♥ Don't judge a book by its cover (quite literally!) ♥ (What My Best Friend Did - Lucy Dawson)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	What My Best Friend Did - Lucy Dawson
Date:	27/05/09 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent story that is dark and shows the true extent of how fragile female friendships are.

Disadvantages: The main characters aren't particularly likeable, but this doesnt really detract from a fab story!!!

** Plot Summary....

Alice's life goes from boring to sparkling the minute she meets Gretchen, a gorgeous, funny and witty children's TV presenter. Within weeks of meeting Gretchen, Alice is convinced that she has out-grown her two year old relationship with her adoring boyfriend Nick, forgets all her old friends and cannot stop thinking about how wonderful Gretchen is. Things then become much more interesting for Alice when Gretchen introduces her to her handsome brother Bailey whom Alice Is convinced is what she needs to get her exciting life back.

Before long however, Alice realises she may have made the biggest mistake of her life meeting Gretchen. Their friendship is tested to the limit and Gretchen has so many secrets that it soon dawns on Alice that she had better regret the day she let this woman in to her life.

** My Review...

I actually thought on asking for this on readitswapit that I was going to get an easy-going fluffy "chick lit" book - how wrong I could be! Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by how dark this book got. The two main characters, Alice and Gretchen are not your usual main protagonists either. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I didn't particularly care for either of them a great deal as their character flaws were so big it was hard to ignore. On the surface, Alice should be the one the reader sympathises with; it is from her point of view that we see what has happened and therefore the book would obviously lend itself to being in her corner. However, I didn't quite feel like that about her as I found overall she was selfish and superficial. There were times throughout the book where I did feel a twinge of sympathy for how wrong her life had gone since she had met Alice, but I still didn't really give two hoots about her!

This didn't stop me being curious about how things panned out, and actually I just found it more fascinating what was happening to her. Usually, when I don't particularly like the main character it would be hard to enjoy the book as it doesn't invoke the right emotions, but I found this was a tale of comeuppance, and one that Alice very well deserved.

On the other side of things, I felt that the author did a very good job of fleshing out the character of Gretchen; I could completely see why she was so captivating to Alice and I loved how manipulating she could be towards her also even if Alice was too stupid herself to see it. Gretchen's character Is unforgettable - her split personality ensures that the reader is engrossed with her latest antics throughout the story. Her character is conniving and convincing; the author gives Gretchen enough background and behavioural traits that she is fully three-dimensional and truly the strongest and most intriguing part of the book. This book literally turned itself as I waited with baited breath to see what new clever way Gretchen was going to force herself out of Alice's life. The story flowed naturally and there was nothing forced or unreal about Gretchen's behaviour, it was all, very creepily apparent that this could happen in real life!

It was also interesting to see how the men were portrayed in this book. This book is really character driven and this is made even more apparent by the lack of actual characters in the book. There are short appearances by Alice's friend Vick and her boyfriend, but the only two other characters in which we learn about is Nick, Alice's boyfriend and Bailey, Gretchen's brother. Both of these men are shown as almost inferior to Alice and Gretchen and I almost felt that their roles in this were unimportant to the whole scheme of things. Both characters seemed easily controlled by the two women which in itself made interesting reading and proved that Alice for all her proclaimed innocence is actually as selfish as Gretchen is shown to be.

The way in which the book is written is also superb. The first chapter shows Gretchen after a suicide attempt and Alice waiting anxiously at her side. With such a dramatic beginning, it was easy for me to get hooked into finding out what caused these events. Setting the scene in this way, and then flashing back to the past and the day that Alice met Gretchen was a great way of developing each character and each relationship. The present hospital situation was referred back to every couple of chapters and with it, another little twist to the tale, one that also made me want to read on as events appeared to be getting darker and darker.

I thought this story was extremely well executed. The main storyline is one that can easily be based in reality, the story is carefully unravelled and it is this subtlety that makes this book such interesting reading. What makes it so realistic is that it is easy to identify with the clever and subtle ways in which female relationships can sour. There is nothing fanciful about it, it really is a tale of how conniving females can be, how tempestuous and competitive their relationships can be with each other - and how women can easily manipulate men (at least some!) in to doing whatever they want! It was enjoyable looking at the female psyche, the way in which we react to each other and the clever ways in which events can take a terrible turn.

One thing I would say is that the cover deceives - this looks like a book which could be light and fluffy, but much like Gretchen, looks can be deceiving...

Summary: A refreshing twist on the female lit genre....