Book Review: Jemima J

Book: Jemima J by Jane Green

Description:

Jemima Jones is overweight. About one hundred pounds overweight. Treated like a maid by her thin and social-climbing roommates, and lorded over by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented but better paid) at the Kilburn Herald, Jemima finds that her only consolation is food. Add to this her passion for her charming, sexy, and unobtainable colleague Ben, and Jemima knows her life is in need of a serious change. When she meets Brad, an eligible California hunk, over the Internet, she has the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself – as JJ, the slim, beautiful, gym-obsessed glamour girl. But when her long-distance Romeo demands that they meet, she must conquer her food addiction to become the bone-thin model of her e-mails – no small feat.



Rating: 3 1/2 stars

My Review:

Once, I got used to the writing style, I thought the story was good. It was fast paced and interesting (despite being riddled with cliches). The story was like a modern fairy tale and the narrator felt like a fairy godmother describing the story.

Jemima J was over weight, bored with her life and was in love with her very handsome co-worker Ben Williams (who only saw her as a friend). One day after being fed up with her life she joined a gym to lose weight and she also started "dating" a guy she met over the internet, Brad. He is a health nut, who seems perfect. Thinking she would never meet Brad, Jemima lies about her life to him. She even sent him a digitally enhanced picture of herself.

As she lost the weight and got a make-over (by her friend Geraldine), she instantly noticed how people (mainly men) were treating her differently. Also, her internet guy had invited her out to California to visit him and deciding to take the risk Jemima went.

Dating was a new experience for Jemima so when she had doubts about Brad she immediately talked herself out of them. She kept feeling like things were not right about him yet she continued to want to be with this guy. She was trying to force herself to be happy and since she lost a lot of weight and Brad was very handsome, she should be happy. Things didn't work out with Brad (no surprise), after some brief time later, Jemima and Ben end up re-connecting in California.

Some things that kind of annoyed me with this story:

1) I felt like, Ben only saw who Jemima was after her transformation. He may be described as a nice guy but I don't think if Jemima was still over weight he would have fallen in love with her when they re-connected in California.

2) Over exaggerating Jemima's weight. She weighed 217 lbs with a height of 5'7 but the way she was constantly described she should have weighed around 400lbs. She was described as having multiple chins and massive thighs that spilled onto other seats on the bus, etc, etc. I just didn't think her weight matched the description.

3) The message of the book. I may not be overweight but I got the message clear as day, "if you're overweight, your life sucks unless you lose weight".