A Girl's Best Friend

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful chick lit
Review: A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND by Elizabeth Young

Henry is Isabel Palmer's best friend - and he's a dog. He helps her land the man of her dreams in A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND, the latest novel by Elizabeth Young. Another book under the genre "chick lit", it is probably one of the better ones I've read this year so far.

"Izzy", as many call her, is currently dating Leo, who happens to have some baggage attached to him. He's divorced, has children, and seems to spend more time with the Ex and the kids than Isabel. But she perseveres, knowing that dating a once-married man means she will always be second to his children. She doesn't seem to mind too much that he isn't always reliable to show up on a date, but she knows that he's got other important obligations. However, when Leo cancels at the very last minute a very important party in which he was to meet all her good friends, Isabel has a fit. This is the absolute last straw!

So, Isabel attends the weekend sleepover party without Leo, and ends up meeting Nick, a very good friend of Rob, who is one of her closest and dearest friends. Nick is the replacement for Leo in this costume/murder game party they are all invited to take part in, and despite the fact that he is good looking and has a great body, he still rubs Isabel the wrong way. When Leo shows up unexpectedly, Izzy sees for the first time how jealous Leo can get, and this makes Izzy very happy. It surely must be a sign that things are going very well.

However, things don't go well at all. She eventually finds out that Leo has been fooling around behind her back, and at this point the only male she can trust is Henry, her faithful dog.

I was at first very overwhelmed with the cast of characters in the first few chapters. The chapters depicting the party at Felicity's had nearly every close friend of theirs described to a tee, and I couldn't keep up with who was who. But, overall, the book was very entertaining and it did have a few sad moments, which is not usual for a chick lit book. I'm giving this book 4 stars, and would consider reading other novels by Elizabeth Young.

Rating:
Summary: A Girl's best friend is....
Review: A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND by Elizabeth Young

Henry is Isabel Palmer's best friend - and he's a dog. He helps her land the man of her dreams in A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND, the latest novel by Elizabeth Young. Another book under the genre "chick lit", it is probably one of the better ones I've read this year so far.

"Izzy", as many call her, is currently dating Leo, who happens to have some baggage attached to him. He's divorced, has children, and seems to spend more time with the Ex and the kids than Isabel. But she perseveres, knowing that dating a once-married man means she will always be second to his children. She doesn't seem to mind too much that he isn't always reliable to show up on a date, but she knows that he's got other important obligations. However, when Leo cancels at the very last minute a very important party in which he was to meet all her good friends, Isabel has a fit. This is the absolute last straw!

So, Isabel attends the weekend sleepover party without Leo, and ends up meeting Nick, a very good friend of Rob, who is one of her closest and dearest friends. Nick is the replacement for Leo in this costume/murder game party they are all invited to take part in, and despite the fact that he is good looking and has a great body, he still rubs Isabel the wrong way. When Leo shows up unexpectedly, Izzy sees for the first time how jealous Leo can get, and this makes Izzy very happy. It surely must be a sign that things are going very well.

However, things don't go well at all. She eventually finds out that Leo has been fooling around behind her back, and at this point the only male she can trust is Henry, her faithful dog.

I was at first very overwhelmed with the cast of characters in the first few chapters. The chapters depicting the party at Felicity's had nearly every close friend of theirs described to a tee, and I couldn't keep up with who was who. But, overall, the book was very entertaining and it did have a few sad moments, which is not usual for a chick lit book. I'm giving this book 4 stars, and would consider reading other novels by Elizabeth Young.

Rating:
Summary: A Girl's Best Friend
Review: After reading A Promising Man and Asking for Trouble, I was eager to read more from this author. However, I was a bit disappointed. The first half of the book focuses on many characters who are not even related to the main theme of the book participating in a murder mystery. It feels like the author wanted to write two books, and put them together in this- and it doesn't "flow" very well. It's hard to follow the characters at the beginning and leads to disinterest.

The 2nd half of the book is much more like the previous books I'd read by Elizabeth Young and I quickly got into it then. I'm an Anglophile and found British references/terms in the book even I didn't know. That was a nice touch.

Rating:
Summary: I really really tried to like it...
Review: An enjoyable quick read, if a bit disjointed. I only began to learn Izzy and her friends' names, when they were all allotted aliases at a weekend murder-mystery party. Pay attention to their names early on, and you'll enjoy this witty read.

Great fun. Henry truly is a girl's best friend.

Rating:
Summary: Dogs are better than men because...
Review: An enjoyable quick read, if a bit disjointed. I only began to learn Izzy and her friends' names, when they were all allotted aliases at a weekend murder-mystery party. Pay attention to their names early on, and you'll enjoy this witty read.

Great fun. Henry truly is a girl's best friend.

Rating:
Summary: Paws up!
Review: Elizabeth Young doesn't disappoint with her latest book, "A Girl's Best Friend". It starts a little slow, with a few too many characters to keep track of, but then it picks up the pace and we get to focus on the core characters. Lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing. Just when you think you have it all sussed out, something unexpected happens. I can't wait for her next book! The only complaint I have is that the book on the cover is not Henry!

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful chick lit
Review: Elizabeth Young is one of the very best chick lit authors; her books sparkle with subtle humor and romance. Her heroines are funny, likable and believable, and while they may get into scrapes, they are never stupid or annoying like so many lesser heroines in this genre. Ms. Young's latest, A Girl's Best Friend, does not disappoint. In addition to the marvelous human characters, there's a large, lovable dog too. What more can you ask for?

Rating:
Summary: I really really tried to like it...
Review: I am an avid reader of Chick Lit, and have read and enjoyed others by Elizabeth Young, so I felt kind of guilty about not being able to get into this book. I found myself, about halfway through, just skimming the pages. My interest started to falter with the "Murder Mystery Weekend" with which I found it difficult to keep up. After that, I just couldn't get into the characters. Maybe I'll enjoy her next one more...

Rating:
Summary: Not the author's best...
Review: I bought this book on the strength of A Promising Man and Asking for Trouble, which were good British chick-lit books, a genre I read extensively, even ordering off of amazon/UK to get the books not published here. :)

This book has the author's usual strengths of a very lively storytelling style. She's fun, sparky, and this comes across really well. BUT it's all fun and no substance. This is not a well structured story, there are no real conflicts, the love stories have no impediments - no one is star crossed or suffering, it's just a telling that goes like, first we did this, then we did that, then this happened, then that happened.

The author throws a whole group of characters at us from the get-go, and we're supposed to be interested in all the details that go into planning a murder-mystery dinner, including long descriptions of the characters each character will be playing. The main character is already in a relationship, which seems to be okay, the only real complaint is that Leo spends a lot of time with his kids, and who can fault a man for being a good daddy?

So Izzy just goes along with the tide - she's a very passive character, which does not lead to much drama or comedy either way. She's game for a good time, but since she has no real problems, no real hopes or dreams, nothing at stake or on the line, I couldn't bring myself to care about her or her friends very much.

A good author knows how to create anticipation by giving us a setup that is sure to have a big shoe dropping at some point, then either delivers the shoe we feared or a twist, something unexpected. There's nothing unexpected here, no shoes to drop. So only get this book if you don't care much about plot, and only wish for likeable characters having a good time. I think your money is better spent on the author's other books, and authors like Marian Keyes, Jilly Cooper and Jill Mansell, to name a few, who really know how to give us the whole story package.

Rating:
Summary: Too Much Marketing and Not Enough Story
Review: Maybe I'm naive, but I expect a book's marketing to have some semblance to the story inside the cover. If one were to believe this book's promotion, one would assume that a dog plays a major role in the story's development. Outside of one major scene, he doesn't. People who think that A Girl's Best Friend is primarily a story of a woman who overcomes heartbreak thanks to her faithful dog should realize that it's more accurately described as a story of a woman with a dog that's in the background.

Since the marketing is somewhat disingenuous, one has to cast a wary eye on the narrative itself. While the story is staple "chick lit" tale of a woman who is trying to find "Mr. Right", the way in which it unfolds is different (albeit not in a positive way). One first notices this different style upon seeing the torrent of characters that Young unleashes within the first 50 pages. While most of these characters fade into the background as the story develops, the overwhelming way in which they were presented leaves the impression that Young was trying to make a more epic story than the subject matter could support. The book's other interesting feature is that it is centered around three major scenes. This organizational style leaves the reader with the feeling that they are reading three short stories, and not one novel, that share the same characters.

I've usually found that there's trouble present when a book's marketing doesn't match its story. Fortunately, A Girl's Best Friend isn't abysmal. It is a basic, but unremarkable, addition to the "chick lit" genre. Still, it might have been more memorable had Young not overloaded the reader with characters and weakly tried to tie three stories into one. Given these flaws, one should pass on this "dog."