I read this because I loved A Girl Like You. Unfortunately this is not quite so good. A lot of things that seemed witty and original in that book are repeated here (to be fair I'm not sure which one came first though) and don't seem quite so charming. Another problem is that Sassy's love interest Jake is hardly in most of the book. However that being said I loved the friendship between the three girls and Jake was a great character when he was actually in the book. The actual dating detox was a bit frustrating, since she couldn't see the obvious until the very end but I guess that's how these things always play out. A fun read but I think I should take a break from these chick lit books now. The story follows 28 year old Sass as she embarks upon a dating sabbatical after being dumped for the 6th time. She has sworn herself in with the help of best friend Bloomie and dedicates herself to sticking to the sabbatical rules for 3 months. She takes hold of her men-free life with two hands. Until Jake, gorgeous, funny Jake. Her dating sabbatical rules didn't account for meeting someone she might actually like. Sass has to decide if her sabbatical has run its course or if Jake is just another guy likely to break her heart.This is the first book by Gemma Burgess I'd read and I really enjoyed it. I kept it, so that's a good sign that I liked it enough to probably want to read it again. It is written in the 1st person, only ever as Sass, the main character which I really liked as a change from books being written in the 3rd person. I am guessing that it is Gemma's preferred style as her other book A Girl Like You is also written in the 1st person. I also find that when a story is in the first person it's like seeing the story from their eyes as opposed to watching the characters and the story unfold around them.Sass is very easy to like and imagine as just an ordinary girl and as I've said it is easy to see everything through her eyes as the story unfolds. One of the things I enjoy most about reading is escaping into someone else's world for a couple of hours and I found it really easy to do that with this book. The only thing that I wasn't too sure whether I liked or not about it being written this way was that Sass quite often talks and has conversations with herself. Some of her conversations could equally have been had with her friends. Although I can't relate to her dating drama I'm sure there are loads of girls who could empathise with Sass having been in the same situation.After starting the sabbatical Sass comes more into her own and becomes increasingly self-assured as the no men rule seems to have a positive effect on the other aspects of her life. Sass is easy to relate to in the other aspects of her life as there is no glamour or billion pound bank balances and appears to face the same issues as your everyday girl would - job worries, fashion worries, money worries. Inspiration for Sass's career has obviously came from Gemma herself who worked as a copywriter in advertising in London.The story is mainly set in London with brief stints in the English country side and New York. I might have mentioned before that London is one of my favourite places so that really appealed to me; however Gemma knows New York inside out, where, I later discovered, she lives, which made it easy to picture when I was reading it. The only thing I would have liked to see in the book was maybe a chapter from Jake's point of view, other than that I thought this was a really good, funny (I think I actually did laugh out loud at one point) read.
Do You like book The Dating Detox (2011)?
Loved the characters in this book! Good humour throughout, enjoyable read.
—dale
Poor storyline. Poor plot. Average writing. Don't recommend it!
—homecookednoodle
