What do You think about Pants On Fire (2001)?
Goodness -- I'm exhausted from just reading about the lifestyles of these women! Is Australia really like that? Or did Maggie Alderson take a lot of liberties in describing the singles scene Down Under? Either way, I enjoyed my first romp into Australian chick lit.I enjoyed the colorful language and imagery and am glad Alderson used the excessive behavior of her characters to illustrate the dangers of depression/drug use/eating disorders/etc. The book managed to touch on all those subjects without seeming preachy or overdone. And, of course, it stuck with the tried-and-true chick lit formula: Take one single woman working at a magazine, add a couple crazy friends, mix in a few romantic mishaps, throw in one divine Prince Charming, stir until a happy ending is reached, and voila!Pants on Fire would've scored more points with me if Georgia Abbott worked in a retail store, had middle-class friends, and mingled at small house parties instead of grand balls, but it was an entertaining book as-is for any fan of the chick lit genre.
—Erin
I was worried at first, thinking this would be just another "Girl moves to Sydney from London or vise versa to work in the fashion industry" book, like she usually does, but as usually happens with Maggie Alderson books, there was so much more to the story than that. I was soon completely involved in the characters and the story as it all unfolded and the ending was completely unexpected, as far as the story was concerned. Unfortunately as the scenario that I mentioned above was easily predicted, it was just as obvious who Georgia was going to be up with at the end. But I still loved it and would read this book again and again.
—Kirsten Hivon
Read this back in 2009 and this review sat under another book of the same name but by a different author, until an astute reader noticed it was incorrectly filed. Fixing that error now.This book was sent to me by a BookCrosser. I'm not really much of a chick lit reader, but have read more in the past few years. The thing that I like about the books that are written abroad is how they broaden my vocabulary and give me glimpses into a very different lifestyle and location. My life is richer for knowing the difference between snogging and shagging (just an ironic aside here. There is a famous dance done to beach music, that originated in this area, called, you guessed it, the shag). This book was my maiden voyage into Australian click lit and opened up new avenues to explore.At first, I was put off by the excessive (to my mind) use of drugs & alcohol and constant parties. It must be exhausting to lead such a life. And when would you find time to read???But, just about when I decided I'd had enough, I realized I was a little more than halfway through, and that I kind of wanted to see where the author took all this. The second half was much quicker to read. The author has chosen to deal with some pretty heady issues and the book does give you a little tour of Sydney- so for those reasons, and for the description of Tim Tams, I'll bump it up a star.
—bookczuk
