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Holden didn´t want to write another ´Anna Karenina´, she wrote a shallow chick lit novel, if you like this kind of literature, read ´Simply Divine´, you won´t be disappointed.
Wendy Holden
Simply Divine
Headline
439 pages
6.99 GBP
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boyfriend, falling in love with a man who leaves the country the next morning and the spare tyre around her waist--without the added headache of the glamorous socialite C...
boyfriend, falling in love with a man who leaves the country the next morning and the spare tyre around her waist--without the added headache of the glamorous socialite C...
boyfriend, falling in love with a man who leaves the country the next morning and the spare tyre around her waist--without the added headache of the glamorous socialite C...
boyfriend, falling in love with a man who leaves the country the next morning and the spare tyre around her waist--without the added headache of the glamorous socialite C...
Simply Divine - Wendy Holden
A riotously funny romp set in the glittering world of glossy magazines Champagne D'Vyne is ... more
a celebrity socialite with a charmed life -- and a mania for men, money and fame. Jane is a journalist with an ordinary life -- love stress, work stress and...
A review by MALU on Simply Divine - Wendy Holden April 29th, 2005
Author's product rating:
Would you read it again?
Probably not
Story
Very ordinary
Characters
Good
Readability
Average
How does it compare to similar books?
Quite good
How does it compare to other works by the same author?
Not applicable
Advantages:
punny funny
Disadvantages:
too punny
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
So Wendy Holden decided to write a chick lit novel. How did she go about it, what did she come up with and put into her book to get the readers´attention and satisfy their expectations? I imagine it like this:
SETTING
Deffo London! Nether-Piddleton-on-the-Marshes just isn´t the right setting for this kind of literature, firstly because many of the target readers live in London and the ones who don´t would like to, secondly because name dropping applies also to places and the Savoy sounds better than the Hare and Hounds, thirdly readers have always liked to recognise places and thanks to the media they know their way around London better than around some God-forsaken village. The scenery may be nicer there, but chick lit is not about scenery.
TIME
The present, of course. In some years´ time readers will have to google names like Brad Pitt, but at the moment they know who he is (if they don´t, they are not the target readership and can be neglected), this conveys a good feeling, the readers are in the know and like this.
CHARACTERS
The main character should be someone the average young woman can identify with, she should be a next-door-neighbour kind of person with the usual probs: feeling too fat (even if she isn´t) and looking for Mr Right, she should have a job which isn´t too exotic, but not too drab, either. Now, an author can do research work or draw from her own experience; as luck would have it, Holden was a deputy editor of the society glossy Tatler and knows the world of journalism inside out, it doesn´t come as a great surprise that the main character, Jane, works for a society glossy!
She lives with her boyfriend (who´s not Mr Right as the readers soon learn, but there´s a one-night stand who seems to be) in a cheap flat in Clapham, drives a battered car and isn´t too happy in her job; I´m sure many readers know someone like that.
It may be too boring to concentrate on one character only, so let´s introduce two other female characters who are not only different from the main character but also from each other, this widens the scope considerably, allows subplots, characters and situations which otherwise could not have been plausibly included. In contrast to Jane they are not women who give the readers the feeling they may know someone like them, they are outrageous creatures, caricatures, clichés, flat in a literary sense.
Meet Champagne D´Vyne, the It Girl of London whose brain is as small as her boobs are big. ´The only deep thing about Champagne was her cleavage´, she´s stinking rich which doesn´t hinder her from chasing (and catching) millionaire boyfriends who she dumps mercilessly if someone richer appears on the scene. ´Too right I dumped him . . . He´s been boring the arse off me with his ghastly yawnsville businesses for weeks now. I´m sick of the sight of him. Anyway, I found out he hasn´t any money. In debt up to his eyeballs. Especially now he´s been running ´me´ for a month´. Her dresses are so tiny that they´re more or less only labels with some patches of cloth attached. I admire Holden´s capacity to tell the readers this again and again without repeating herself, her thesaurus must be dog-eared!
How do Jane´s and Champagne´s paths cross? Jane´s editor wants to attract new readers for his mag by making Champagne write a diary about her societal and sexual encounters, the problem is that she can´t write (she can hardly talk coherently), besides that she´s got the memory of a mayfly, so Jane becomes her ghost writer.
The other woman is Natalia Venery, called Tally, Jane´s friend from uni, the descendant of four hundred years of impoverished nobility, unattractive to the extreme, ghastly pale with a rosy nose tip, hair like a crow´s nest, dressed in her late father´s school trousers and layers of rags found somewhere in damp wardrobes, living a spinster´s life in the family mansion, a mere ruin called Mullions, not of this world. ´Whatever is pecorino? It sounds like a minor Italian painter.´ Her brother is AWOL living under a runway in Gatwick with a group of environmentalist protesters, her mother found herself a lover in an Ashram in America, a Cockney from Bethnal Green turned Red Indian, who walks around clad in a loin-cloth and some feathers and never utters a word. Before disappearing again on another spiritual encounter she tells Tally that Mullions must be sold, it costs too much to keep it merely standing upright.
Other characters of minor importance are of comparable bizzareness, the secretaries in Jane´s office, the housekeepers at Tally´s mansion, not one of them surprises once he or she has been introduced, the whole personnel of the novel has come straight out of a farce. Holden´s intention is not to help her readers get a profound insight into how people tick, how they have become what they are, but to entertain and she´s decided to do this by exaggerating until it hurts. If you want insight, choose different reading matter.
STORY
It´s very well to think up three contrasting characters but how to interwine their stories so that something readable comes out of it? Jane must find a husband, Tally´s mansion must be saved, Champagne´s affairs must go on. Hats off, Holden has given each of the three women a story of their own but intertwine they do, in a mad way, but believable nevertheless (if you let in yourself into the whole mad story, of course, but you couldn´t read the book if you didn´t anyway).
STYLE
A reader moans in a review, ´Every single paragraph contains a pun or strained analogy . . . every single one. I cannot believe this passes as a novel.´Well. How do you like, ´To err is human, to forgive D´Vyne´? Ha! This is from me! This constant punning is infectuous.
I see Holden sitting in a pub (Hare and Hounds?), listening in to conversations and collecting coarse, vulgar jokes (subtle innuendos are not for her), copying inane images, mad metaphors from all possible sources, she may have invented some, but not too many, a few are as old as the hills. ´Keep your chinS up!´ / ´A jigsaw puzzle?´--- ´Yah, and I´m bloody proud of myself . . . It´s only taken me ninety-four days.´ --- ´Ninety-four days? Surely, that´s rather a long time for a jigsaw.´ --- ´Well, it said three to four years on the box.´ I bet that wherever in the world puzzles are known, this joke is known as well. Thumbs down on this one.
I´m not a great friend of vulgarity and wouldn´t enjoy this book in German, but as it is written in a foreign language for me, the vulgarity doesn´t touch me in the same way as it would in my mother tongue, for me there´s always the linguistic aspect, too. ´Ah, so this is what one says.´ You that you don´t have this barrier between yourself and Holden´s vulgarity must decide for yourself if it amuses you.
With 439 pages the novel is too long, but Holden may have been the victim of her too full slip box. Thinking up names like Giles Trumpington-Kwyck-Save, Fluffy Fronte-Bottom, Busty Binge-Fetlock, Bollocks Beaufort-Baring, Bulymya yl Bowe or Lady Dido Dingle (to quote just a few) may have become addicitve, once started she just couldn´t stop. I won´t hold the length against her considering the fact that nearly all chick lit novels are very long, obviously this is part of the genre.
VERDICT
On the whole I´ve amused myself thus revealing that I´m really of a simple disposition. But am I permitted to review such a book at all? I´m as far away from the target readership as can be, I´m not a chick any more, I´m more an old hen, however, don´t adults also review kids fiction? If something is well written or not should be noticeable by every reader. I´ve read the book as a kind of anthropological study to find out what young British females enjoy.
Holden didn´t want to write another ´Anna Karenina´, she wrote a shallow chick lit novel, if you like this kind of literature, read ´Simply Divine´, you won´t be disappointed.
Advantages: some very funny moments, well drawn characters Disadvantages: storyline is a bit silly at times, sometimes jokes are a bit TOO cliched
"Champagne looked pointedly at Jane's dress.
'I tried that one on,' she said sweetly. 'But it looked cheap and nasty on me.'
She paused. 'Suits you, though.'
I originally got this book free with a magazine a good few years ago and, for once, it was a book I was quite eager to read. I'd already read Wendy Holden's second novel, "Bad Heir Day" at this point, and so I had been planning to buy a copy of "Simply Divine", her debut novel - not having ... ...Divine" features two female lead characters. The first of these is Jane, a journalist on "Gorgeous" magazine and the stereotypical "normal girl" we can all identify with - weight conscious, not getting quite enough recognition for her work, having problems with her unbearable boyfriend Nick . . . Oh, and there's Tom, the cute guy upstairs who Jane has a quick but meaningful attempt at the horizontal foxtrot with before he moves away - so why can't ...
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Advantages: Light-hearted, easy to read Disadvantages: Tries too hard to be funny and not exactly ground-breaking
That Simply Divine isn't my usual choice of book is, I feel, a particularly important point to mention, as it does affect my perceptions: some people love the frothy 'chick-lit' genre, but for me it's always going to be... well, the fact that I put the word 'frothy' in there kind of sums it up: I would never have spent money on this book, but it was a free gift with a magazine way back, and eventually I had a funny turn and actually read it. If you ... ...nice idea. So, I started Simply Divine - and after about four pages, I put it down and went away to read Jane Eyre (no, I have no idea why I decided to do that!). Not exactly a recommendation, then!! Eventually I went back to Simply Divine and read a couple of pages here and there until finally I started reading slightly longer chunks at a time, until I was about two thirds of the way through and read the rest in a few sittings. My point... um, well, ...
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Advantages: Hilarious Disadvantages: Where on earth does she get the names from?!
...up to their titles, but Simply Divine is just that' The Sunday Times
+ The Author +
Wendy Holden has written 5 of other novels, this was her first. All 6 have been top 10 best sellers. Her newest 'The School for Husbands' came out August 2006. She used to be deputy Editor of Tatler so has quite a good insight into the magazine industry and this shows in the book.
***** 5 stars (if there were 6 I'd give it that!)
ISBN 9-9999-8668-4
RRP £6.99
...
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...that...
I put down Simply Divine thinking 'aww, how sweet!' It's genuinely a very charming book that slowly gets under your skin as you read on, and is immensely likeable. At times it's bitchy and sharp but it's heart is in the write place (yes I'm still talking about a book here!). I know most of you will be rolling your eyes and muttering 'what a load of rubbish!' but you have to agree, Wendy Holden's 'chick-lit' style isn't for everyone but she's ... ...out of such celebrities!
Simply Divine is a very easy, light novel to read - perfect for those times when you can't be bothing thinking! It's a very frothy, charming, witty and energetic book which never gets boring because there are quite a few sub-plots running throughout. The separate storylines are very well defined and set out though, so there's no chance of any confusion! It has just over 200 pages which seems quite short, and I read mine ...
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Would you read it again?
Story
Characters
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very helpful
14.04.2004
Hi georgeous Review ofSimply Divine - Wendy Holdenby
jenny029
This is a story about a girl called Jane who works for georgeous magazine. She has just been dumped by her tight fisted boyfriend and her carrer is in tatters so you can understand the lack of self asteem she has. Her editor Josh decides that the magazine's sales need boosting so he enlists the services of Champagne D'Vyne a spoilt rather thick "IT" girl who is named after the drink her parents concieved her whilst drinking, to write a social colum ... ...ghost write it for her. It soon becomes clear to Jane that there is not much going on in Champagne's brain as she can't remember where she has been or who she was with but as luck would have it she overhears a conversation on the phone with one of her friends and manages to fill in the gaps. The colum is an instant sucess and Jane is soon poached by Fabulous. As Champagne flits from famous footballer to rock star to lottery millionare her life becomes ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Hilarious writing that only Holden could achieve Disadvantages: A bit too much like her other novels
...After reading SimplyDivine, WendyHoldens first novel, I decided I'd be a bit loyal and read my way through her whole collection. Bad Heir Day is the second one. SimplyDivine was always going to be a hard act to follow. Bad Heir Day on its own is very funny, very well written and a really great book but read soon after the first you realise just how similar the plots are. They are loosely connected by one character but are other wise single books.
Plot
The heroine Anna is dumped by her boyfriend and has to think fast to make a new life for herself. Amazingly Jamie comes along just at the right time and rescues her. Obviously it never happens quite like that or It'd be a very short book, but the events along the way are really funny. At one point Anna catches Cassandra rolling round the floor with her hands down her pants. I have...
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Advantages: great second novel from Wendy Holden Disadvantages: none
...I read WendyHolden's first novel SimplyDivine and found it just that a SimplyDivine read so when I saw that her second novel Bad Heir day was on offer for 50p from Mango as part of the introductory offer I snapped it up.
I wasn't disappointed as it was just as good as the first the only problem I had was finding some spare time to read it.
It tells the story of Anna who lives with Seb who is a complete tosser and she is looking for somewhere new to live. She is an inpyring writer but has no experience so she applies for a job with a published authour with writers block called Cassandra who hires her as a live in nanny.
Not exactly what Anna had in mind but seb gives her the elbow for another girl so she takes the job.
The kid she looks after is called Max and is the spawn of satan a right little bugger who is out of control...
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Advantages: Frothy, light, funny, witty, easy to read Disadvantages: A bit too shallow for some?
...helping her wreck the wedding. Will she succeed in her plan? Will she chuck loser Alex? If she does, which lovely Scottish brother will she go for?
----
I love chick-lit. I love anything by WendyHolden, Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella and now, Jenny Colgan. The most intellectual book I have read is White Teeth by Zadie Smith! I know a lot of people turn their noses up at stuff like this, but at the very least, it makes a good beach-read, doesn't it?
My favourite chick-lit books are Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes and SimplyDivine by WendyHolden. Both of which I know have had slatings on Ciao, but I love them! This is that little bit different, however.
In some books, the main character's are glamorous size-eights who come out with the sort of quips we mere mortals think of hours after the chance we get to say it, but this isn...
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helpful 29.04.2003
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