Living the Dream
Lauren Berry
Emma is a personal assistant to a slightly crazy boss, but would rather be a writer. She spends her days sending unsolicited written pieces to potential magazines and posting feminist blog rants. She spends her nights drinkin’ it up with her best mate Clem, because Clem has problems of her own. Instead of the film making life Clem envisaged from distant New York, Clem is drowning in debt and bartending for a living. Can they change their ways?
I read this novel for a bit of light hearted reading. Am I not a professional woman? Oh wait, I am, but I love my job(s)! Most of this novel is about not ‘Living the Dream’ and actually ‘Living the Grind’ until certain events take place to tip Emma over into doing something with her life!
Honestly, I’m not sure what Clem is complaining about. Yes, it’s hard to find a job with no experience, yes, I know you don’t want to work a boring job for your stepfather again, but seriously! Get a grip girl and get a job! Bartending and not drinking the profits might be a bright idea. Or perhaps not doing cocaine with your boss on the job…
Also, I have issues with the amount of money they waste on booze! Haven’t these millennials ever thought about planning ahead? You could easily quit your job and not rake in the money, and build a blog following to support your writing habit – if you actually saved money instead of spending it. Oh dear, that might have been my underlying problem with this novel that made me not love it, or even appreciate it much.
Honestly, I think that I’ll Eat When I’m Dead was a better novel than this, and I only gave that one 3 stars! Perhaps they are on par because I’m giving this one 3 stars as well. No no, it was the regulars that I liked more perhaps… Women’s Fiction is just not my thing – in my defense, I didn’t request this one (to my knowledge), but I DID make the decision to use some of my precious reading time on it.
Hachette Australia | 11th July 2017 | AU $29.99 | paperback
I’m really frustrated by this book because it started off quite promisingly with a woman that is suffering from unexplained body pain, who then was able to recover by using this special psychic therapy. Which of course manipulates her emotions, and her practitioner’s emotions, lining her up perfectly to be the…
This was like eating a really bad, stale peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I chewed my way patiently through the first 1/4 of the book, sitting through honestly a quite boring backstory and the party lives of Cat, Bess and some random other person they went to school with. Then, I got some tasty jelly, where we got into the crux of the investigations into the murder and a bit of development of a on-again off-again relationship between Cat and the detective. AND THEN, someone forgot to put the peanut butter in. The next 1/4 was simply Cat and Bess being swaddled around with Cat hating the experience and Bess being pretty happy about it. Then there’s another bit of bread of nothing even really happening until the end. I didn’t care about Cat or Bess enough for it to matter at that point.
This novel was sent to me by mistake by Allen & Unwin, but I decided to read it anyway. I love music and appreciate artist talent, despite not having much talent (or none, when it comes to art) and so I thought it could be good. Instead, I was hit with Ginny’s romance, and very little writing! I was frustrated that she didn’t do more with her art. I also found it unrealistic in how talented simply EVERYONE was.
Sold as a ‘Coming of Age’ novel, I honestly don’t know why I kept reading this novel. Linda doesn’t even make a choice, as promised in the blurb. She just wanders along in her own life, with no absolution and no explanations.
This novel hit me. The writing is powerful and it makes the reader slip effortlessly inside each of the women’s minds. Each has a unique view of the world, and their place in it – it seems like they are running their lives, but really there are external, unknown factors making an impact. The reader will be invested irrevocably in the story.
This is some Women’s Fiction with a bite! This actually clearly attempts to take down societal norms, even if it is in-you-face with obviousness of what is being taken down. There’s a lot of drama, some of which is probably needless, and that fits in with this genre too. Contrary to normal for me though, I actually really enjoyed this novel.
Unfortunately the blurb gave away pretty much everything in the past sections of the novel. I was promised a suspenseful novel, but from the outset I knew what would probably happen. Then, finally, I HATED the ending of this novel.
What sold the first novel to me was missing in this novel. While there were interlocking storylines, it didn’t ‘have the mystery of the first novel. It also lapsed back into too descriptive prose – the one line that has stuck with me is that Logan wears Burt’s Bees Cranberry flavour.
Dear me. This novel. Where to start with its faults. There weren’t enough clues for the reader to really feel like they were on the scene. I was told how to feel about every situation, I didn’t need to think for myself. Again, the blurb gives away too much of the novel contents.