Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes

Having received this book free with a magazine recently, I decided to read it at home rather than at work (most of my work reading has been less girly type books). Since it was free on a magazine it is printed on thin paper with a smaller than usual typeset, which makes it hard to read if like me you happen to have been *mildly* inebriated! The story is fairly typical of Marian Keyes work, it focusses on three women who have vastly different lives. Lisa is a magazine editor in London who is hoping for a job in New York but her world which felt safe gets thrown in to turmoil when she is told that she isnt going to New York but to Dublin instead to ...  Read the complete review

Complete happiness is hard to find - especially when you are one of the three characters in 'Sushi For Beginners'. The novel revolves around three thirty-something women who are living a life which is far from what they wanted. Lisa the Londoner has just been appointed editor of a new Irish 'dumbed down but definitely sexy' magazine Colleen, so why is she unhappy? Because rainy Dublin comes a very sombre second place to jetting off in her Patrick Cox stilettos and Gucci clad model figure to be editor of flashy mag Manhattan in New York – where everybody looks at their food rather than eat it. Now she has to cope with an open plan office ...  Read the complete review

‘Laden with plot twists, jokey asides and nicely turned bits of zeitgeisty observational humour’ states a journalist from the Guardian, who had obviously woken with a bad hangover and realised in horror that he had forgotten to read the book for a review with a fast approaching deadline and then had to make up something plausible which would satisfy his editor. In fact, perusing the comments on the book’s cover makes me wonder whether any of the reviewers actually read it. ‘Hilarious’? (Mail on Sunday) – No! ‘A real page turner’? (Sunday Express) – No! ‘The hottest young female writer in Britain’? ...  Read the complete review

How do I review this book? Are you shocked to see me reading this? Well not as shocked as I was to read it, originally I ordered this for my other half, Lorraine, not Geoffrey the mad mohican giraffe, but I wanted an easy read and the cover was appealing and I was feeling poorly and OK I read a woman’s romantic popular fiction book. Anybody, wishing to shoot me may make postal applications, c/o, Men gone sad, PO Box 231, Slushville. I jest and I must stop being a book snob, popular fiction is entertainment much in the same form as some of Hollywood’s films are, there is nothing wrong with it, better to read this, rather than nothing at all. ...  Read the complete review

Marian Keyes. What does this woman say to you? Well, she's Irish. And her books have been hugely successful - and not just because of the jaunty cover designs. She has very long hair - and judging by her photo, she may well have been a goth in a previous incarnation. But what of her writing? Well, she had a big hit with Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married - and doesn't seem to have taken a break since. All of her books have strong Irish female leads, and positively Dickensian supporting casts. The humour is ribald, the situations slightly improbable but amusing nonetheless - basically, this is top quality 'chick lit'. And in my opinion, ...  Read the complete review