Great news my friends:

 

Yesterday I contacted GoodReads via Twitter with the question if they were going to add GROUPS (much like we know them from *cough* GoodReads *cough*. It is a feature that I really miss here.

 

BookLikes were very quick to respond with the affirmative:

 

Soon BookLikes will add GROUPS to this site!

 

I find this a very exiting prospect!  Surely I cannot be the only one! :-)

 

Now, mind you, I have no information about when this much desired feature will be added, but I will be looking out for it it closely, especially on Thursdays :-)

 

And oh, there's a rumour going on that a mobile App will be launched shortly - again, I have no data on the date, but I just wanted to spread the rumour! ;-)

 

Feel free to pread the word!

Rumour Has It - Jill Mansell An astonishing collection of WTF-erry, preposterous premise(s), and stupid coincidences. I really wanted to like this...expected to, point of fact...but...ugh.

The main characters:

Tilly, formerly of London, now living in the little town of Roxborough, where she is employed by Max, an interior designer. Tilly's position is Max's live-in personal assistant, helping with his business and raising his fourteen-year-old daughter Lou. Soon after moving to Roxborough, she meets and starts to fall for the town rake, Jack Lucas.

Erin is Tilly's best friend and the owner of a small used clothing boutique. She is dating Fergus, who is still married to, but separated from his wife, Stella, the town harpy.

Kaye is Max's ex-wife. The marriage happened at a time when Max, who is gay, was playing at straight. Following the divorce, Kay went off to Hollywood to be an actress. Driven out of Tinseltown by a scandal, she's back in the UK and in Roxborough until she figures out what to do next.

I have a fondness for British chick-lit which is why I picked this up. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a train wreck on top of a car crash dipped in a tornado. Just a mess.

First, there are too many characters doing ostensibly, nothing. No sense of cohesion.

Second, the characterization is uneven and in some cases, grating. Tilly, for example, starts out strong, assertive and smart. Seeing the ad for a "Girl Friday" in the Roxborough newspaper, she calls the number and insists on an immediate interview. The initial interactions between her and Max are great, snappy, fun, etc.

Then comes Jack and away goes Tilly's brain. And not in a cute way. After meeting him, she is intrigued, even though Everyone and their dog tells her he's a man whore. Of course, Jack soon decides (for no apparent reason) that Tilly is The One, the woman who is worth loving despite his broken heart (his fiancee, Rose, died several years before). Even though he makes a decent effort to show her that he's genuinely interested, Tilly proceeds to believe every lame-ass rumor about him that she hears. Like the one where he supposedly got a woman pregnant.

Jack tells her he didn't sleep with the woman. But she doesn't believe him because the woman claims they did make the beast with two backs. Get this. It doesn't occur to Tilly that the woman might be lying. When it finally does, she concocts a scheme to get every woman in Roxborough to admit that they also lied about having sex with Jack.

Jack is exonerated. Except he isn't. Now, out-of-the-blue, like in the last few pages, we learn that Tilly is desperately afraid of getting hurt. So she just can't, can't, I tell you, let herself believe that Jack's feelings are genuine. At this point, I'm hoping a meteorite will fall from the sky and turn Tilly into a smear of red goo and crumbled bone on the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, best buddy Erin is being harassed and stalked by Stella, the baby-crazed loon. (Is this kind of shit legal in the UK? Because the kind of crap Stella pulls would have earned her a restraining order here in the U.S. of A.) Stella is dangerously obsessed with Fergus. Anyway, about halfway through the book, it turns out Stella has cancer in every organ in her body and only has two weeks to live. She didn't notice the humungous tumors because she was so stressed about her broken marriage.

Yes, this is really how the story goes. I shit you not. I guess this is medically possible, but it's also highly improbable. If only because cancer hurts like a mo-fucker and that much cancer has to be excruciating.

Because the reader is required to believe that Erin is a saint, Erin immediately cancels her holiday to Venice with Fergus, and spends all her time at the hospital, holding Stella's hand as she literally wastes away in a week. (She literally goes from hot-Botoxed-trophy-wife type to extra from The Walking Dead in a matter of days. It's nothing short of a not-miracle.)

Stella dies, Erin arranges the funeral and then she and Fergus live...well they live. There's no chemistry between the two; their relationship gets very little development because...Stella. Really, it's all totally pointless.

Kaye, meanwhile, sulks around Roxborough for a time, meets her American stalker, falls head over heels in love with stalker man, gives up her career and then moves to New York to live with stalker and his no doubt, multiple shrines to her. All in just a few days.

Wow. Just...wow.

Two stars instead of one because it was so awful I had to keep reading, thinking, "No, this really isn't going there...oh, wait...it is."

Great chick lit!

Rumour Has It - Jill Mansell When we got this book for review, I was all about it because I adore reading chick lit book and this seemed like something that I knew I would be in the mood for and when I finally picked it up. I couldn't put it down. The book starts off with Tilly's boyfriend leaving her and her not being too bothered about it. She goes to visit her friend in the country and that trip changes the course of her life.Watching as Tilly came into her own with her new job, her new home and everything else made for a very entertaining read. This book had me cracking up. I thought it was just too funny watching the adventures Tilly went through in this book. I really enjoyed the characters interactions and the British humor. They're such great conversationalists. I love reading and listening to the British slang and everything. They're such a hoot!This book had it all. It had great dialogue and fantastic characters. What more is there to want? Not much but as much as I enjoyed this book, there were loads of things about Tilly that totally got on my frickin nerves. Tilly's whole thing about keeping her distance from Jack, even after she found out that she was wrong in everything she thought she knew about him (you know what they say about people who ASSume) that she walked away from him in an effort to save herself from heart ache. I could respect that if she knew that he was a player for real, she had concrete evidence then yeah, I could see her trying to save herself the heart ache but he WASN'T like that. He wasn't guilty of ANYTHING that she accused him of and she still kept her distance from him. It was so dumb and that was the other thing that annoyed me about Tilly. She called Jack on every little thing, everything and none of it was true and even when she was made to look like the idiot that she was, she didn't seem genuine in her apology. It was more like, "Oops, my bad" and then she just went back to whatever it was she was doing.And while we're on that, Jack. He was the perfect guy, charming and hot and everything that a girl could want. Women all over town wanted to do him and he could have his pick of the litter and the one woman he does want makes him jump through hoop after hoop after hoop. It was so annoying that he let Tilly get away with treating him the way that she did. I kept waiting for him to get good and pissed at her but he kept trying to explain himself to her when he shouldn't have but alls well that ends well because I forgave them for acting like idiots. The book ends the way it's supposed to end and that's really all that matters but their stupidness does affect my grade for the book.I really enjoyed getting to know the other characters as well. From Max and Lou to Kaye and Erin. I loved them all. Even Declan from the pub.Review was originally posted at: http://thebookbinge.com by myself.

David Foster is a marvelous throw-back sort of author while simultaneously being at the very cutting edge of Australian literature. There's enough edge in this novel to shave an Irishman. Bare. Comparing it to Peter Temple's Miles Franklin winning 'Truth' ('Sons of the Rumour' didn't make the shortlist!! - and I hate multiple punc marks...) Is a little like the difference between a well-executed game of high school basketball, and an NBA championship match. It is clever and readable, and packs punch. There's passages of such beauty and irony and insight that your breath can be taken away. I know it's a cliche, but fuck it, it's true. Does hatred frighten you? Love too? If you want to be authentic with your art then you need to not be, no matter what mis... or ...ism the politburo may wish to worry you. This book is a brilliant, talented author at the top of his powers. You should read. Savour. It won't last.