Book Review: CitizenGirl

Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Why I am even bothering to review this crap of a book, I don't know. There is nothing more unsatisfying than spending time reading a bad story. Thankfully it was a quick read because there was no point to the plot, you could skip over paragraphs and be fine.

I'm hugely disappointed as well as unsatisfied because I expected more from the authors of the actually funny "Nanny Diaries". But man, did they fail to deliver with this story. It read more along the painful lines of "The Devil Wears Prada", echoing even the typical plot line of New York-heroine-who-takes-any-job-because-she-can't-find-another-yet-hates-working-at-said-company-because-it-compromises-all-of-her-values-and-constantly-complains-about-it-instead-of-quitting-and-has-sex-with-a-hot-guy-along-the-way-who-inevitably-is-involved-with-moving-the-heroine-from-a-crap-apartment-to-another-crap-apartment-and-which-somehow-turns-into-a-quasi-relationship-by-the-end-of-the-story-which-is-only-believable-in-a-fictional-world.

You're supposed to give some books a 100 pages to get interesting, which I did for this book. I should have stopped, but kept on reading because I spent money on the book and wanted to finish it. I did almost take it back to the bookstore this morning, 2 chapters in, but against my better judgment kept reading.

Hopefully the next time these authors put out a book they can come up with a plot that makes sense, connect it with some actual good writing (side note, repeating the words shit and f*ck every other sentence does not comprise good writing), and better-named heroine and characters, instead of quasi-ironic names like "Girl", "Guy", "Buster", "Grace", "Jack", and "Manley", and steer away from the typical New York girl who compromises her values for money because getting a good job is apparently impossible in New York. All of these novels really just affirm to me that I don't ever want to work in NYC - I will just keep to the romantic, touristy part of the appeal of the city.

Bottom-line: Don't waste your time on this waste of ink and paper. Save it for your first or fourth reading of Pride and Prejudice. And don't ever believe a cover endorsement of a book from Marie Claire magazine. "Hilarious" is what they said. "Train-Wreck" would have been more appropriate.

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