Monday, 18 April 2016

Lisa Owens - Not Working


Rating: 3/5

Review:
Well written but ultimately a bit tedious



This is a well written book which I found amusing for a while, but I'm afraid it didn't really keep me engaged for all that long.

To be fair, I am not the target market.  This is a sort of Bridget-Jones-alike, aimed pretty squarely at twenty-something women, so as a man who hasn't been twenty-something for a number of decades I may not be the best of critics for it.  I did enjoy the scattered nature of the narrative, with Claire's first-person story reading rather like diary entries with random observations of the minutiae of life thrown in.  She has resigned from the job she doesn't like to try to take stock and choose a direction in life, and we get the story, her relationship with her parents and her boyfriend (which is refreshingly good, even if it gets a bit strained at times)…and so on. 

It's well enough done and I liked its tone and amusing asides a lot for the first third or so, but there really wasn't enough content to keep me interested and by half way I was beginning to struggle quite badly.  It all felt terribly familiar somehow, and I began skimming as I lost the will to engage with Claire's little angsts again…and again and again.

Others may enjoy this more than me, but I'm afraid that, despite some good moments and decent jokes, I just got bored with it in the end.  I've given it three stars because it is well written and I enjoyed it for a while, but I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

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