Going Home, by Harriet Evans

I must say, I was very, very disappointed in this book. It makes me so sad, because the first book I read from this author, "Hopeless Romantic" was an awesome book! But this book was just 400 pages of getting to the point, and then the point just not really mattering! It was all about this one thing, and then in the end, she decides it's not really a big deal anymore. There's love, lies, betrayal, drama, Brit speak (which some of it was just confusing and hard to understand....), and it is sooo much fluff that the whole center of the book becomes unimportant. It takes to long to get there, then it is gone. The ending is also really predictable and did nothing for me. Overall, this book blew. This post is kind of confusing, but that is how I felt when I read it! There are some other books of her I wanted to read, but I don't know now. This was her debut novel, and maybe that is why "Hopeless Romantic" was so much better, because she had this disaster under her belt. I give this book a D. =-(

Jemima J, by Jane Green

This was a fun, escapist, Bit Chick Lit type book. A really fast read too. It is about severely overweight Jemima Jones, who lives in a small town in London and works for a newspaper. She is in love with a coworker, but because of her size, he only sees as a friend (typical). She lives with horrible roomates and had one real friend, who also works at the newspaper. The three friends discover the Internet and Internet dating, and Jemima soon develops an alter ego who goes by JJ. JJ meets Brad in a chat room and the two become involved. Pictures are exchanged. He is a Californian babe, blonde, perfect white teeth, buff and fit. So obviously JJ sends over a photo shopped picture. Soon Brad invites JJ to CA, which sets JJ off on a health kick and she gets all kinds of skinny and beautiful. She flies to LA, meets Brad, has amazing sex, but does not feel love. Brad has a secretary who HATES JJ for no apparent reason. This secretary, Jenny, is overweight and JJ tries to confide in her about how she used to be, but Jenny will hear none of it. Soon the reader, and JJ discover Brad has a BIG secret. Jenny. Jenny and Brad are in love, but since they live in superficial CA, they could never be together, so Brad needed a trophy wife, aka, JJ. JJ leaves, runs into her original love, Ben, from London, they have sex, its better than with Brad, they go home to London and live happily ever after, and she stays skinny.

Cute story, but I have a hard time believing that any woman, no matter what her size, would not be ok with the man they love shacking up with another woman just to save face. I thought the story was good up until that point, because in real life, even though people are, sadly, that shallow, they are usually not that generous. People who are that shallow tend to be selfish. It was one thing for Jenny to hate JJ, but for the relationship she (JJ) and Brad had together would have been enough to make any woman, no matter how big and self conscious, leave without blinking an eye. I don't know. That's just my opinion.

Like I said, it was a pretty quick read, with good character development and a pretty decent story line. But for that one little twist, I have to give this book a C. It just wasn't believable to me!!