- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Picador UK (July 14 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0330491970
- ISBN-13: 978-0330491976
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 136 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,621,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Beauty may only be skin deep, but there is no excuse for not having that skin look picture perfect. At least that's what Australian Lette (Dead Sexy, Fetal Attraction) leads you to believe in this largely uninspiring comedy. British television newsreader Lizzie McPhee is poised to enter a life of inevitable crow's feet and cellulite when, the night of her 39th birthday, she catches her surgeon husband Hugo lip-locked with a TV star. Soon, she loses her job to a handsome younger man and Hugo segues his practice from facial reconstruction to high-paying plastic surgery procedures. With her shallow - yet beautiful - older sister constantly nagging Lizzie about her looks, who can blame her for feeling threatened by younger women and, eventually, considering some permanent cosmetic alterations of her own? Not only would Lizzie feel better about herself, but she just might win back her husband's affections. Unfortunately, Lette's focus on the conundrums of female beauty is so narrow and unrelenting that her characters, varied as they are, exist entirely in service of this conceit and find themselves bumbling from one campy, melodramatic scene to another.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
'Turning 40 is more dangerous than a beach thong in a big surf,' says Kathy Lette, on the jacket of her latest novel Nip 'n Tuck. As a woman to whom beach thongs are fabulous creatures, I am not at all sure that Kathy Lette - petite and perfect in real life - is allowed to write a book about such things. Nor about ageing, breast enhancement, liposuction and much, much more. But she has. And I've read it. And it's scary. Not least because the protagonist, about-to-be-40-Lizzie, is considered - by virtually every character in the book - to be gross at size 12. Nobody blinks at the cruel absurdity of this. Certainly not Lizzie, who is desperate to keep her husband attracted after she finds him feeling up all-American Britney. Lizzie's husband is called Hugo. He is a brilliant cranial maxillo-facial surgeon. And also - when it comes to extra-marital affairs - an absolute turkey. However, keeping him is what Lizzie wishes to do and who ever understood the minds of such wives...? Personally I would have told him to cranial maxillo himself off out of it - and I am quite sure Kathy Lette would too - but, well, this is a book, so Lizzie not only wants to keep the cranially talented Hugo, but she'd like her news presenter's job back too (she was thrown out for not being small, blonde, perfect and about 20). The combination of these two ageist, lookist blows sends our heroine straight under the scalpel of a plastic surgeon. Sven (a younger, less sad version of our own dear Peter Stringfellow perhaps?) and Victoria (the sister from hell) combine with said Britney in a denouement that, frankly, had me hiding behind the sofa with my thumb in my mouth, never to consider enhanced anything ever again. It also says on the book jacket, 'Health Warning: Laughing Too Hard Causes Wrinkles...' So does crying. Read it and weep. Review by MAVIS CHEEK (Kirkus UK)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
HILARIOUS (AND HONEST!),
By
This review is from: Nip 'N' Tuck (Paperback)
What a find. Just a pulpy pick-up off a random book store, and I find myself devouring the novel from cover to cover. It recreates with fascinating honesty a world where bodily contours are critical; a world with an alternative reflection on the complexities of age, image and marriage in the twenty first century. Gruelling exercising regimes, plastic surgeons, ribald but rip-roaring one liners -- this is fast paced and a highly amusing read. Oh, and it's quite an insightful read too, well-rinsed in worldly ways.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
HILARIOUS (AND HONEST!),
By Shashank Tripathi - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Nip 'N' Tuck (Paperback)
What a find. Just a pulpy pick-up off a random book store, and I find myself devouring the novel from cover to cover. It recreates with fascinating honesty a world where bodily contours are critical; a world with an alternative reflection on the complexities of age, image and marriage in the twenty first century. Gruelling exercising regimes, plastic surgeons, ribald but rip-roaring one liners -- this is fast paced and a highly amusing read. Oh, and it's quite an insightful read too, well-rinsed in worldly ways.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is laugh-out-loud funny! Chick Lit at its best!,
By Marchez Vite "marchezvite" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Nip 'N' Tuck (Paperback)
Please don't confuse this book with the new TV show "Nip/Tuck"! I like that show, too, but this book is decidedly, 100% comedy. Lette's writing is pure comic genius, with every sentence holding a zinger."Nip `n' Tuck" is told from inside the slightly neurotic mind of Lizzie, who's staring down age 40. She's being shoved over at her position as a news reporter by younger, perkier talking heads; and she's having severe doubts about the fidelity of her too-good-to-be-true plastic surgeon husband. Although this falls squarely within the "chick lit" genre, this is TONS funnier than anything else I've read in years. Not only is Lizzie's inner dialogue hysterical, but the mental images Lette creates are uproarious, especially as she invokes the image of a hyperreal Pamela Anderson-type seducing Lizzie's husband. The story takes a completely unreal turn towards the end, but it makes for a delicious slapstick resolution. Please do not expect this to read like a novelization of "Extreme Makeovers"; it's so much more like the zany misadventures of Lucy Ricardo brought into the 21st century. If you can get your hands on this novel, READ IT!! It's a wonderful comedic antidote to anything depressing (i.e., real life). Lette is here to stay, and I can't wait to read something else by her! 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
BRILLIANT START THEN SLOWS audio 6cds,
By Barbara Lane "Audio Books only" - Published on Amazon.com
Read the other reviews for the story line. The start and the plot of this book is far better than MAD COWS by Cathy Lette.The beginning is brilliant we really get involved in her life and what is happening. Then there is a huge change of pace. The author throws all these one line quips in there. I could imagine her at a dinner party they would be funny and everyone would laugh but this is in the middle of a great story and it falls apart for a while. One quip is her book Mad Cows also. the same quip is in the prologue then the same quip in the book.so that is 3 times I have heard it. Is this author one of those people at a dinner table who tell the same story over and over forgetting that she has already told these people that joke. The story eventually picks up again and ends up well. I feel the editor could have suggested some cuts and this story would have been deserving a 5 star. But the way it is. Beginning to half way 5 star. After that 1 star then a 4 star ending. So average 3 star. If you are used to heavy reads don't get this book if your a chic lit person maybe you can just glide over the block of quips and just ignor them. |
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