After having read Full House by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes, I decided to see if it was truly Hughes writing that dragged down "Full House" since that was what all the other reviews were saying. And for some reason, I had this book A New Attitude by Hughes. (I have no idea where it came from.)"Full House" was by no means great but it was a better read than this, overall even if they both rated 2 stars. I can't give "New Attitude" a 1 due to the fact that I finished it and I can't give "Full House" a 3 because I didn't really like it so it looks like they equl out to the same rating, but for different reasons.First off, Marilee is 35 years old. Yet, I could not stop thinking of her or her friends as anyone younger than 60. I read parts of this out loud to my 80-something year old grandmother and she laughed. All the females come off as older, prim women even Winnie, the 17 year old. Marilee is suppose to be a 30 something rebuilding her life after he husband leaves but the story read like a 70 something that had lost her husband, not to divorce but to death. Her friends are just as old and stuffy feeling as Marilee and the early menopause plot point just added to the feeling of these woman being much older. I have read things like The Red Hat Club & The Hot Flash Club where the woman are older and I tell you, they had much better story-lines and characters that I actually cared about way more than this book did.I was fine with Marilee being a Christian and soon to be ex-minister's wife. After all, I am from the South myself and know how it works having your faith as well as a life and not always sticking to the straight and narrow, but this book was published in 2001 yet reads like it was written in the 50s. Marilee is playing the piano in a nightclub?! *gasp*, the horror, the indecency!!! This outdated view shared by her "friends" only added to the "Seriously? These woman are only 35?" train of thought. I mean, my 60 year old mother is more accepting and open minded than these woman and she has unshakable faith like you would not believe due to being one of those strong, southern baptist type woman they like writing books about nowadays. Her two kids have tattoos for crying out loud and so pardon me for finding the characters behavior more distracting from the plot than moving it along.The overall arc of the story seemed like a good one but Hughes overstuffs her books with details that slows the pacing. This book should have been half this size as it all reads like filler. I was fine with the no-sex and was expecting it so to get to 30 pages from the end only to have Sam and Marilee hook up...?/ It felt forced and added. And yet another throwback feel to the book? The woman is barely single after years of marriage (and happy marriage at that, at least to her) before she is just soooo in love with her new guy and everything works out. Jeez, couldn't the book span at least a year so that we can pretend it is believable?I think I got a Evanovich book laying around somewhere that I am going to read just to make sure that my comparison is correct but I think that I just might be in agreement with some of those reviews of "Full House" now that Hughes drags down the story even if at the time that I read "Full House", it didn't seem that out of line with the Plum novels that Evanovich is so famous for.
Primo racconto contenuto nell'antologia NON c'E' DUE SENZA EX.Romanzo davvero delizioso, costruito in modo semplice, umoristico, eppure profondamente toccante. E' la storia di una rinascita di una donna colpita da un duro fallimento matrimoniale, che dopo un'iniziale, comprensibilissimo, profondo sconforto, si rimbocca le maniche e lotta per rendersi indipendente, per riconquistare il figlio e riavere indietro la propria vita. Ma non solo: la rinascita per questa donna sarà l'occasione per ricostruire la vita di moltissime persone che, appoggiandosi le une alle altre si rinforzeranno esponenzialmente e raggiungeranno risultati davvero fantastici, che da soli non avrebbero potuto neppure lontanamente pensare di conseguire.Un romanzo d'amore, d'amicizia, ma, soprattutto, di speranza!
