Rating: 
Summary: Bad editing ruins potential.
Review: The main character, Sandra Berlin, finds out that her fiance (and high school sweetheart) is engaged to not one but two other women. The rest of the book is about Sandra trying to find herself with the help of bad dates, her gay best friend Paul Romano (who contracts AIDS), and an office full of friends who all seem to use cocaine. The book is set in Manhattan, in the 80's. The use of that decade didn't make much sense beside the cocaine use (even though it is probably wider used today) and the lack of knowledge about AIDS. The books was slow paced and often-times choppy because the use of transitions was pretty weak. There seemed to be a lot of unneeded material. Paul was such a wonderful character, though. He added life and sense into his best friend's life. He is, by far, the funniest character in the book. His trials in life really did a lot to salvage the book for Witchel. As for Sandra, herself, she is supposedly supposed to be a really smart person. The author mentions this fact many times, but doesn't do much to highlight this characteristic. In fact, she seems to shadow her intelligence by giving Sandra a career as an Arts and Entertainment editor, when she actually doesn't know much about the subject. Most of the trouble with this book was bad editing. The story should have been spiced up and smoother.
Rating: 
Summary: a well-constructed tale
Review: Despite its bright yellow cover, Me Times Three is not a cheery book. I was expecting a fluffy romantic comedy and instead found a darker, more thoughtful novel. Me Times Three documents approximately one year in the life of New York fashion magazine minion, Sandra Berlin, as she discovers that her boyfriend of 9 years is engaged to not one, not two, but three women. A small consolation is that she is one of those women. Although the jacket cover implies that this is a book about a jilted single women dating, it is more about Sandra's relationships with just a few people whom she has known for a long time. Among them are Paul, her best friend, and Bucky, the ex-fiance. I thought Witchel did a great job showing where Paul and Bucky's lives intersected with Sandra's and how those intersections define Sandra's life, but not Paul or Bucky's. The narrative is sprinkled with charming "fairy tales", but this is not a whimsical book in the Bridget Jones fashion nor is it tender like The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I thought it was most akin to A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing in its tone.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent! Sorry to see the negative feedback!
Review: Hmmm... I wonder if they read the same book I did. I found it delightful, true to life, funny, satirical, and enlightening. I am 51, so I enjoyed the younger woman outlook with the maturity of having been through some of those same situations! The fractured fairy tales interspersed really added to and interpreted the maturity that the main character, Sandra Berlin, gained as the story progressed. The story of her gay best friend was very real to me and I thought she did an excellent job of covering all the bases in dealing with the death and dying of a friend with AIDS. I listened to it on an audiotape first and then purchased a copy. It was excellent entertainment during my daily commute.
Rating: 
Summary: Rewrite, please
Review: Sandra Berlin is a twenty-something young woman who comes to New York and lands herself a job on a new magazine, working under a mean-natured boss. She discovers in short order that her long-time boyfriend and current fiance is engaged to two other women besides herself (no explanation as to what's going on there) and that her gay best friend had AIDS. She also meets a handsome, talented, on-the-verge-of-eligible writer. The rest of the story plays out without any surprises. In fact, that is pretty much the story, which moves with facility but not a lot of substance along to its inevitable ending. Alex Witchel writes well when it comes to manipulating the language and putting together a nice turn of phrase. And her premise has a lot of potential. But the packaging and marketing promise humor that isn't there, and the overwhelming reaction on finishing the book is likely to be "So what?" In a market saturated with books about twenty-somethings finding the ideal man, it's a pity she didn't have an editor at least as good as her protagonist to push for one more rewrite.
Rating:
Summary: Unoriginal, yes, but still enjoyable book for women.
Review: Although I agree with the other reviewers who compared this book to Bridget Jones' Diary, I disagree with the premise that you shouldn't read it based on its lack of originality alone. Although clearly similar to Bridget Jones and other books of that vain, I found that Me Times Three has a more serious element (similar to Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed). Set in NYC during the 1980s, the book does focus on romantic relationships and the working world but also addresses more serious issues such as AIDS. The title really doesn't fully encompass the story--yes, the main character discovers that her fiance is engaged to two other women, but this quickly becomes a minor plotline as the story progresses to other issues. The book is both funny and touching, and overall, I found it to be an engaging read which I would recommend to anyone else who enjoys books of this genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful, painful, painful
Review: I picked this book up at my local library and checked it out based solely on the Sarah Jessica Parker quote on the back. Let's just say the 5 hours it took me to read this book are 5 hours of my life I will never get back. Boring, poorly written, predictable. Who edited this book??
Rating:
Summary: Why was this written?
Review: I borrowed this book from a friend believing that it was going to be another one of those funny "chick-lit" books that I could breeze through in a couple of days with a few laughs. That is not what was in store for me. I like to read all kinds of different literature though so that wasn't necessarily a problem. However, the back cover had me believing that the story would center on Sandy's bad break-up with her high school sweetheart. (He was seeing two other women while seeing her). This horrible thing he did was mentioned throughout the book, but I never felt that it was really solved. Meanwhile, I was expecting to get into other aspects of her life. She works for a magazine as an editor of some sort(stereotypical of chick lit) and she tries to date again. Nothing EVER really happens with any of that though. Just boring paragraph upon boring paragraph. (Except for the chapters regarding her gay best friend who has moved to California.) These chapters were the only reason I gave this book 3 stars instead of 1 or 2. If the book had been more about that relationship and about what was going on there, it would have been more interesting. I felt like the author kept taking a side tour with that story and completely neglecting the rest of her life. *Semi-spoiler* (it's all totally predictable and uninteresting anyway) Basically, she gets a wake-up call in love, gets terrible news about her friend, deals with it, gets a new job, and maybe sort of has a new boyfriend. Nothing spectacular. Rereading my own diary is more entertaining and interesting that this book. There are definitly books out there that are less disappointing and more fun. Don't waste your time and read one of those instead!
Rating:
Summary: Misleading
Review: At first, the plot seemed interesting enough--three women engaged to one man. Just what were the women going to do, destroy his life? Blackmail him?
The answer is nothing at all. The plot was barely there throughout most of the book, keeping at an extremely slow pace and not going into detail. Sandra Berlin, the main character, fails to rouse interest, and I rarely found myself rooting for her, if at all. Even the short stories that Sandra writes are cliche and shallow. This is not one of the best so-called "chick-lit" books out there.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful escapist read!
Review: I loved this book. It was the perfect enjoyable page-turner that I was hoping for. As a new mom, my day is spent with my baby and not much else, so I relish a good book that keeps part of me firmly planted in the world of grown-ups. I genuinely cared about the protagonists in the book. I really liked Sandra Berlin and felt her joys and pains. My enjoyment of this book caused me to finish it in one week. Alex Witchel did a beautiful job of describing all of the characters and I found her writing to be witty enough for me to dog ear pages to read passages to my husband so he could enjoy the laughs with me. I hope Alex Witchel continues to write novels. I'm a fan.
Rating:
Summary: Better than expected
Review: After buying this book and then seeing the reviews I didn't expect to enjoy it. However, I found it an easy read amd more thoughtful than a lot of the usual "chick lit". I've read many books rated higher that didn't make me feel at all for the characters which this book did.
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