Rating: Summary: Young (First) Wives (Club) Review: I've heard of plots being reused, but this is ridiculous! This novel is virtually the 'First Wives Club' disguised as three of the most gullible women I have ever read about. All of the husbands are snakes and you just wish you could kick Angela, Michelle, and Jada for falling for their 'poor me' acts. When the three women come together, they form an alliance to rival Charlie's Angels. They do their detective work and come up with hilarious ways to do their exes in. The Super Glue incident is a work of art in itself. That and the fact that these women finally stand up for themselves is the reason I give this book 3 stars. One really annoying thing about this book is the acronyms that Jada uses throughout (LUMPS=Lying, Ugly Male Pigs, NUP=Natural Unit Preferences)...I had to keep going back to find out what they meant because she uses so many of them it gets confusing. Otherwise, this book is OK, just a rehashing of an already successful story.
Rating: Summary: Sad, Funny and some ingenuous revenge Review: Jada, Angie and Michelle are the three heroines in the piece. They are great friends with terrible husbands. But then what would a Goldsmith novel be without "terrible" men. It was sad and funny...the bit about the crazy glue was brilliant! No, not all men are as scummy as the ones found in a Goldsmith novel but hey, this is fiction folks! I enjoy the author's sense of humor and her rich imagination when she plots out the heroines revenge. An enjoyable read.
Rating: Summary: I have heard it before Review: Young Wives had funny moments and had a realistic plot but I found sounding to much like, The First Wives Club. I did like that it showed woman gaining strength and independent from their lying, cheating and even no-working husbands. Then banding together to seek revenge and to be sucessful in the end. Unfortunely, I had already read that in the book The First Wives Club. How about something new, Olivia.
Rating: Summary: We are shown good examples of other people's realities Review: If you're expecting another First Wives Club, like the published reviewers suggest, you won't get it. This book has sadder, more common plights in store for the main characters and their marriages. It takes longer to get justice and revenge, BUT THEY DO! It's just not nearly as entertaining getting there. This was not an escape for me, like First Wives Club was. Rather, this was a wake up call, a glimpse of how it is for women with husbands who are either deadbeats, dealers, or cheaters. And I'm not giving away anything that's not revealed quickly. The book's point is not to discover these things, but rather to solve them. It's a deep book, very thorough. It tells a woman how to fend for herself, even when circumstances and people hinder self-reliance. It's not farfetched, just long.
Rating: Summary: No one gets revenge like Olivia Goldsmith Review: Olivia Goldsmiths books are getting to be formulaic-woman wronged, woman gets revenge-but the revenge part is just so much fun! In this novel, the protagonists are three women in their thirties-the young wives of the title. Their husbands have secret lives, cheating drug dealing, and the marriages fall apart. They all get together at a legal clinic for victimized women and the fun begins. Definitely worth reading!
Rating: Summary: Typical Goldsmith -- high high quality mind candy Review: I read this book in one (very LATE) evening. This is what always happens to me when I buy an Olivia Goldsmith book. Why? Well, she is a fluent writer, with a fine sense of pacing. She has a devious mind, with which she plays out every revenge fantasy you ever had. Now, it is certainly true that Goldsmith chooses the landscape between men and women as the venue for her most outrageous revenge escapades, and thus men in her books fall into three categories: (1) complete slime balls who deserve far worse than ever happens to them in these books (2) wonderful gentle perfect men who turn out to be the ideal love interest for the women who were treated badly by men of type #1 (3) supporting characters, who, when they do not fall into categories #1 and #2, always turn out to be gay This book is no exception. Bad men, loving women who were done wrong, revenge which tosses the men farther down than they tossed their women, and lots of emotional catharsis. The three main characters had the usual Goldsmith adventures and all ended up significantly better off than they had been at the beginning of the book. (And at the beginning of the book, two of them thought they had great marriages.) You don't have to believe all men are pigs to enjoy this fiction, but you do have to be willing to believe that smart women frequently choose men who turn out to be pigs. Put aside what you know about real men, and their complex combinations of good and bad qualities, and wallow in the rollicking story provided for your spare-time enjoyment. What can I say? It was great fun.
Rating: Summary: Another GREAT book by Olivia Goldsmith... Review: 5 stars is not enough! Make it 10 or even more! I picked the book up last night and just could not put it down! I am at work and can't wait to go home and read more!
Rating: Summary: I inhaled this book in the space of 24 hours Review: Goldsmith novels are definitely guilty pleasures, and this one is no different--guilty because the husbands in this book are such bastards, and while I feel it's unfair to men, it also feels so good to just hate these 3 guys and watch them get their comeuppance! Apparently I have some unresolved anger, there. Goldsmith is back at the top of her form here, after the disappointing Marrying Mom and Switcheroo. My one complaint concerns the form of their revenge: since Jada's husband was using the system to beat her up, I would have preferred to see her use the system to ruin him. A revenge that turns her into an "outlaw" is not so sweet. It seems to me that Goldsmith put a lot of thought into the ruin of our 3 heroines, and not enough into the forms of revenge that would be the most satisfying.
Rating: Summary: Excellent book Review: I was hooked on this book from the beginning. Jada and Michelle ended up with pretty lousy husbands. As the story progressed I got more and more interested and by the end I couldn't put the book down. I couldn't wait to find out how the girls got back at their scum ex-husbands. I've enjoyed all of Olivia Goldsmith's novels and look forward to reading future ones.
Rating: Summary: More mean spirited than her previous books Review: I have read "Switcheroo" and saw the "First Wives Club". Ms. Goldsmith's themes seem to constantly center on all-men-as-dogs-who-eventually-cheat-on-you-no-matter-what-you-do. She is the Caucasian Terri McMillan. Even though the premise of "Switcheroo" is implausible, I found myself accepting it enough to keep my attention. However, I found this book to be just mean spirited as evidenced by these friends, tied together by cheating husbands. Even though one may want to exact revenge on someone who has hurt them, I generally feel that it is not worth it if it hurts someone else or could potentially hurt yourself. The situation the wives found themselves in to exact revenge on a husband could have potentially gone really bad and I actually was afraid for them, not rooting for them. The book might have been more productive had it centered on the women's friendship and strengths they gathered from each other during their difficult discoveries. I ended up not finishing this book because I couldn't find enough redeeming qualities in it. I have read stories about couples where there has been infidelities and, slowly with time, healing and renewed respect for the other partner, the marriage is saved. An infidelity can be both devasting and unforgiveable but it also can be survived. Also, if one wants to leave a marriage, fine, but one should not necessary advocate to everyone who goes through the same experience to do the same. I know we need a healthy dose of cynicism once in a while, but there is already an anti-marriage sentiment out there and there is no reason to continue to feed into it. The characters were pretty decent and I especially admired the black character for her loyalty to everyone in the book. I could tell, however, that her character was written by someone not of her racial background. Other than that, this is a good book about friendship and support, a bad book about marriage.
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