Book Review-In Her Shoes

This book was like a chick flick in 500 pages. Actually I guess they DID make a move out of it. I'm sure it was a chick flick. (I didn't see it. But now I'm kinda tempted to. I want to know if it's better then the book) Let's see if it contains all the necessary elements of a chick flick:

* Lots of talk about ridiculously expensive shoes? Check
* An estranged grandmother who sends birthday cards that a parent hides because they think it will be "best" for the kids. And then one of the kids find them hidden in a shoe box in the closet (of course) and then she confronts the parent about how he hid them from her and there is a sappy crying scene. Check
* Someone has a boyfriend that cheats on her. Check
* The protagonist dumps the cheating boyfriend and then finds her "prince charming" who she knew all along, but overlooked him because she was all caught up with the sleazy cheating boyfriend: Check
* There is a wedding. Check

Now as you read those details about this book, couldn't you have replaced the title "In Her Shoes" with any other generic chick flick book. (I know that the work FLICK means movie, but you know what I mean)

I found the book enjoyable enough. I went through it in 2 days, it was like cotton candy. I didn't like how things were all tidied up in the end. Like a girl has had a learning disability for 28 years and then all of a sudden she sneaks into a few classes at Princeton and now she can read and recited poems like a freaking master.

And one sister steals another sister's boyfriend and that sister walks in on them . . um. . doing stuff and then in a few months all is resolved, and they are happy with each other again. Tra-la-larita-la.

And they are all happy at the end, one big happy family with a big white wedding dress that somehow amazingly makes her size 14 body look like a size 6. It was just to NEAT and clean for me. Not enough angst. Not enough tragedy.

Maybe I have been reading too much Ian McEwan and too much Marquez, but this one just felt so contrived and just too fluffy. It didn't make me want to change my life and it didn't make any smarter after I finished it. It almost felt like it was insulting my intelligence. Like it thought that I couldn't understand more complex or deeper issues to it had to spell them out for me really slow like and keep it simple. I wanted to say, "I can take it, you can delve a little deeper. I swear, I'll follow you."

There were some enjoyable parts. Rose is a lawyer and someone tries to tell her a dumb lawyer joke and she plays dumb. She says, "What? I don't get it. Say it again. Are you sure you have the joke right?" and the guy feels dumb and starts to talk away and she shouts after him "wait, you can't go yet!! you have to finish explaining the joke to me!!" Hilarious.

So if you want some fluffy reading that won't stay with you after you close the book, definitely pick this one up.