Rating: 
Summary: Basements in Southern California?
Review:
"The last fifteen years of failed dates, the boys with wandering hands, the boys whose hands didn't wander enough, the ones who left and the ones who wouldn't let me leave. They didn't deserve to walk into a room with Cassandra French on their arm."
Thus, with that dysfunctional experience with male-female relationships in her past, 29-year old Cassandra French, employed in the business office of a Los Angeles movie studio, proactively sets out to mold three young men with promise - her "boys" - into the New Age men they could be, replete with polished manners, polite language, sensitivity to a woman's needs, chivalry, and good fashion sense. Cassie has kept Owen, Alan and Daniel chained to cots in the basement of her Westwood home for months, alternating behavioral modification "lessons" with doses of calming morphine. (I've lived in SoCal for five decades, and have never been in a home with a basement. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, my Dad built a bomb shelter under our garage - but that doesn't count.)
CASSANDRA FRENCH'S FINISHING SCHOOL FOR BOYS is, believe it or not, a remarkably comedic novel. Author Eric Garcia pulls this off by making his heroine decidedly unhinged, but not cruel or even unkind. Indeed, she reads her charges bedtime stories, tucks them in at lights out, entertains them with games and a regular "movie night", keeps them properly fed, and fully intends to release them back into the world once they "graduate". But things begin to unravel when she "enrolls" in her school a famous actor who'd seduced and bedded her for uncommonly selfish and boorish reasons. Once under restraint and in her control, he subsequently dies in a freak accident involving chains, manacles, electric current, and yoga.
I haven't come across such an engaging female lead since Rebecca Bloomwood of Sophie Kinsella's SHOPAHOLIC series. Even when faced with the immediate problem of body disposal, in which caper she involves her best friend Claire, Cassie still has the presence of mind to notice the quality of Claire's cashmere sweater and footwear, and discuss corpse removal options over Amaretto and low-fat Fig Newtons.
I'm not awarding five stars because the ending seemed forced - perhaps not surprising considering the bizarre and implausible storyline that Garcia backed French into. But the plot is inventive and light, and would make the perfect vehicle for a Big Screen movie starring Sandra Bullock.
Rating:
Summary: Insane Comedy
Review: Cassandra French is an underemployed Hollywood lawyer with too much time on her hands, a mother who is under house arrest, two ditzy friends who get her into one predicament after another, and she is pushing thirty. She has also had way too many bad dates. She has been using all the latest self-help and it frankly isn't helping. So far, so good. But then she launches her finishing school for boys--three men manacled and imprisoned in her basement, where she is hopefully turning them from boys into men--real men who know how to treat a woman.
Think that's hard to believe? It's only the beginning. Things deteriorate rapidly with complications spiralling out of control. No, I can't tell you what happens, that would only spoil it for you. You'll just have to read it.
Author Eric Garcia is a talented and very inventive writer. He is the author of three Rex books--in which dinosaurs live among us disguised as humans. Those books were a little hard to believe, but Cassie French is over the top. Hard to stay with it at times. Still, if you just accept it as madcap unreality and go along for the ride, it's enjoyable. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre chick lit ...
Review: I am not sure how this book managed to get so many 5 star reviews. I typically reserve the 5 star rating for books I truly think are great. This was not one of those books (at best I found this book to be bizarre).
The story revolves around Cassie (who is not 29 by the way -- you other reviewers were not paying attention!!!) On the surface, Cassie is your typical single chick-lit heroine. She's single and looking for love. The book deviates from traditional chick-lit beyond this. It seems that Cassie is not satisfied by the quality of available men so she sets out to reform them. She is a domestic dominatrix of sorts. Basically, Cassie kidnaps 3 full grown men, locks them up in her basement and for the most part they seem grateful to her for it. At some point in the book she manages kidnap a fourth but he ends up dead and by that point her friends get dragged in to the mess. There is no way that anyone could ever find this plot to be believable. Some reviewers seem to like that about this book. I like to escape from reality just as much as the next gal but this was more of an escape into mediocrity.
Beyond the book review I will add that if you plan on reading this book anywhere outside the confines of your own home, you may want to invest in a book sock. Let's put it this way... there is a picture of a man licking a woman's boot on the front cover. Bring this into your workplace lunchroom and you will attract the office [...] for sure!
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of time and money
Review: I have to say I am very surprised by the positive reviews. I won't go into the plot of the book since that is well defined in the other reviews and the book description. I fully understand that this book is meant to be satirical and "dark"; however, as a professional woman I found it laughable that the main character seemed to care about not much more than boys and shoes. It seems like Mr. Garcia based his heroine on a very, very shallow Carrie Bradshaw.
I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but three grown men locked in a basement that are 1) happy to be there and 2) wouldn't try to escape even when given the opportunity? Please. And yes of course men have their faults, but I've never found myself wishing that I could meet a guy who loved to lip synch to Aretha Franklin -- as part of a quartet, no less.
I give Mr. Garcia credit. Under other circumstances I probably would have stopped reading 50 pages in; however, my interest in finding out how the story ended superseded my disgust at the abounding stereotypes and juvenile writing style. I learned my lesson: the ending was definitely not one worth suffering for.
I usually don't like to write bad reviews, but I purchased this book in part based on the positive reviews that came before. Hopefully I will save someone not only their money but their time.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wild Chick-Lit with Humor and Edge
Review: If you are looking for laughter, a little suspense and book that has a little edge, this is read for you! First and foremost Eric Garcia did a spectacular job writing in a woman's voice. I found Cassandra French's: Finishing School for Boys to be a very hilarious story. If Cassie and her two friends Claire and Lexi didn't have you laughing, you were on edge wondering what would be the next outrageous thing they were going to get into or do (oh and especially Ms Cassie). Oh and I must say no matter how ridiculous, wrong illegal and/or outrageous the stunts Cassie pulled were, you couldn't help but to continue to care for her and hope she would be okay in the end. If you don't have this book in your collection, you should certainly purchase it! You will find yourself glued to the pages and it will be very hard to pull away once you start to read!
Rating:
Summary: More fun than any book has a right to be!
Review: It has not been often, in my life, that I have had to put a book down, to laugh out loud, nor am I in the habit of taking a book with me to the kitchen to make toast, because I could not bear to put it down for 5 minutes.This book, is fun, and not just run of the mill fun, but special fun, with whipped cream on the top. I got it in the mail yesterday, and finished it in one straight read. I bought this book for my son, a diehard Garcia fan of 15, and before he got home to start it, I snagged it. What a great read! Garcia wrote so well from the feminine perspective, capturing all the elements of what truly irritates women about relationships with men, and relating so well snippets of quirkiness peculiar to us girls. Cassandra French, is written with such delicious, self deprecative wit, and she is quick with a snipe about herself as well as others. It is such a clever plot, you cannot resist the urge to get sucked in from the first page. In a week, I will probably read it again. :)
Rating:
Summary: ironically anti-chick lit romp
Review: Nearing thirty, Hollywood studio attorney Cassandra French constantly grades herself on six courses: Personality, Looks, Physical health, Mental health, Career, and Relationships. Her scores will vary in the first five courses depending on her situation, but she is a drop out when it comes to relationships as she has found men to be shallow and self indulged when they are sober; when males are drunk they become obnoxiously shallow and self indulged. Tired of dating groping alcoholics, Cassandra has a good time attending a baseball game with Owen until the seventh inning stretch when beer consumption takes effect. Cassandra locks the drunken Owen in what she now calls her kennel. When he becomes an obedient canine, she brings him two companions, Alan and Daniel as students at her finishing school for changing slobbering male dogs into caring gentlemen. Movie star Jason Kelly takes Cassandra out, but she learns he is using her to sue her studio. Irate, Cassandra abducts him, but he is a moron unlike his three litter mates as he kills himself by electrocution. Eric Garcia pays homage to the chick lit and hunk lit tales by skewing the sub-genre with this fabulous satire that stuns readers when they realize that this is not another sensitivity quest. Cassandra is amusing as she seems the prototype keeping up with the chick lit Jones until the audience realizes that her boys waiting for food in her basement kennel are not dogs, but human males. The support cast that include her "boys", her employer, and her two pals especially the yoga queen enable Cassandra to star as the queen of the ironically anti-chick lit romp. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: ironically anti-chick lit romp
Review: Nearing thirty, Hollywood studio attorney Cassandra French constantly grades herself on six courses: Personality, Looks, Physical health, Mental health, Career, and Relationships. Her scores will vary in the first five courses depending on her situation, but she is a drop out when it comes to relationships as she has found men to be shallow and self indulged when they are sober; when males are drunk they become obnoxiously shallow and self indulged. Tired of dating groping alcoholics, Cassandra has a good time attending a baseball game with Owen until the seventh inning stretch when beer consumption takes effect. Cassandra locks the drunken Owen in what she now calls her kennel. When he becomes an obedient canine, she brings him two companions, Alan and Daniel as students at her finishing school for changing slobbering male dogs into caring gentlemen. Movie star Jason Kelly takes Cassandra out, but she learns he is using her to sue her studio. Irate, Cassandra abducts him, but he is a moron unlike his three litter mates as he kills himself by electrocution. Eric Garcia pays homage to the chick lit and hunk lit tales by skewing the sub-genre with this fabulous satire that stuns readers when they realize that this is not another sensitivity quest. Cassandra is amusing as she seems the prototype keeping up with the chick lit Jones until the audience realizes that her boys waiting for food in her basement kennel are not dogs, but human males. The support cast that include her "boys", her employer, and her two pals especially the yoga queen enable Cassandra to star as the queen of the ironically anti-chick lit romp. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: If I only had a basement!
Review: Nothing beats being inside the head of a pychopath, it makes you feel so normal! Eric Garcia dishes out a refreshingly orginal tale that brings a whole new meaning to self-help. Casandra French is so normal, with a great job and great shoes ... nevermind that she's completely crazy. The reader is brought into a world where boys in the basement and a mother on house arrest are *yawn* just part of a typical day. This endearing novel is a fantastic escape from start to finish, and a cautionary tale to all the bad boys out there! If I only had a basement!
Rating: 
Summary: A bizarro world take on chick lit
Review: On first glance, this novel appears to be yet another book of the "chick lit" genre: protagonast Cassandra French faces professional and personal woes in modern day LA. However, there are several surprises in store, with the first being that this book was actually written by a man. In his author's notes, Eric Garcia explains that he is "surrounded by women," suggesting why he may have written a novel which would appeal mostly to females. Yet males may be drawn into this book as well given the black comedic elements revealed within the first few pages. It seems that Cassie has become so fed up with the opposite sex that she decided to kidnap a few "boys" and train them to become men (hence the title). Strange? Definitely. Funny? Well, yes, that too. The exploits of Cassie and her friends--street smart Claire and bimbo Lexi--are humorous enough, and the story is certainly engaging. However, the plot elements were a bit TOO bizarre for me at times, from Cassie injecting the boys with morphine to keep them docile to her diasterous involvement with a top movie star. And of course, there is the happy ending: although this is par for the course in most popular fiction, the sweetly perfect conclusion seemed rather out of place here. To be fair, I must admit that I have never been a fan of black comedy, which mostly likely tainted my view of this novel. If your tolerance for dark laughs is as low as mine is, you will probably find, as I did, that the more morbid aspects of this book detract from its humor.
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