~Getting Over It~

by Anna Maxted

      Heroine: Average

     Unhappy Helen Bradshaw with her dreary job, emotionally-distant family, and her more-fizzling-than-sizzling love life is already stressed out and can barely cope when presented with her father's sudden death and her mother's ensuing bout of depression.

      Thank heavens she has a sickly pet cat and fair-weather friends to ignore her, unstable family members to hound her, and a parade of attractive men to distract her from the confusion and pain of letting go of a father who was never very close to her.

      What worked for me:

    For a book that was billed as a light, funny read it was startlingly dark at times, with its brief flashes of insight into the human psyche lending it some much-needed depth.

     Size-wise Helen had been a plump bespectacled teenager, and even though she slimmed down somewhat as an adult she was less than thrilled with her flat chest and short stocky legs.

What didn't work for me:    

      Like most chick lit, the characters in this story (particularly the main one) started out as painfully shallow and self-centered, and put themselves through the most horrific of unnecessary social experiences.  This combination was hard to take even despite the certain knowledge that most of them would eventually become better people and settle down to a more stable lifestyle.

Overall:

       Fans of British Chick Lit might appreciate this story of yet another long-suffering Singleton.

Warning: there are some coarse words and sexual references in this story.  And I wouldn't recommend giving a copy of it to anyone who recently lost a loved one.

If you liked "Getting Over It" you might also enjoy "Love at Large", "Coffee and Kung Fu", "Bridget Jones's Diary", "Good in Bed", "Last Chance Saloon", "Jemima J." and "Having It and Eating It".

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