Rating: 
Summary: All is Vanity
Review: This is the first book I read by Christina Schwarz and it will probably be my last. I thought it started out great but then went downhill to a very disturbing ending. Normally I can't put a book down and am disappointed to finish it but not in this case. It took me several weeks to make myself finish it and now that I have I wished I hadn't. Christina Scwarz is a great writer and I would have enjoyed a much lighter piece of fluff.
Rating:
Summary: Has Doubleday forgotten what a novel is? A Story?
Review: This novel resembles the scribbled journal entries of a famed novelist with a good book under her belt, in search of a plot for the next, ironically, exactly what the book is. The only difference is Margret, the would be novelist, is an undiscovered wanna-be with little talent, delusions of grandure and an annoying facility of expressing banality. The first clue not to buy the book might have been the back cover, which praises only Schwarz's Drowning Ruth, but if one orders on-line, one is never offered such an opportunity to save themselves $. This book proves that Doubleday is so emersed in their authors and New York, that they forgot why the public is interested in buying a novel--to read a story, not a process.
Rating: 
Summary: A sly and clever novel
Review: This very funny and extremely well-written novel tells the story of two women who just can't get anything--marriage, motherhood, or their chosen careers--to work out right. Christina Schwarz has a great eye for detail, and her observations are consistently sharp and fresh. Every single page of this novel is a delight!
Rating: 
Summary: Novelistically delightful!
Review: Unbelievable this is just the second novel from this author. Drowning Ruth was a good story slowly told. This book is exponentially better, so much so that I can't wait for a third. Like Drowning Ruth, the writing is very strong. Her choice of words, metaphors, etc. is flawless. The first part will be chillingly but also amusingly (quite a feat!) familiar to any writer who has ever stumbled over the same blocks. It works as a wonderful satire as well, but the characters are so achingly real that their inevitable downfall has true resonance. I've read some of the other reviews that have been negative. I am so glad that Christina Schwarz apparently does not have all these "Margarets" in her life. You don't have to "like" the main characters for a story to be good. I certainly don't want to read stories about perfect people who are absolutely morally relatable to myself who might happen to fall out of line in an understandable way and then pay a clear and overwritten price for it. Yawn. Some people write those books. I don't read them.
Rating: 
Summary: Great expectations, terrific disappointment
Review: When I saw Christina Schwarz's second novel displayed inside the door of a local bookstore, I snatched it up, assuming (you know what they say about ASSUMING) that I was in for another great read on the order of *Drowning Ruth.* No such luck. Protagonist Margaret Snyder's foibles fail to make her sympathetic, but succeed in irritating (and boring) the reader--at least this one. Nor was I able to accept the premise that Margaret's friend Letty--wife, mother of four, and purportedly a heretofore responsible and conscious adult--would suddenly lapse into complete financial idiocy. I'll continue to read Schwarz, because *Drowning Ruth* demonstrates a great storytelling talent. As for *All Is Vanity*--well, as an old friend used to say, "Everyone's got to swallow a squid once in a while."
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