Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan

I'm not the biggest fan of chick-lit but every now and again, when life is stressful, I crave something light and fluffy to read and chick lit is usually what I turn to.  In this offering by Jenny Colgan, Issy is a thirty something working in admin for a real-estate agency who loves to bake the recipes passed on by her baker grandfather.  When she is made redundant from her job, Issy decides to take the plunge and use her redundancy pay-out to open up a cupcake cafe in Stoke Newington.  But running a business isn't easy and Issy has long working hours, a lack of customers and red tape to deal with, alongside working out what to do about her cut-throat property developer boyfriend Graeme.

I'm not an expert on chick lit by any means, but this book was far from the best in the genre.  The basic plot was an interesting one, and I loved how the recipes Issy used were included at the start of each chapter but overall, Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe was missing a hefty dose of realism. I'm not saying I expect chick-lit to deal with heavy issues all the time, there's nothing wrong with a bit of escapism, but this was ridiculous.  Issy straight away finds a location for her shop, magically has just the right amount of money, is able to open in a matter of weeks despite everything needing a re-fit, gets the first bank loan she applies for, meets the perfect employee by chance and has no issues with health and safety regulations, licencing etc.  If opening a business was really that easy, everyone would do it.  It was also astounding how quickly Issy was able to go from struggling to make ends meet to turning a generous profit.  There was no real sense of the worry involved in starting up a business.

The characterisation was lazy too.  Issy was relatable but almost everyone else was a stereotype from the bad boy boyfriend to the responsible 'other man' looking after his baby brother, to the snobby yummy mummies with designer prams, to the resentful council estate Mum who over-feeds her baby boy with junk, to the builders only wanting bacon sandwiches and commenting on 'posh birds'.  Colgan was clearly trying to say something about class issues but it came across as very clumsy and simplistic.  Colgan does attempt to give these characters some depth by the end of the novel but doesn't quite succeed.  Even the romance part of the novel was lacking as it relied on Issy being completely ignorant about how uncaring Graeme was, which was so obvious in the text that it made Issy look a bit stupid.

My review so far of this book has been very harsh.  It wasn't all bad - Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe was easy to read and certainly provided some escapism.  But I just don't see why books should be allowed to be so uninspiring just because they are chick lit.  Next time I crave something from this genre, I think I'll stick to Marian Keyes.

Source: Personal copy (kindle)
First Published: 2011
Score: 2 out of 5

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly

As a rule, I don't read much chick lit.  But when I heard about Gabrielle Donnelly's The Little Women Letters, based on the idea of descendants of the March sisters, I knew I would have to read it.  And as a fun, cosy, cold night read it didn't disappoint.

Emma, Lulu and Sophie Atwater are three sisters living in modern London.  Emma is getting married, Sophie is trying to become an actress and middle-sister Lulu is just trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life.  When Lulu finds a stash of letters written by her Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Jo in the loft, she finds that Jo's story and the story of all the March girls has surprising relevance to all of their lives.

Where I felt that this book excelled was the portrayal of the relationships between the female characters, and especially between the sisters. I have an older sister I am very close too and I thought that Donnelly did a great job of portraying how close that relationship can be and how your sister can annoy you more than anyone else!  The mother-daughter relationships were well written too.

Contrastingly, a lot of the male characters fell a bit flat.  The Dad was one-dimensional and reduced to a few jokes about secretly yearning for a more traditional woman.  Emma's fiance was too nice.  Sophie's best friend Jamie was the stereotype long suffering best friend.  Compared to the female characters, there was no real character development; I know this is chick lit, but I do like strong male characters too.

As with a lot of chick lit, everything was tied up neatly at the end, and to be honest it was a bit too neat for me.  Characters were introduced simply to make other characters happy, something that wouldn't happen in real life.  Everyone was happy.  Now that's nice to read about every now and again, but overall I prefer chick lit written by the likes of Marian Keyes, where there is just a touch more grit.

All of this is not to say that I didn't enjoy this book.  I did.  It was a cute, fun read that I enjoyed picking up after a long day.  And the idea of being descended from Jo March is undeniably cool.

Verdict: Chick lit that does what it says on the tin.
Source: Library
Score: 3 out of 5

Honeymoon Reading So Far - Dear John / Shanghai Girls

I've been driving all day (from Houston towards New Orleans) and we've decided to stop and spend the night in a hotel in Lafeyette, Louisiana to recharge the batteries so I've actually got time to update my blog with the books I have read so far on my trip :)

But first I must say that driving in America is weird.  And it's not just the wrong side of the road thing, because I was expecting that, it's all the little things like you have to push your key in to take it out (you don't at home), the gas pumps sometimes have levers, and there's no clutch pedal to control speed when slowing down so I've been coming to some sharp stops!  But I've not crashed so far!

On to the books!

I wanted something light as a plane read, so I chose Dear John by Nicholas Sparks.  It's about a long-distance relationship between John, who is in the army, and Savannah.  After 9/11, John re-enlists and this puts pressure on his relationship.  I've not read anything by Nicholas Sparks before, or even seen the film of The Notebook, and I wasn't overly impressed.  It was nice to read a romance novel from the point of view of the man, but I didn't really care about either character and as such wasn't affected during the tear-jerker parts.  I don't think I'll rush to read Nicholas Sparks again.
Source: Owned
Score: 2.5 out of 5

My next choice was Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.  I recently read and enjoyed Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, so couldn't wait to read this one, and liked it even more than Snow Flower.  May and Pearl are sisters living comfortably in decadent 1930's Shanghai and working as models.  When the Japanese attack, they are forced to migrate to America, where they encounter prejudice and hardships.

This novel is one of my stand-out favourite reads of 2011 so far.  I wasn't expecting it to be as gritty or in-depth as it was and I loved how the relationship between the two sisters was portrayed, especially as I'm very close to my own sister.  The immigrant experience was captured well, as was the fear of all Chinese in America after Mao came to power, and the involvement of the FBI.
Verdict: Not a happy story, but a powerful one.
Source: Kindle
Score: 5 out of 5