Saturday, January 12, 2008

5. Seeing Me Naked


This was good chick lit. Different than most in the type of characters and the seriousness of some of the family drama. Rather than a description, here's a review from B&N.com:

Palmer follows up her mirthful debut, Conversations with the Fat Girl, with a subtly sophisticated romance that outclasses most of the genre's other offerings. Elisabeth Page is a 30-year-old pastry chef at L.A.'s restaurant du jour whose perpetually knotted stomach has roots in any number of sources: her father, Ben, a two-time Pulitzer-winning novelist and "the kind of cultural icon that doesn't exist anymore," with whom "every conversation is a chess game"; childhood sweetheart Will Houghton, whose globe-trotting as a journalist has stunted their ill-defined relationship; the head chef from hell at her all-consuming job; and her patrician family's way of "bonding through blood sport." But relief begins to filter in as Elisabeth's dalliance with beer-drinking, salt-of-the-earth basketball coach Daniel Sullivan turns into a fulfilling relationship and her culinary career takes an unexpected turn. If it sounds chick litty, it is, but consider it haute chick lit; Palmer's prose is sharp, her characters are solid and her narrative is laced with moments of graceful sentiment.

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