my account; I entered the wrong age. :~rolls eyes~: Could only be me. This was actually my second Mike Gayle book - my first having been Mr Commitment, lent to my mum by a friend from work with the words, 'This is so funny - you HAVE to read it!'. Mum, not being big on reading anything but cheesy Mills and Boon novels and action adventure novels that slowly turn into romance, decided after two weeks, that she'd had it, and gave it to me to try. My offhand comment of, 'I like it - ...  Read the complete review

Having read everything by Matt Dunn and loving the chick lit from a bloke's perspective a friend recommended Mike Gayle to me, and I picked up Dinner for Two from a charity shop for 70p, so seemed worthy of a read Mike Gayle is a freelance Journalist who previously worked as an agony uncle, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that his main character, Dave Harding is a redundant Music Jouranalist who ends up working as an agony uncle while freelancing for his wife's magazine. This may be why Dave's character comes across as so realistic - still there is no harm in writing about what you know!! Dave and Izzy are the perfect couple, they love ...  Read the complete review

Typical Mike Gayle protagonists are whingeing, whining, late 20s/early 30s, feeble-minded men. Three books in and the character is beginning to grate. Dinner For Two fails on a number of levels. Firstly, it'll take you about half an hour to read. There are plenty of extremely short chapters (some only a matter of a few words) - but each is given its own page, just to make the book look longer than it really is. And the words themselves are frustrating. The plot, such that is, revolves around the main character's discovery that he has a teenage daughter, conceived on a drunken holiday. His inexplicable decision to cover this up initially from his ...  Read the complete review