I almost didn't make it through this book. The characters are almost insultingly stereotypical. Hope is a depressed housewife. Her sister Sam is a lonely workaholic. And if I just stopped my review right there I bet you could guess the happy ending. Yes, it's that predictable.I kind of hated most of the characters (especially Hope) for the first 250-300 pages of the book. That's a lot of pages to be hating on the main character. I was bored to tears reading about Hope having no backbone when it came to her husband. And declining invites from new friends because she didn't want to intrude. I get it. Her self-esteem is lacking. You really don't need 300 pages for me to pick up on that. I figure that out in about 50 pages. Now let's move this story on and tell me how she deals with it.Plus new characters were introduced frequently, which meant my already bored mind had to try to keep them all straight. Half of them brought nothing to the story and could have been eliminated.Also, for some reason, not a single one of these female characters was capable of telling a man how she feels. Instead they all just made assumptions and jumped to conclusions. It was exhausting and frustrating to read. Yes, some of us gals struggle when it comes to communicating with men, but EVERY SINGLE ONE? No. Just as I was about to put myself out of my misery and give up on this book (and I almost never give up on a book), we finally got to a little action. You could pretty much guess what was going to happen, but I'm not totally against predictability in a chick lit book as long as I can relate to the characters and truly want them to get their happy ending. As the story progressed I started to like the characters more and was rooting for their happiness. But it sure took a long (way toooo long) time to get to that point in this book.I wouldn't recommend this book, but at the beginning of the book I was thinking zero stars and by the end decided it was probably worthy of 2 to 2 1/2 stars. That being said, I put it in my "donate to the library" box because I doubt I'll ever read this book again.
A really fun romantic novel. I knew 300 pages before the end who was going to end up with whom, but it was fun getting there. Although it bothered me that huge portions of the plot hinged on the protagonists being really horrible communicators - if you don't freakin' tell somebody about the problem, or listen to why things happened the way they did, then you deserve what you get (which according to this book is a really hunky man, so hopefully no one's getting their relationship tips from novels like this). Hope's wishy-washiness bugged me too, and there was way too much setup before Hope and Matt actually arrived at the charming Irish village that would change their lives. (view spoiler)[I was also bothered by the absolute ease with which Matt not only wrote a novel - in the evenings over the span of about six weeks while he worked at a demanding job all day?! - but also found an agent who loved the book and placed it with a publisher for a considerable advance. As a writer myself with a lot of novelist friends, that's insaneballs. But some suspension of disbelief is needed when you're reading a romantic novel, so Matt's magical book deal was less bothersome to me than WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL HIM HE'S BEING A JERK OMG. (hide spoiler)]
Started off nicely but draged a bit at the end. Speaking of the end, it was too ' Happily ever after' and a bit unrealistic. Would have altered the story lines slightly. Hope's story was pretty good and interesting. Liked Sam's too, but it would have been an altogether better story line if her diagnosis was delayed till the very end of the book. Virginia's storyline went really bad towards the end. One moment you're Reading of her extreme grief and the next she's dating and all in a matter of months. Would have left the dating line out. Worst was Nicoles story. Her success as a recordind artist was by far too fast, I didn't feel her character brought anything to the book.Overall a fair read. She has written better.
—Chris
So I read Someone Like You by Cathy Kelly, which I thought was her debut novel, but apparently is her fourth. I really liked it, but not, perhaps, as much as Best of Friends.Then I read What She Wants, and amazingly enough, I noticed the trend...all her stories have women (mostly three, but this had more) who're friends, who're finding themselves, careers, and love. Thankfully she's got enough characters and ideas for plot, storyline, etc., to make the pattern new and interesting with each novel. I wonder what her other books are like...must make a list of them...
—Sarah
A bit of a departure for me, but I wanted something light. Hopefully I am not reminded why I am so picky when it comes to books... UPDATE: I finished this over the weekend. It was pretty good. At first the characters were a bit stereotypical, but then they became believable and likeable. By the end, I didn't want it to end and wanted to continue following their lives. This book didn't have amazing life lessons or profound to add to the world but it did underscore the importance of female friendships which in itself is something many womem need to be reminded of.
—Erin
