Monday To Friday Man is a chick-lit novel by Alice Peterson. The book was released in the United Kingdom in 2011 and so it is fairly recent. I bought my copy from The Works as part of a 3 books for £5 offer.

~ * What's The Story Like? * ~

I liked the plot; it's very simple, but I like how there are various other storylines which add to the main story (such as Gilly's past.) I did find the story to be very predictable at times (I knew what was going to happen in the end as soon as I read about a certain character). Whilst the book was predictable, it certainly wasn't enough to put me off the book. In fact I found it made the book even more of an 'easy reader' as it didn't require much thinking.I would describe this book as being a nice light hearted-read. Whilst, I say light-hearted (as the majority of the book is), however there are some 'sad' parts to the book too which I found quite sad to read. This book is a great 'easy to read' book and so I would say that it is a great book to read whilst chilling out; perfect for a holiday or beach read or great for when you just want to curl up by the fire on a cold winter's night with a good book; this will do the job just fine!

I loved the idea of the dog walking club!! It sounded like a great place and great thing to do to start the day!

~ * What About The Characters? * ~

I felt that the book had just the right amount of characters; enough to keep the story interesting, yet not so many that I had to keep asking myself 'who was that again?'. The story is told in first person; so we are reading the story from the main character, Gilly's point of view. Gilly is normal, honest, down-to-earth, friendly and easy to relate to. Whilst I wanted to like Gilly, at times she did annoy me; she didn't like it when others would do something to her, and yet she would go and do exactly the same thing and yet couldn't understand why people didn't like it. I did feel sorry for her though; especially when she spoke about her little sister and her mother.

Guy was another character in the book; I pictured him as being a 'nice' and 'normal' bloke. A sweet and sensitive, honest kind of guy. I found him to be likeable, whilst he did seem a bit boring at times as there was nothing exciting about him. Whilst on the other hand, Jack seemed very exciting. Whilst he was supposed to be 'the bad guy' I actually found him to be a nice guy. I don't know if this was intended or if it was just the way I 'saw' him. To me he just seemed like an ordinary bloke who was afraid of commitment. I half expected him to play a bigger part in the story than he did. I was also disappointed with what his 'big secret' turned out to be as I thought that we had crossed that 'possibility' earlier on in the book; so I had thought that the secret would have been really juicy, when really it turned out to be really predictable.

~ * What About The Style of Writing? * ~

I had never heard of this author until now and so I wasn't too sure what to expect when I began writing this book. I really enjoyed this book and whilst it has a simple storyline, I liked the fact that it was about 'every day life' as it felt like an escape into someone else's life. I also found the story to be very believable. I am a huge chick-lit fan and am always reading these kind of books, and so I found it really refreshing to discover that the main character in this book is very normal; she doesn't have a glamorous job etc, and didn't 'jet-off-around-the-world-without-telling-anyone-b ecause-she-got-dumped' which is what you get with the majority of chick-lit books these days!

I liked that the book was written in first person and so from Gilly's perspective. This helped us get to know Gilly, the main character much better and also helped me understand why Gilly behaved in the way she did.

I loved the fact that book skipped between the present and the past. Whilst the parts about Gilly's little sister Megan were very sad, I found that they added 'depth' to the story and made it emotional. I found that it also helped us to understand Gilly better too. It felt as though I was on a journey with Gilly.

I think that there are many lessons to be learned from this book. The first of which is not to let the past get in the way of the future. Gilly, as well as her twin brother Nick are too afraid to do certain things now that they are adults as they are afraid that certain things that happened to them as children will happen again. Another message in the book is to not judge people; for example Nancy; she comes across as being a bit of a b**h and yet I felt really sorry for her. So I think that the message here is to get to know people well before you judge them.

The book is fast paced which I loved as there is nothing worse than hanging about. I like to move on and 'get on with the story' - so this was great for me! I also liked that the chapters were short and sweet (I hate long chapters) and so this meant that I could easily 'fit one more chapter in' before going to sleep etc). The short chapters also meant that I could always finish on the end of a chapter and so I would 'pick up' the book at a new chapter each time rather than being in the middle of a paragraph.

I found that the book was well written. The author makes great use of descriptive writing in this book, without having to go into great depths. I found it easy to imagine the settings and the characters and so this made me feel as though I was a part of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am really excited about reading other books by this author. This book is comical, light hearted, is a great easy reader and certainly does not disappoint. It's a great feel good book!!

All in all, I would recommend this book!

Thanks for reading!
November 2012
Xdonzx / xd-o-n-z-x