Last year I took Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes on our vacation to Hawaii..perfect beach read, kept me occupied on the plane, etc. So this year, when I found out I would be lucky enough to go to Hawaii again, I thought I'd bring along another M. Keyes, so I grabbed this one...not such a good move...
While I love her style and intelligence, turns out this was the thinnly disguised roman a clef of Keye's own life as an addict. Not the fun sunny typical ChickLit I was looking for in this case...May have just been a case of the right book at the wrong time. Still, any ChickLit by Marian Keyes is better than most ChickLit by most people.
For those who want their ChickLit with a dash of realism...

Mass-market paperback received in the mail from SCOUT-FINCH in Sherman Oaks, California, in trade for Icing Ivy. I needed books for my chicklit box, but then I was lucky enough to find a bunch at the thrift store around the corner. I've already got a copy on Mt. TBR (I love Marian Keyes), so this one is available.

From Publishers Weekly
Irish by birth but a trendy New Yorker for the past eight years, Rachel Walsh learns just what it means to have too much fun in this lively drama about addiction and recovery. Rachel enjoys cocaine, alcohol and meeting men in bars, especially men wearing tight leather pants. She can match anybody's hilarious anecdotes about a Catholic childhood, but recently her life's gone awry, and God has become "more like a celestial stand-up comic" than a "benign old guy with long hair." When she wakes up in a hospital emergency room and finds she's been diagnosed as a suicidal drug addict, she's enraged. She's also broke and unemployed, and her boyfriend has abandoned her. As a final indignity, her father takes her back home and books her into Dublin's Betty Ford-like clinic, the Cloisters. Famous for a clientele of rock stars, it should be a glamorous spa, but it isn't. Quarters are spartan, clients do housework and group therapy is humiliating. It could be worse, though, and there's one good-looking fellow-inmate who might, or might not, be a lifeline post-Cloisters. This novel isn't a how-to on overcoming addiction but an examination, often comic, of treatment that is expected to result in personality changes necessary for recovery. Smart-ass Rachel actually becomes a beguiling heroine after learning to wake up and cook eggs at about the same time in the morning she used to fall into somebody's bed in New York. Clever badinage ("the only way to get over one man is get under another") unfortunately sometimes gives way to phrases like "pantie-meltingly gorgeous." The narrative is overlong, and the characters rarely speak—they yell or shriek—but, overall, Keyes's stylish wit keeps readers attentive, and her take on addiction is insightful and compassionate.

From Library Journal
Irish author Keyes continues her pleasantly amusing storytelling, although this book has more of an edge than last year's Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married (1999). Rachel Walsh is definitely not a drug addict—everyone does cocaine every now and then, right? But her roommate, Brigit, and semi-boyfriend, Luke, see a problem. Simply to pacify her friends and family, Rachel checks into an Irish rehab center called the Cloisters, expecting daily massages and seaweed wraps. Rachel is devastated to learn that she is enrolled in a real drug treatment center! We follow Rachel as she confronts her addiction and learns a lot about herself. The story is funny, fast paced, and sometimes intense. It's also long—and while it is an enjoyable read, it would have been spunkier at half the size. FYI: the movie is already in development. Recommended for public libraries.

From Booklist
Rachel Walsh would describe herself as too large, unsexy, middle class, broke, and misunderstood. She would also deny that she has a "drug problem," but when her father insists that she go to The Cloisters, a ritzy rehabilitation center in Ireland, she jumps at the chance to lounge around with actors and rock stars. Instead, she encounters a lot of middle-aged men in brown cardigans and is surprised to discover that she's expected to help with the chores. She's shocked, too, by the lengthy accounts her loved ones have written the shrinks about her drug and alcohol use, habitual borrowing of money, and one-night stands. Rachel eventually realizes that she's in denial, and then she begins to worry. Will she ever be forgiven? Will Luke, a gorgeous hunk with no fashion sense, ever desire her again? Keyes' intriguing, fast-paced account of an addict's recovery features personable characters with realistic blends of humor and imperfections and a heroine, who, despite her exasperating self-pity and shallowness, is witty enough to keep readers rooting for her.

RELEASE NOTES:

Left in a plastic bag on the porch (along the left side of the building) at:

Sheep's Clothing, the Morehouse Farm merino store
2 Rock City Road, Milan, New York, USA

at the junction of routes 199 & 308 (across from the Fork in the Road sculpture)
6 miles east of Rhinebeck & 4 miles east of Red Hook
in the mid-Hudson River Valley (Dutchess County)

Open daily 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
(845) 758-3710

Thanks for finding this book
Please write a journal entry letting all its past and future readers know that this book was found. (It's anonymous, and you don't have to join BookCrossing to do it.) Then read and keep this book, give it to a friend, or even release it for someone else to find—just like you did. Happy reading!

Picked up the book on the walkway outside "Sheep's Clothing" described in the previous entry. I was in the area for a Sheep & Wool Festival. I've read other books by Marian Keyes and expected something different. I'll be leaving this one somewhere in Manhattan.

CAUGHT IN MILAN CITY NEW YORK USA