Women About Town

Rating:
Summary: Impossible to stay awake
Review: It's like reading a book dipped in Dove chocolate on a carefree summer day. Enormously fun to read and easily digestible characters dealing with issues common to the modern day career gal. Very short-- only about 200 pages but each word is meaningful and conveys descriptive images and emotions with a distinctive feminine perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Stunningly stylish
Review: It's like reading a book dipped in Dove chocolate on a carefree summer day. Enormously fun to read and easily digestible characters dealing with issues common to the modern day career gal. Very short-- only about 200 pages but each word is meaningful and conveys descriptive images and emotions with a distinctive feminine perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Keen Insights into Single Women in NYC.
Review: Laura Jacobs, a first-time novelist, has written a powerful piece about a pair of women who are thirty-something and unmarried. The two principal characters (who do not meet till the end of the novel) within "Women About Town" are Iris Biddle and Lana Burton, New York City women who aspire towards a successful career and a loving marriage. Biddle creates Iris Originals-one-of-a-kind lampshades-a craft that barely keeps her financially afloat. She is reluctantly single after her husband suddenly vanishes to Africa via a Peace Corps mission. Burton is an up-and-coming art critic who is dating Sam-a man who flinches at any notion that brings him closer to the M-word.
The deftly written chapters on each character leaves us wanting more and asking the proverbial question, "What happens next?" Jacobs' novel is worthy due to its ear for dialog and its ability to capture the emotions within the women's dissatisfied lives. Biddle places a bird ornament upon the Christmas tree and laments, "I'm like you, stuck in old tinsel."
The novel does close on an upbeat tone when Biddle and Burton meet after both witness a career surge. The new hot artist in Manhattan is Biddle; she crosses over to the forum of art with her new stick-design lamps. Burton catches the eye of a prestigious art magazine and is given the assignment to interview her. Jacobs writes believably throughout, however, the climax is too perfect as the character's loose ends are brought together quickly like the ending of a Box-Office movie.


Rating:
Summary: The City, Two Women, And Art -- Wonderfully
Review: Perhaps WOMEN ABOUT TOWN rates low among Amazon readers because of its slow start. True to its praisers, this is a thoughtful, engaging read that succeeds in making you feel that you have gotten to know and appreciate Iris and Lana by the end of the story. This is the stuff of juicy girl talk--and, to be sure, would make a popular women's book club selection. (By the way, any comparison to the heroines of SEX AND THE CITY is short-sighted.)

Rating:
Summary: A delightful surprise
Review: Perhaps WOMEN ABOUT TOWN rates low among Amazon readers because of its slow start. True to its praisers, this is a thoughtful, engaging read that succeeds in making you feel that you have gotten to know and appreciate Iris and Lana by the end of the story. This is the stuff of juicy girl talk--and, to be sure, would make a popular women's book club selection. (By the way, any comparison to the heroines of SEX AND THE CITY is short-sighted.)

Rating:
Summary: Underwhelming...
Review: This is not a loud book and perhaps that is why some other reviews didn't care for it. I was taken completely by suprise and delight as I was expecting a light read in the chick-lit vein and instead got a tight little story of choosing a life of art vs commerce. How those choices effect what must give up and what is gained. It is all the small decisions one makes in the course of a day and most especally how in the quiet one can hear ones own voice in order to make the big choices. As I was recommened it to one friend I descibed it as "a real book", not that it is a tome, I read it in a few hours and wished it wouldn't end. Loved the dialogue and and how the author conveys in a few words such as "flight or nest" all the pathos of having to choose one over the other. This book is full of gems like that. Perhaps if the reader who "skips over entire paragraphs" had taken time to read it in its entirety she would have gotten more out of it. I enjoyed both the main characters and identifed with both but, loved Iris and thought her brillant. To some she was elitist, to me she is a true notch above and rather than be "fashionable" remains true to herself. I wish she were real, I would dearly love to call her a friend.

Rating:
Summary: One that sneeks up on you.
Review: This is not a loud book and perhaps that is why some other reviews didn't care for it. I was taken completely by suprise and delight as I was expecting a light read in the chick-lit vein and instead got a tight little story of choosing a life of art vs commerce. How those choices effect what must give up and what is gained. It is all the small decisions one makes in the course of a day and most especally how in the quiet one can hear ones own voice in order to make the big choices. As I was recommened it to one friend I descibed it as "a real book", not that it is a tome, I read it in a few hours and wished it wouldn't end. Loved the dialogue and and how the author conveys in a few words such as "flight or nest" all the pathos of having to choose one over the other. This book is full of gems like that. Perhaps if the reader who "skips over entire paragraphs" had taken time to read it in its entirety she would have gotten more out of it. I enjoyed both the main characters and identifed with both but, loved Iris and thought her brillant. To some she was elitist, to me she is a true notch above and rather than be "fashionable" remains true to herself. I wish she were real, I would dearly love to call her a friend.

Rating:
Summary: Irritating Iris, Loser Lana
Review: Women About Town is overhyped. The two main characters are Iris and Lana. Initially, every other chapter is devoted to one of them. I could barely continue reading the chapters on Iris. She is self-absorbed and elitist - not in a tragically funny way. Reading about Lana was more interesting, but she lacks real courage when it comes to her relationship with Sam, and is a passive player in the end. The climax of the book, I guess, is when Lana actually interviews Iris in, gasp, Vanity Fair - which is apparently the BEST magazine for all people in the know. When these two pretentious women meet is the climax??? Their conversation lacks integrity, tension, wit. The book is YAWN boring, the entire plotline a complete disappointment. DO NOT READ if your hopes are to laugh, or see some city women really be successful in their lives. Iris and Lana are very small, and now that I have finished the book, I realize they are inconsequential, as well.

Rating:
Summary: Underwhelming...
Review: Yes, it is a "quiet" book --- and, I suppose, the reader is supposed to search beneath the surface to explore the author's subtle inferences, but - why bother??? There is little by way of character development to even care about the people, the plot line was boring, and nothing was said or done that was beyond cursory. A grocery list might have been more entertaining reading. Of course, life is usually mundane, but the author fails to intrigue or even to write in a way that gives the reader new insight or allows us to draw upon our own thoughts or feelings. When I finished the book - a feeling of "so what" crossed my mind and of "ho hum." (Then I usually marvel at some publisher who actually PRINTED such a bunch of nothing fluff.) Usually I pass books along to fellow readers but this one goes directly into the Goodwill bag. Really, don't bother.

Rating:
Summary: Intellectual, Wordy, and Boring
Review: You really have to pinch yourself to keep awake for this book. It reminds me of something they made you read in school - you know that there is a lot of stuff going on under the surface, but you don't really care, and you are left waiting for some action. I skipped over entire paragraphs with wordy descriptions of nothing. If you must read this, get it out of the library and save your money.