I don't remember what appealed to me about this book, that caused me to request it on paperbackswap. It's more than chicklit, thank heaven, but what is it really?
I read the title wrong at the start: My Life, Starring Dara Falcon. I thought it was all about Dara Falcon, and that it would be a first-person accounting of Dara's life. It is first-person, but that person is Jean. Jean's life is so affected by her relationship with Dara that Dara takes center stage.
In fact, Dara is an actress. Better, perhaps, than many realize. She is manipulative yet insightful, and she soon attracts Jean's interest. She slams Jean with compliments that Jean is sensible enough to set aside, but the sorcery works. Bit by bit Dara becomes involved in the lives of others in Jean's life, and at times this makes it difficult to maintain a friendship with her.
Others warn Jean off but she doesn't want to hear it. Ultimately, maybe it's possible that Dara's effect on Jean was far from all negative. She awoke something in her. Would her life have gone very differently if Dara had not been in it? Would it have been better or worse?
Initially I was put off by the loooong paragraphs. Beattie indulges in these pages-long paragraphs frequently, and it makes me tired just to look at them. In a few places I also felt that the story had slipped and I was reading something rather adolescent. Nevertheless, there is enough there that it kept me going.
I read the title wrong at the start: My Life, Starring Dara Falcon. I thought it was all about Dara Falcon, and that it would be a first-person accounting of Dara's life. It is first-person, but that person is Jean. Jean's life is so affected by her relationship with Dara that Dara takes center stage.
In fact, Dara is an actress. Better, perhaps, than many realize. She is manipulative yet insightful, and she soon attracts Jean's interest. She slams Jean with compliments that Jean is sensible enough to set aside, but the sorcery works. Bit by bit Dara becomes involved in the lives of others in Jean's life, and at times this makes it difficult to maintain a friendship with her.
Others warn Jean off but she doesn't want to hear it. Ultimately, maybe it's possible that Dara's effect on Jean was far from all negative. She awoke something in her. Would her life have gone very differently if Dara had not been in it? Would it have been better or worse?
Initially I was put off by the loooong paragraphs. Beattie indulges in these pages-long paragraphs frequently, and it makes me tired just to look at them. In a few places I also felt that the story had slipped and I was reading something rather adolescent. Nevertheless, there is enough there that it kept me going.
