Helen Bradshaw isn't exactly living out her dreams. She's a lowly assistant editor at GirlTime magazine, she drives an ancient Toyota, and she has a history of choosing men who fall several thousand feet below acceptable boyfriend standards. Not to mention that she shares an apartment with a scruffy, tactless roommate, her best girlfriends are a little too perfect, and the most affectionate male in her life -- her cat, Fatboy -- occasionally pees in her underwear drawer.

Then Helen gets the telephone call she least expects: Her father has had a massive heart attack. Initially brushing off his death as merely an interruption in her already chaotic life (they were never very close after all), Helen is surprised to find everything else starting to crumble around her. Her pushy mother is coming apart at the seams, a close friend might be heading toward tragedy, and, after the tequila incident, it looks as thought Tom the vet will be sticking with Dalmations. Turns out getting over it isn't going to be quite as easy as she thought.

The newly emerged "chick lit" genre has slowly won me over with stories like this. Although the basics are formulaic (girl works at a magazine, girl has glamorous friends, girl's love life is a mess), this is the first one I've read that has dealt with something serious -- the death of a father. While Becky Bloomwood would no doubt argue that being a "shopaholic" is a legitimate problem, its triviality is obvious when compared to grief.

A lot of things about Helen Bradshaw bugged me (mostly relating to her love life and the impossibility of a man such as Tom existing, as my single friends would quickly point out), but I think her belated feelings of loss and the general anger and confusion that comes with bereavement are totally accurate. And it's not the only serious issue Anna Maxted tackles in what could otherwise be written off as an entertaining piece of "fem fluff" -- she also touches on suicide, abuse, and the ever baffling mother/daughter relationship.

But "getting over it" is Helen's main struggle, and anyone who's ever lost a loved one can learn something from her painful, but humorous, journey.

I promised everyone who showed up for tonight's Meetup a book, but I hadn't expected so many people to sign up at the last minute! So I'm taking this book with me to St. Elmo's in hopes that it piques someone's interest.

Released on Tuesday, November 09, 2004 at about 6:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at St. Elmo's Coffee Shop on Mt. Vernon Ave. in Alexandria, Virginia USA.

RELEASE NOTES:

Left on the bookshelves across from the cash register after last night's Meetup. Happy reading!

Got the book at St. Elmo's Coffeeshop and can't wait to read it. Looks like I caught it right away!

Definitly a good book in the chick/brit-lit category. The difference in this book is that it focuses a bit more on the family relationship after the death of her father and less on the "how am I ever going to get him to like me" storyline. A nice change-of-pace. Released the book in Wendell, NC. Hopefully someone finds it and enjoys it.