A Girl Like You by Maria Geraci
Chick-Lit
August 7, 2012
Berkley

Reviewed by May 

As this book opens we meet Emma Frazier and her boss Ben, who she has been crushing on since he started working with her at Florida! Magazine. Thing is in an order to impress him she overstated her relationship with a NASCAR superstar Trip (whom she went to high school with) and promised an exclusive interview. Now she’s got to head back to the small town of Catfish Cove on the Florida panhandle and track down the superstar, get the interview, impress her boss, and hopefully get a boyfriend in the process.

This is a happy fictional world of course – so she’s in for a few curve balls, misses, and life lessons as well. The story is told in the first person, and immediately I couldn’t help but smile and like this heroine.

I briefly thought of going cold turkey on the donuts this morning. But then I remembered reading somewhere that Frenchwomen do not get fat. And that isn’t because they are constantly dieting. It is because they practice moderation. They enjoy themselves without worrying about every little thing they put into their mouths. Their reward for this is a happy and fulfilled life with a natural-looking body admired worldwide by connoisseurs of good living.

Although I’ve never been to France, I’m feeling very Parisian today.

That made me giggle – and sounds like a great justification for why it’s cool to eat a donut.  Emma was raised by her two moms in a very small Florida Panhandle town and her trips there were the most interesting parts of the book. I liked her moms (though some of the ‘drama’ we are given later in the book felt forced and uninteresting) and I liked the approach to life in that town. I did not like how Emma views herself as quite the catch there, but the ‘ugly friend’ back in Tampa where she lives and works now.

Unfortunately after a few chapters the shine fades, and it becomes clear that what we have here is a classic chick lit heroine I’ve not seen much of in recent years. The chubby girl who is cute, eats a bit too much junk, isn’t good with men, and is the kind of person you can’t really say anything bad about – but that there isn’t much good to say about her either. Emma felt like a cliché that was once all the rage in the chick lit world.

I liked the writing style and flow of the plot as this book progressed. The author kept me engaged and turning pages, and I was curious to see where she’d take her character next or how she would work out the whole exclusive interview debacle.

I did not enjoy having the heroine say “let me tell you…” in order for the author to give us information:

Let me tell you about Torie.

I’ve known Torie Jacobs since I moved to Tampa after graduating from the University of Florida ten years ago. She was a friend of a friend of a friend and at the time neither of us could afford our own apartment…

This, as well as some dumping of seemingly random information about herself, her friends, and others as well is something you can expect from the heroine of this story. While I do like to have information and detail in my stories, I don’t love stopping the flow to tell me information that isn’t essential to the story. I think the information could have been more artfully woven into the tale rather than being such blatant info dumps.

What I really wish in this book is that the author had either focused more on the romantic plot or she had better developed Emma as a character. She has romantic misses, career blunders, and yet I didn’t feel like the character really grew or learned anything in our time with her other than finding the right boyfriend after all. Even that is a strange thing that happens in the final pages that came out of the blue and didn’t quite make sense to me.

It wasn’t a bad read, it just wasn’t a great one either.  I didn’t find it especially emotional, funny, dark, romantic, mysterious, or anything else for that matter. It’s just a very simple book about a girl working at a magazine. If you’re looking for a light chick lit read with a touch of romance that features a slightly chubby, insecure in her looks, bad with men heroine then this is probably a great read for you.

Grade: C

Recent Reviews:
Goodreads

 Author’s Website

Amazon l B&N