Skip to main content

Up All Night by Carmen Reid - Book Review

Category:Books
Genre: Romance
Author:Carmen Reid
I love Carmen Reid. I just do, don’t ask me why. But this latest offering is actually a little more than disappointing to me. As with her first novel, Three in a Bed, Carmen Reid wrote with pizzazz about being a mother, giving birth, being a career woman. She hit all the right notes with stuff so real it’ll leave you in stitches…for all the wrong reasons. Why would anyone laugh at crapping on the floor while giving birth, you tell me?! But this is something not a lot of people talk about but happens, you know. Up All Night is about Jo, who is an overworked journalist in a weekly newspaper, fighting in the dog-eat-dog world for the same news with a fanatical bunch of idiots who are ready to lose their lives over a piece of news or a snapshot of their victims. Bella Browning, the original character in ‘Three in a Bed’ makes appearances here and there as a confidante, as the prim and proper and perfect friend who knew everything there is to know on earth with not a piece of clothing out of place. Jo, on the other hand, is everything Bella is not. Suggestively, the preview at the back of the book said that she had a relationship with a chef years younger than her and he was, like….potential partner and stuff. The sex scenes can be counted on two or three fingers. Nothing to exciting….mildly so. And the chemistry between the two people were so warm it’s almost chilling. I don’t know! The storyline is fine but it’s more journalistic or political than I would expect from her. This is, perhaps, Carmen Reid’s way to bringing writing about her experience as a journalist. Once a journalist, forever a journalist, they say….or was it for something else. Ah heck, who cares. Very little was mentioned about Jo’s ex-husband, Simon and the same goes for Jo’s kids, Mel and Nettie. So, in conclusion, this isn’t chick lit at all. It’s a book about being a journalist with very few romantic scenes in it….. But let’s give her the credit for this. The ending. Surprising move and unexpected except towards the middle. After all that hoopla about the chef and their sex life and suddenly, out of the blue, from a dark corner out of the plot.....someone from her life is SUDDENLY crème on the cake.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
It's been a long time since I picked up a book that is not a horror fiction or sci-fi, hehe, hapi new year girl :D
January 3, 2008 at 11:27 AM
Marsha Maung said…
firehorse, kopisoh, I also had a tough time trying to find the time to read these days. and I was a fan of sci-fi, murder, mystery type of books but got an overdose of that and picked up a chit lit for a change. I usually go between romance/chic lit/sci-fi/action-fiction/self-help.....eh, that covers just about everything except auto-biography which I loathe, unfortunately. :-)
January 4, 2008 at 9:06 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Liberating Activity - Guess What Mine Is....

When asked what’s my one single favorite thing to do in the world, I would usually name a whole list of things that I love to do when my work is not screaming at me. Something that takes my mind COMPLETELY off of everyday tasks and relaxes me. Take a guess what it is…. If you say ‘ reading ’, yes, I love reading (especially soppy love stories with lots of sex scenes, please. Hee hee hee ….) and I also love mystery novels but it’s not the first on the list. If you say ‘ playing the piano ’; yes, I love playing the piano. Creating forms a huge part of my life and whenever I play the piano (as inept at it as I am), there’s this tiny little girl inside of me jumping up and down with glee, clapping her hands. It’s my childhood dream to be able to play the piano! And thumping on the keys gives me a sense of satisfaction when I hear the music. If you say ‘ writing ’; You’ve got to be kidding me! You mean I don’t write enough as it is? Case closed. If you say ‘ playing with my kids ’; Yea...
20 comments
Read more

Maid Side-Kick

I was kind of a little sad when I read the news about this - there will be no live-in Indonesian maids in Malaysia anymore . There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me. For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media. Since we were more like partners in crim...
Post a Comment
Read more

Demanding a Balanced Lifestyle

We live in a world choked with demands….demand for more money, better lifestyle, more holidays, smarter kids, bigger house, posher cars….etc. People walk around with spiritually unimportant goals in their minds driven by the need to succeed and be better than others around them. Hong Kong. South Korea. Japan. Most Asian countries suffer from this ill-fate which have caused a horrific rise in the number of suicide rates in the said countries. Malaysia is no exception as well although we’re very slowly gaining ground on our neighbors. Just picking up my son from school can become a stressful affair. I’ve mentioned this to a few friends of mine over the phone and all of them cluck their tongue shake their head. It’s end of the year and the kids are getting their test results back by now. I overheard a couple of tai-tais (housewives) gripe about their kids’ results. Mom: I don’t know-lah. My kid did not do very well this term. The best also got 95 only. (NINETY FIVE ONLY???) ...
7 comments
Read more