Rating: Summary: absolutely empowering, hilarious and wonderful! Review: I loved this book! The beginning wasn't totally rip roaring but soon enough it got exciting enough so that I couldn't wait to see what would happen to all the characters. Each character is very well fleshed out. Olivia Goldsmith is a very witty and talented writer. You really feel for Jada, Angela and Michelle. They make you cheer for them and hope for the sweet revenge they deserve to get on their husbands. You won't believe the things their horrid husbands put them through, but at the same time you know it could happen. (I have a cousin whose ex-husband always finds ways to make her life difficult even though they've been divorced for over seven years! He has almost full custody of the children because he has more money than she does, (quite a bit) yet somehow, he fixes his finance books to make it look like he doesn't have much money -- so that he is able to wiggle out of giving her a dime!) What happens to these women is nasty but the revenge they get evens the score. Read this book! It will make you laugh out loud, and you will really feel for the characters. It'll also make you feel empowered, like you could handle it if you ever have to go through what they did. If you have girlfriends, you will somehow make it through! Ms. Goldsmith, you literary goddess, you!
Rating: Summary: Typical Goldsmith -- high high quality mind candy Review: I read this book in one (very LATE) evening. This is what always happens to me when I buy an Olivia Goldsmith book. Why? Well, she is a fluent writer, with a fine sense of pacing. She has a devious mind, with which she plays out every revenge fantasy you ever had. Now, it is certainly true that Goldsmith chooses the landscape between men and women as the venue for her most outrageous revenge escapades, and thus men in her books fall into three categories: (1) complete slime balls who deserve far worse than ever happens to them in these books (2) wonderful gentle perfect men who turn out to be the ideal love interest for the women who were treated badly by men of type #1 (3) supporting characters, who, when they do not fall into categories #1 and #2, always turn out to be gay This book is no exception. Bad men, loving women who were done wrong, revenge which tosses the men farther down than they tossed their women, and lots of emotional catharsis. The three main characters had the usual Goldsmith adventures and all ended up significantly better off than they had been at the beginning of the book. (And at the beginning of the book, two of them thought they had great marriages.) You don't have to believe all men are pigs to enjoy this fiction, but you do have to be willing to believe that smart women frequently choose men who turn out to be pigs. Put aside what you know about real men, and their complex combinations of good and bad qualities, and wallow in the rollicking story provided for your spare-time enjoyment. What can I say? It was great fun.
Rating: Summary: Great Book! Review: I read this book in two days! I could not put it down! Jada, Angie and Michelle were so real, I felt that I knew them (or wished I did). Olivia you have done it again. Keep up the great work!
Rating: Summary: Excellent book Review: I was hooked on this book from the beginning. Jada and Michelle ended up with pretty lousy husbands. As the story progressed I got more and more interested and by the end I couldn't put the book down. I couldn't wait to find out how the girls got back at their scum ex-husbands. I've enjoyed all of Olivia Goldsmith's novels and look forward to reading future ones.
Rating: Summary: Disappointed Review: I was pretty disappointed with this book. I'd read such good reviews of Olivia Goldsmith that I was expecting a really funny book. This book is about men that are the lowest of the low and the women who love them. I found the female characters to be fairly stupid and the male characters to be dispicable. This might be a fun read if you'd recently been with a guy who has done something horrible to you, but if you're not a man hater at the moment, you'll probably be unhappy with this choice.
Rating: Summary: too long! Review: I was really loving this book for about the first 150 pages, but quickly tired of all the LONG descriptions of every thought each character had. I skipped to the end and think the author could have also!
Rating: Summary: Disappointing Review: I wasn't expecting Shakespeare when I picked up this book. It looked like lighthearted fun, and so I gave it a go. To begin with, I found the women's troubles just dragged out and dragged out until I'd had enough of them. Jada's storyline was the worst for it. What I can't understand is how everyone Jada has to deal with is bigoted, impatient, unkind and prejudiced, yet her husband manages to be surrounded by decent, caring, helpful people and in many cases, they're the same people! We're supposed to believe that everyone falls for the sob story of the lazy worthless husband? I don't buy that. I started skipping pages in the middle because I was quite sick of it all, and so I read the endings, and I was disappointed there too. Instead of achieving a real victory over their slimeball husbands, the women get even in a seriously illegal way, and I don't see how they could possible get away with it. It was all very implausible and an insult to the reader's intelligence. It was a shame the author didn't put more fun and less drama into this book. It would have been more enjoyable to see the wives get their revenge in creative ways that didn't see them breaking the law and becoming wanted criminals. There was a lot of potential, and the friendship was enjoyable to read about, but there were too many flaws. The next time I want a lighthearted read, I'm going back to Jackie Collins.
Rating: Summary: For man-haters only Review: I'm a young wife myself, so I picked up this book thinking it would be a fun read (as I had heard such good things about Goldsmith). I hated this book for its irrational stupidity-- Not only are the wives' "revenge" schemes, in most cases, illegal, immoral and/or dangerous (making them no better than the men who've wronged them), the characterizations, in a lot of cases, just don't work. For instance, I don't think the profile of an abusive husband would be one who lavishes his wife with everything for 14 years, and then one day is stressed and starts beating her regularly. Doesn't work that way. The other thing that REALLY disturbed me was (SPOILER WARNING)Angie's plans for her baby. I'm sure some people might think it's really noble of her to try and raise the baby herself and never tell the father--sure, that's great for Angie, but what about the kid who's losing out on a father AND living in poverty? Couldn't the child possibly inherit millions when he/she is older if they DO tell the father? Losing out on a second set of grandparents, who, according to the book, are loaded and well connected, and could get the kid where he/she needs to go in life? I really had an issue with that. Also, the way Michelle and Co. happily spend all the drug money to get what they need for their illegal/immoral/dangerous "revenge" plots, but she gives up her Lexus to feel "clean". Ummm, okay.
Rating: Summary: Young (First) Wives (Club) Review: I've heard of plots being reused, but this is ridiculous! This novel is virtually the 'First Wives Club' disguised as three of the most gullible women I have ever read about. All of the husbands are snakes and you just wish you could kick Angela, Michelle, and Jada for falling for their 'poor me' acts. When the three women come together, they form an alliance to rival Charlie's Angels. They do their detective work and come up with hilarious ways to do their exes in. The Super Glue incident is a work of art in itself. That and the fact that these women finally stand up for themselves is the reason I give this book 3 stars. One really annoying thing about this book is the acronyms that Jada uses throughout (LUMPS=Lying, Ugly Male Pigs, NUP=Natural Unit Preferences)...I had to keep going back to find out what they meant because she uses so many of them it gets confusing. Otherwise, this book is OK, just a rehashing of an already successful story.
Rating: Summary: For man-haters only Review: I've really enjoyed this author's earlier works, but this novel left me flat. The storylines were painfully predictible. There were some jewels hidden in the mire, though it wasn't really worth the effort to find them. I found myself saying please finish and let the pain stop. The stories were contrived and generally unbelievable.
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