Babyville

Rating:
Summary: Great twists!
Review: After reading all of Jane Green's previous work, I was a bit nervous to embark on "Babyville" because I have still not read a Green novel that I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed "Jemima J."

I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy Babyville and was very pleased with all the twists in the stories and odd coincidences. I find that my life tends to be a series of such coincidences, and was captivated by Green's ability to lay the foundation for such a great story without giving it away in the beginning of the book.

Green's style is one that I will continue to enjoy and I am looking forward to her next novel.

Rating:
Summary: I'm offended!
Review: If you have ever struggled to conceive, please don't buy this book! I thoroughly enjoyed the story until the last page, which read, "The stress of wanting to conceive can stop conception happening". One of the main characters, Julia, who has difficulty conceiving, suddenly becomes pregnant at the end of the story, ostensibly because she has stopped trying. For those of us who have suffered through the agony of infertility, it is nearly unendurable to have idiots like Jane Green chalk it all up to stress. Women in war-torn Bosnia conceived, for Pete's sake. Stress does not cause infertility!

Rating:
Summary: Babyville
Review: This was the first Jane Green book I read and now I'm hooked! Once you start reading, you can't put it down. I recommend any of her other books too!

Rating:
Summary: Baby WOW!!!!!
Review: I enjoyed reading "Babyville." I do, however, agree with the reviewer that said Maeve's story was the best of the 3. Sam was a whiny witch and Julia was a desperate girlfriend. I felt Mark and Maeve were sooo much better together. As for Dan....haven't we girls met someone like him in our lives at one time or another?

Rating:
Summary: How I love Jane Green
Review: Jane Green is one of my all time favorite authors and this book again proves why. What I love about her books is how everyone is completly different. I am a single 23 year old and I still adored this book, do not let the subject matter scare you away from reading this book. This book is told in three stories, after the stories you are disappointed when it ends. But do not put the book down or mourn too much because everything makes sense in the end. At times I hated the the characters think why is she soo stuiped. But at the same time you fall in love with every character. This is why I love Jane Green Books. She shows all of the heroines in a human light. If you do not buy this book or another on of Jane Greens book you are missing out on an amazing author and stories.

Rating:
Summary: Moving with the times...
Review: Most authors of the single-woman-looking-for-love-and-success-in-the-big-city genre are housewives from the suburbs. I find it interesting. I mean, why aren't they writing about the ball and chain? And the ones that do write about marriage use some sort of gimmick, like infidelity.

Jane Green is one of my favorite chick-lit writers. She is now married with children and has made the slow transition into writing about what she now knows. You only have to read the title of this novel to know what it's about.

The novel centers on the lives of three rather different women whose lives are intertwined by circumstances. Julia is a successful television producer in a relationship rut. She thinks that having a baby will salvage the relationship. She ignores the fact that her relationship with Mark has been doomed to fail from the beginning -- after all, he's not her type and they have nothing in common -- and becomes obsessed with getting pregnant. But things become all the more complicated for the couple...

Maeve, unlike Julia, cringes at the mere thought of having a baby. The feisty, no-nonsense redhead is focused on her career. When a one-night stand leaves her pregnant, Maeve finds herself reevaluating her priorities...

Samantha is Julia's best friend. Julia envies the fact that Samantha is the proud mother of a newborn. However, things aren't as blissful in Sam's life as they seem. Motherhood has changed her life in unexpected ways. Looking after her husband and child, she wonders if this is as good as it gets. She resents her single friends and wishes she had a bit of freedom. Is having an affair the answer to her problems?

Babyville does not have the edge and sparkle of Green's previous novels, but it is far more insightful and realistic. More important, Ms. Green has moved with the times and is writing about what she now knows, and I have to give her props for that. This is her best work since Jemima J. Highly recommended...

Rating:
Summary: Thumbs up!
Review: BABYVILLE by Jane Green

There is good chick lit, and there is bad chick lit. BABYVILLE by Jane Green is good chick lit. Why? It's not just some inane story about a 20-something working girl that is out there developing a career and finding Mr. Right at the same time and getting in to all sorts of trouble. Instead, Jane Green writes three realistic stories that are connected by common characters and each story centers on the theme of having a baby.

In the first part, Julia is a career girl who finds her life falling apart due to an obsession over getting pregnant. She's not married, but she thinks she's got a great relationship going with boyfriend Mark, but for some reason she's not perfectly happy. She thinks that if they have a baby, their relationship will be solid and she'll be the happiest girl in the world. Unfortunately, her obsession about getting pregnant takes on a dark turn, as it affects her relationship and her job in a bad way.

In the second part, Maeve, who the reader meets briefly during Julia's story, is a career woman who is just that - all career, nothing else. She has no need to be married or to have a steady relationship, let alone a baby. But, after only one fling that should not have happened, Maeve finds that her body is changing, and before she knows it, she realizes she is pregnant. What is a career girl to do?

In part three, Sam (Samantha) has her baby and her husband, but she is so fixated on her baby that nothing else seems to matter. Because of her obsession, her husband is being neglected. She doesn't see this. All she knows is that she feels like she's stuck in the house with no one to help her, and yet she does not go out to seek friends, help, or anything else for that matter. What should have been a perfect family situation turns into something stifling and suffocating as Sam's obsession with her baby consumes her and makes life miserable for those around her. When she finally meets her husband's co-worker Jill, as well as Jill's husband Dan, her obsession over her baby soon moves to Dan. She thinks her troubles are over, but are they?

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed BABYVILLE. These stories were not the typical chick lit material. They had depth and I found that the characters were believable and somewhat likeable (I personally didn't care for Julia, but that's just my opinion! She was a bit too self-centered for me!). I definitely recommend BABYVILLE!

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as her others
Review: I was a bit disappointed in this novel. It is written in a different pattern than her other books I've read. It tells the story in three parts, each about a different woman's "baby" experiences, although all 3 stories are interrelated and basically chronological. I say basically chronological because I actually felt that the timeline didn't quite add up. I had that same feeling in reading 'Jemima J', too. If I had cared enough about this book, I would have gone back to the first part to re-read it to double check, but one reading of this book was plenty for me.

Perhaps I don't have the same appreciation for this story because I don't have kids of my own and cannot personally relate to the experience. IMO, the middle section about Maeve is the most like Green's other works that I like so much, so it was the most redeeming part of the book. However, you have to read the entire book to understand how it fits together.

Rating:
Summary: Read it...
Review: I loved this book. It is my favorite Jane Green book yet.

Rating:
Summary: quick read! loved it!
Review: I am a first timer to Jane Green and I couldn't wait to find the time to read Babyville each day. I finished it in a matter of days and am off to buy one of her others now.

I enjoyed getting to know and spend time with the different characters in the book and watch how their lives intertwined with one another.

I really enjoyed Babyville and hope I'll enjoy Jane Green's other books as much.