the more i read jane green, the more i come to love her novels! (i bought two more last night.) i believe that it's because her protagonists are so lovable. i come to care about their conflict and resolutions.
this book is about an overweight journalist named jemima jones. we find out within the first page or two that she is jonesin' (pun TOTALLY intended) big time for her not-at-all overweight and sexiest man alive ben williams. over time they eventually become friends due to the work environment, but her feelings are never reciprocated. he only sees her as a friend...due, in jemima's point of view, to her being overweight--he is unable to see her as anything beyond a friend. this, obviously, has become a problem to her.
her problem: the vicious cycle that only "eaters" can relate to. she eats because she is lonely, she is lonely because she chooses to hide behind her insecurities of being overweight. something i, and more of green's audience than will care to admit, can completely relate to.
having been published in 1999 and written pre-1999, jane green takes on the introduction to all things internet in the corporate world. she places her characters in the situation of attending an internet class together so that they can learn how to navigate what is soon be their website.
because of this internet class, jemima takes on a love and a waxing curiosity for the internet. she finds herself amidst the taboo and oh-so-mysterious world of chat rooms. here she meets a man in LA, and they continue chatting for months moving quickly from chat room, to email, to telephone. this, to jemima, is pure fun...until the day brad, the online hottie, decides they need to meet.
thus kicking off the "i have SO got to lose weight if this is ever going to work" obsession, and we find our lovely "jj" (as brad knows her) 100 pounds lighter and on her way to LA to meet the man that could be "it".
we find our leading lady growing in ways she could never imagine as she crosses the atlantic ocean and finds herself in a whole new culture of blonde, thin, and hotter than hot.
this novel follows a woman as she grows beyond her insecurities--being viciously smacked in the face by betrayal and the utter selfishness of the human race, she becomes much less naive about the world--and learns, from TRUE friends (geraldine-coworker-, laura-fellow londoner-, and ben-love of life) that being genuinely happy is more than being the right size.
though the novel is somewhat outdated, due to the introduction of internet dating, and pretty predictable, (and, not to mention totally unrealistic at some points) i can't help but find myself wishing the absolute best for jemima. i want her to do well. i want her to love and be loved in return. she is a gem. an absolute gem.
my favorite part about this novel, besides the resolution, is the stylistic decision of shifting point of view. green goes back and forth between first person point of view--the story being told by jemima-- and a third person omniscient narrator who gives commentary throughout the novel to remind the reader when a situation is shady, when a character is being naive, when the plot is beginning to thicken, etc. clever.
so, i guess, in the game of jane green novels, i am 4 for 6. it seems like great odds, right?
