Tell Me Something - Adele Parks

Despite working in quite an academic field and considering myself more intelligent than my hair colour would suggest, I love a good chick-lit novel! I've read all of Adele Parks'other books and consider her the best author in the genre - her books draw you in with their clever plots and well-developed characters, and I've found all of them totally addictive. So I was very keen to read this new one, 'Tell Me Something', which published in Jan 09. ...
...with a sexy photograph featuring some desirable shoes and the title in swirly pink writing. I got hold of this from a book-swapping website, but it's available on Amazon priced £3.86.

I have to say I was underwhelmed initially, after the first couple of chapters.
I'm always a bit ambivalent about books set in foreign countries as sometimes it seems that the author just wants to show off with irrelevant knowledge of a country ... more

Despite working in quite an academic field and considering myself more intelligent than my hair colour would suggest, I love a good chick-lit novel! I've read all of Adele Parks'other books and consider her the best author in the genre - her books draw you in with their clever plots and well-developed characters, and I've found all of them totally addictive. So I was very keen to read this new one, 'Tell Me Something', which published in Jan 09.

The cover is typical modern chick-lit, with a sexy photograph featuring some desirable shoes and the title in swirly pink writing. I got hold of this from a book-swapping website, but it's available on Amazon priced £3.86.

I have to say I was underwhelmed initially, after the first couple of chapters.
I'm always a bit ambivalent about books set in foreign countries as sometimes it seems that the author just wants to show off with irrelevant knowledge of a country they know well (the only thing that spoils Tony Parsons' otherwise fantastic stories...) and I got this impression here. The Italian village that the main character, Elizabeth, finds herself in is described by Parks in heavy detail, but I felt I was somehow reading the author's own passion for the country rather than through Elizabeth's own eyes, and this somehow just didn't click for me. Elizabeth is obsessed by her desire to have a baby with her Italian husband Roberto, and I found her very self-centred and disappointingly two-dimensional. Roberto is a bit of a cliché - the typical Italian stallion, all macho and tanned and muscly and also a bit unbelievable. However Raffaella, Elizabeth's mother-in-law, is described perfectly. I could picture her clearly in my head, as a terrifying dragon of a matriarch who thinks no-one will ever be good enough for her beloved son.

As the plot developed, I found myself enjoying this book more. I did begin to skim the bits where Elizabeth is pondering yet again about her chances of having a baby, but I enjoyed the development of her relationship with Chuck, a sexy American (did he have to be called Chuck though!?) I don't want to spoil the book for anyone else, but there were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing right up until the end. I also found myself in tears at one point, when Elizabeth is grieving for her father. This doesn't often happen to me, so it proves that Parks' writing did get more believable as the story warms up.

However, I certainly wouldn't say this is one of her best books. I read it to the end, and if you're a fan of hers I would say read it, but it's unlikely to win her many new fans.  

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