Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Book Review: The Happy Endings Book Club

Book: The Happy Endings Book Club by Jane Tara

Source: Borrowed from NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

This Christmas, the women of the Happy Endings Book Club are about to uncover a world of love and magic as they discover how to have their own happy ending … or beginning, as they're often the same thing.

Once a month, seven very different women come together to discuss books. They all love a happy ending, but have lost sight of how to get their own. Paige misses glimpsing the magic in the world. Sadie doesn't see the beauty inside people. Amanda wonders what she ever saw in her ex husband. Tilda literally can't see herself. Michi can't bear looking at her family, while Clementine is blind to what's right in front of her. And Eva looks for romance in all the wrong places.
But things are about to change ...

Meet the women of the Happy Endings Book Club as they celebrate Christmas, and themselves, in London, Paris, Vienna, New York, Sydney … and in love.


Rating: 3 stars

Review:

I had been really looking forward to reading this because these seven London women who had formed a book club had realized that they were tired of fading into the background or tired of living a dreary life and had wanted more out of their lives.

However, the story makes the mistake of trying to follow too many different story lines. It jumps from one person to the next. I think this would have been better if it was a collection of short stories instead of a jumbled up complete story because the individual stories are just not long enough to really get to know these characters. Also, the story premise was also a bit misleading, because it doesn't say anywhere that there is a magical element to this.

Out of all the ladies stories, I liked Eva's story the best. She was spending Christmas in Vienna but it was hard for her to enjoy herself because it kept bring up memories of her late husband. Who although loved her was not a very overly romantic person. It was sad yet beautiful written.

Another story I really liked was Tilda's, she was dealing with becoming invisible. After she was diagnosed by her doctor she went to Paige's bookstore to talk with her friend. What I found a little annoying was the inconsistency with the Paige in the Tilda story because she was not like the Paige that was in her own story. In her own story she didn't seem to think magic was real and now all of a sudden she has some other customers who are dealing with the same magical problem. While Tilda was dealing with her invisibility issues she met Patrick a nice guy. It turns out he's blind and with her invisibility would it be a good idea to continue getting to know him.

I liked this story because Tilda after realizing she had just let her life slip away, she started taking better care of herself and even took a two-day trip to Paris.

I thought the other ladies stories were okay but they just were not as interesting as the two that I liked. So, in the end I gave this book three stars because I really liked those two stories they were very well-written and had a wonderful sense of whimsy to them.

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