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Venus Envy (1998)

Venus Envy (1998)

Book Info

Genre
Rating
3.44 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0752817337 (ISBN13: 9780752817330)
Language
English
Publisher
orion books ltd

About book Venus Envy (1998)

Started: Feb 25/07Finished: Mar 2/07---One of the reviews on the back of this book says that the author has the blockbuster formula and she's not afraid to use it. As someone who's trying to plot a bestseller myself, I thus read this book with great interest.Sure enough, the book starts out with the MC's life in relative tatters - 27, unmarried, fat and unattractive, sharing a flat with three goddesses, one of whom is the MC's own horribly mean-spirited sister, unemployed and virtually unemployable, and dependent on her parents for the roof over her head, the food in her mouth, and the job she's saddled with. Things get worse from there: she falls for her boss, then discovers he's married; he woos her anyway and she falls even harder. Then she is invited to the wedding of her best friend from school - the only girl fatter and less attractive than she was - at a big country house belonging to a friend from university whom she suddenly finds she fancies. Sadly, her boss is also there. With his wife. Over the course of two or three days, the MC falls out with the bride, her fanciable old friend, her sister, her boss, and most of the other house guests.It's a foregone conclusion who the MC ends up with, but the path to true love ne'er did run smooth, and this book is no exception.A few things left me unsatisfied - there was no real denouement with the relationship with the boss, which left my revenge reflex itching; the sister's nasty treatment of the MC felt like a device after a while, because there seemed to be no motivation for her to be so bloody about it; and finally, the sex, which was more or less glossed over in the early going, but finished up with a surprisingly evocative session of animal sex (complete with talking dirty) that made the MC realize that love makes sex better. The ending felt rushed, forced, and somewhat contrived (a perverted clergyman! go figure!), actually.On balance, however, it was an enjoyable and instructive read. I have another book by the same author, so will see how I like that one.

Do You like book Venus Envy (1998)?

Started this book thinking it was time for a good dose of chick lit. I was wrong. I've read some of Louise Bagshawe's books previously and enjoyed them in that sort of light hearted, not much thinking involved sort of way. But this one was different. Maybe my mood wasn't right for it, or maybe it was something else, but I really didn't enjoy this. I disliked it so much that I didn't even make it a quarter of the way through it, not even close in fact. The main character, whose name I can't even remember, seems to me a lazy, over-eating, self-pitying sort of person. She went to Art college, and now can't find a job, so her rich loving parents decide to force her to move to London to live with her beautiful, successful, hippy, popular sister, who everybody loves and everybody wishes that the other sister could be more like. She gets a job, isn't very good at it, falls for the married good looking boss, and he manages to convince her that he want's her. She spends the night with him after a romantic dinner in his "Flat" in the city, and then he proceeds to treat her like crap, she has to rush off in the morning back to her sister's place to have a shower because he can't be bothered to let her have a shower there. Who saw this coming? Me....a mile off, I just couldn't bear to read any more after that.She wasn't a likeable character, the story was cringeworthy. Maybe if I'd given it time, I would have seen more depth to the main character and maybe even her boss, but I just didn't care enough about either of them to find out.
—Laini

I'm a fan of Louise bagshawes other books but like others before he I found this book incredibly predictable.The main character Alex was a moany, self criticising character. Not only the way she spoke to herself was downgrading but how the hell could she let other people speak to her like that. I wanted to give up on this book so many times but refused too due to my own stubbornness and also my previous experience of books from this author.The minute the main love interest came in you could see where the story was going a mile away.Definitely a book I would not even give one star too if it was an option.
—Susan

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