She's bluffed her way into a Very Posh Job and her outlandishly handsome and talented boyfriend Michael is escorting her to the Ritz with a bulge the shape of a ring box in his pocket.
But something has gone wrong. Very wrong. By the end of the evening Fran is howling in bed with a bottle of cheap brandy and one of Michael's old socks.
In her quest to figure out why her life has suddenly gone down the pan, Fran comes up with a failsafe plan: live like a badger, stalk a stranger called Nellie and cancel her beloved Gin Thursdays in favour of drinking gin every night. But then Fran's friends force a very different plan on her and it's nowhere near as fun. How could eight dates possibly make her feel better?
But eventually she agrees. And so begins the greatest love story of all time . . .
Comment: In 2019 I've read another book by this author, which I ended up liking a lot, even though it did have some details that weren't as appealing to me. I had promised myself I'd read other books by the author (from what I saw, only three more, perhaps mrs Robinson stopped writing?) and now I've finally jumped into this one, which apparently was the author's debut.
Well, thankfully I tried her work with that other book because if I had read this one first I wouldn't even know I'd missing out on that other one - at least - which would have been a pity...
In this story we meet Fran, a 30 year old woman who believes the love of her life is about to propose. She's also having a good challenge at work and her life seems to be in a good spot. However, her boyfriend doesn't propose and on top of that, even asks for a three month break. Fran is devastated, and even though she has the support of her friends, it feels as if this situation is only the beginning of an escalation of trouble in all areas of her life. While dealing with the problems, Fran decides she needs to understand why her boyfriend asked for some time, and she accidentally hears a conversation leading her to believe he is already seeing someone else. How can this be? Is there any hope for Fran to get control of her life?
I will have to confess I felt very disappointed with this story, especially because now that some time has passed and I can think about the plot with more concentration, the bones for this story were actually quite compelling and I probably would have appreciated it more. The issue, to me, was that not only the execution was very muddled and all over the place, but Fran just wasn't a likable heroine to me.
With the example of the other book I had read by this author, which I liked, I had some expectations for this one. I now know this was the author's debut and I can imagine this is, perhaps, the explanation, for my lack of engagement; the plot just wasn't edited/presented in the best way it could. I struggled to like Fran and to root for her when she seemed to be such an airhead, only worried about her boyfriend and getting him back. This was even more annoying when he was clearly not the hero, something we can "guess" practically from the start.
Fran is a little silly and her friends decide she should go on dates, to have different experiences and see if what she feels for Michael, her boyfriend, is truly the greatest love of her life. Of course this is meant to offer us a comedy factor, for most "dates" are simply too bad. The issue is that this isn't done so that we can become convinced that Michael is her best option, but to let Fran know she should be more aware of people around her and what their intentions must be like. To make Fran's life worse, and to complicate matters, her alcoholic mother has been having an affair with a married man, who is a public figure, and she thinks Michael has moved on.
Thus, with such complications in life, what does Fran decides to do? Well, instead of working and trying to process things, she starts neglecting her work and starts finding ridiculous ways to stalk the woman she thinks her boyfriend is seeing. I've found these schemes and situations to be incredible childish and the whole thing made me struggle to focus on the story. Then, her boss finally realizes what she's been doing and warns her in such a way, mostly conveying his disappointment in her lack of professionalism, that this does work as a waking up call.
From here on the story did get on track to something more palatable and a few details, which had been almost hidden from our attention with all the silly/complicated shenanigans, started to become more interesting an a lot more solid in how important they were to justify a few things. I'm especially thinking about the clues about Michael not being the best boyfriend, the ones about Dave (Fran's best friend at work) being more than perhaps just a friend to her, and how those around her who could impact her professional career were actually better or worse people than we assumed.
When most of the misunderstandings are vanquished, Fran is finally at a position to understand what had been wrong in her life, in her relationship with Michael and at work. This is, of course, the whole point of this novel, but to me it came a bit too late. I just cannot fully match silly woman Fran with competent Fran, as she kept being described as being, and this affected my overall impression of the story. I should say that, as the plot was being wrapped up, I could "see" some of the details in the author's skill which I had liked in the other book. I suppose this is really a matter of getting better as time and experience goes by.
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