| Title: | Lucky Girl | |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Cate Lord | |
| Publication Date: | 9/6/11 | |
| Publisher's Description | Jessica Devlin isn’t looking for love. Heartbroken after being dumped by her unfaithful ex-fiancé, she’s determined to have a fabulous time during her vacation in England where she’ll be maid-of-honor at her cousin’s wedding. After working overtime as beauty editor of Orlando’s O Tart magazine, avoiding dating, and putting on ten pounds, Jess is ready to toss her past like an empty lipstick tube and party like a single gal. But when she steps into the church on her cousin’s wedding day, she sees the one man who could sabotage her plan—James-Bond-gorgeous Nick Mondinello. She’s never forgotten the London marketing exec who held her in his arms after her beloved grandfather’s funeral two years ago. Ambitious, and lusted after by women everywhere, Nick is completely wrong for guarded, Plain Jane Jess. Could Spy Man Nick ever fall for her? Nope. Not unless Jess is one lucky girl. |
|
| My rating: | *** | |
Reading this book was the literary equivalent of eating cotton candy. It was sweet and fun to consume, but there was very little of substance in it. Either Jess had the worst self-esteem ever, or she just held some sort of cross-Atlantic appeal for all these English guys, because I never quite got what there was about her that was so amazing. There’s luck, but whatever she was tapping into to set into motion this chain of events had to be something else entirely. Ultraluck? Uberluck? Jess seemed like a nice, normal 29-year-old American woman, but she went over there, drank an astonishing amount of alcohol (which my English friends assure me isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker in the UK), and suddenly she was the hottest thing since sliced bread. Hmmm…hold on, I have to buy a plane ticket.
Still, once I moved past Jess’s inexplicable awesomeness, her story was the type of modern-day fairy tale that any fan of chick lit/romantic comedies would enjoy. Hot English guy totally intent on reconnecting with our plucky heroine? An opportunity to bond with sweet, biddable, and friendly English cousins? An opportunity to read about a character who revels in all is girly? Check check and check.
Jess’s mom and Miranda made for mostly obnoxious tertiary characters. What was her mother’s deal? She seemed too fragile to be as great as Jess made her out to be. What about her dad? Did her British family even wonder about their long-lost member? And for a purported best friend, Miranda didn’t seem to know Jess very well, at least according to her reactions in a couple of scenes. I’m glad that Miranda spent this book making new connections, because the people she already had in her life left something to be desired.
I found Jess’s love of her dorky tv show adorable but inexplicable, although as a diehard Buffy fan who bonded with her boyfriend over this show, I’m in no position to judge. All in all, Lucky Girl (wow, such an apt title!) is a good story to read on a lazy afternoon, but this one falls firmly in the chick lit genre, and probably won’t appeal to those who don’t enjoy these types of books.
Leave a Reply