Escape the reality

Review: Sue Leonard

Saffy works in advertising. She’s going out with Greg, a soap super stud, and she’s waiting for him to pop the question. Meanwhile best buddies Conor, and the stunning natural beauty Jess, are struggling to cope, both with their twins, and their finances.

The novel takes the couples through struggle and turmoil. There’s a wedding; a lost hamster; a botched career or three; but will love win out in the end?

This book ticks all the chick-lit boxes. There are shining, beautiful people, and a few flawed ones thrown in. There are issues too. There’s illness and breaks in friendship. Conor struggles to teach trenchant teenagers, when all he wants to do is write that novel. As for Ella, she never knew her father. Is that why she yearns for security?

This 400-pager is well constructed. Ella once wrote a short film, and the novel is full of scenes that would convert well to the screen. One of the final reconciliation scenes, played out in public, with a fascinated audience, is reminiscent of a rom-com.

Ella secured an English publisher, and is rumoured to have received a hefty advance. So will she be one of the lucky ones to establish a niche and secure a profitable future? It’s possible, but there is something lacking. And that’s a sense of reality.

Take the recession. We know this is set in the present. We know she’s writing about recessionary times. When Greg is organising his lavish celebrity wedding, Jess, who hates the idea of marriage, says to Conor: “You think it’s nice to spend a fortune on a wedding in a recession? You think it’s nice that our consumer driven society has turned love and commitment into a multi-billion-euro industry that preys on idiots who don’t know any better?”

But she doesn’t carry this theme through. Greg is broke after the event, but surely he would have been wildly in debt — even having sold his designer car.

And in advertising, life seems to carry on as lavishly as in the Tiger years. Shopping continues in earnest too. And it’s all designer.

The plot is a bit wishy washy too. There’s little communication going on, and lots of lying. Is it credible, if Jess loves Conor, that she would so oppose his dream of publication? Would they, if they are as sensitive as they are portrayed, really stop talking and let minor disagreements fester so dramatically?

And would the tough Saffy lie to a new beau about being married? The wedding was covered in the papers for God’s sake. Would she really risk her happiness with all the untruths?

Then there’s that ending. We want it rosy, but it would be nice if it weren’t so neat and abrupt.

Nicer still if there weren’t those loose ends. What happened to Becky? Did Conor’s growing feelings for her evaporate? It felt as if the author was panicking about a deadline and just pulled the plug.

This is a well written, well paced romp through a Dublin that doesn’t feel recessionary. It’ll provide an escape from all that. It provides entertainment and a lot of laughs. But don’t expect the originality and genuine emotion you’ll get in a Marian Keyes, or a Kate Thompson.