“You must read Jane Green, her books are great!” so said a good friend of mine. We had similar tastes in books so I took her recommendation seriously and was pleased to spot three Jane Green books for £5 from the Book People who come to my work. Once I started to read the first book I was less pleased however. Jemima J was the third of the three; the others - their titles long forgotten - have been consigned to the charity shop (I felt terribly guilty – I hope they got something for them). I only read this book to punish myself for selecting such crap books so rashly. I have now learnt from my mistakes and no longer make bulk purchases based on a single person’s recommendation. As you may gather I was not too impressed with this book. The book could be classified as ‘chick-lit’ and whilst that can turn some people off straight away, there are some good authors writing under this genre. Jane Austen was one of the first.
So to the plot: Jemima is fat. That is really all we need to know about Jemima, that and the vague mention of glossy hair (obviously a staple requirement for a heroine) and the fact she works as a journalist for a local paper and is passed up for promotion by her more glamourous and prettier colleagues. She has a crush on a gorgeous colleague called Ben, who thinks of her just as a friend and has one other female friend at work (naturally glam also), and a couple of uber-bitchy and shallow flat mates. Did I mention Jemima was fat? Don’t worry if you happen to forget during the course of the book, you will be reminded often. Jemima experiments with internet chat rooms and sends a photo-shopped picture of herself to a guy called Brad she chats to in L.A (obviously not an original one as she is fat, remember? We can’t have her personality shining through or anything.) Over-whelmed by some kindness shown to her by her hot colleague just as he leaves, Jemima is sufficiently distracted enough to not eat as much and join a gym. All of a sudden a swan emerges from the ugly duckling! Jemima becomes slim and beautiful - who’d have thought it! (Yes, I am being sarcastic). She gets a promotion and flies off to LA to meet Brad the hunk. She may now be a hot chick, but she obviously lost her brains with the extra pounds as she jets off half way round the world to meet a man she has never met before. Can things all work out for her and Brad? Do we really care?
If you have not already lost the will to live at this point, you soon will. Jemima is no longer referred to as fat but as pretty and slim. She is proud of the fact she lost weight through virtually starving herself, which doesn’t seem to be a healthy message to send. The plot is not the only thing to annoy me about this book. The characters (as you probably have already gathered) are little more than thinly drawn caricatures with absolutely no depth. I could not engage with the character of Jemima at all, she was just too pathetic and naïve. There was no romance, just lots of sex (and not particularly imaginative either!). The writing style was very frustrating. Most of the time it is written in the first person (where Jemima ‘speaks’ to the reader), but sometimes it is written in the third person, in the present tense (where a narrator ‘speaks’ and tells us what is happening). This drove me up the wall! I don’t care which writing style an author uses but at least be consistent.
In summation I really cannot recommend this book, even to die-hard chick-lit fans. There is such a wealth of books under this umbrella and there are some gems that contain original plotlines, strong characters and are better written. I suggest reading one of those instead. If you really feel you must read it I am sure there are some good prices available on the web, alternatively you can check out your local charity shop (my local will be getting a copy very soon!).
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Jun 24th, 2007
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