From Amazon.co.uk
Jenny Colgan's second novel
Talking to Addison arrives with a flourish following the success of her debut
Amanda's Wedding. Sharp, quirky one-liners complement merciless observations of human foibles and the London scene to make this romantic comedy a cut above the rest.
The story opens with the modern-day heroine Holly trapped in the flatshare from hell with members of "Scary Clean Freaks Incorporated", ruled by the obnoxious Carol who "dispensed ... Robert de Niro-to-doomed gangster stares". Even when Holly escapes the suburban inquisition, life still isn't a bed of roses: she's an unemployed florist, in love with a recluse and she's being bullied. She's in good company though when she moves in with a bunch of equally maladjusted misfits: Josh, a terminally nice boy, has issues; Kate, the high-flying and no-nonsense career girl, wilts every time a married man comes along and then there's Addison--the drop-dead-gorgeous lodger ("Johnny Depp in geek form")--who never leaves his room, already has a girlfriend (albeit over the Internet) and is a certified Trekkie fan.
With Talking to Addison, Colgan ties together her comedic talents with her flair for storytelling to create an offbeat, hilarious tale about an ordinary girl's search for Mr Right with the inevitable Mr Oddballs getting in the way. --Nicola Perry
--Ce texte provient de la
Paperback
édition.
From Publishers Weekly
Riding goofy, self-deprecating Bridget Jones's coattails in this second novel by the British author of Amanda's Wedding is a clumsy 28-year-old florist named Holly Livingstone, who desperately needs a sympathetic London flatmate. While most women always pick the wrong men, Holly assures us that she picks the wrong places to live. Since she makes barely more than the minimum wage when most of her fellow college grads are concerned with mortgages Holly's apartment prospects are limited to dubious arrangements such as the "Turkish Lesbian Women's Collective" until Josh, a former college classmate of indeterminate sexual orientation, takes pity on her. Josh lives in a rundown old house in Pimlico with posh, business-studies Kate and a rarely seen or heard from computer nerd named Addison Farthing. Once Holly gets one look at Addison, however (by barging into his room, which is equipped like the Star Trek Enterprise), she begins spinning fantasies of perpetual geek bliss. What it lacks in plot, Colgan's spirited, eye-rolling romp tries hard to make up for in characterization of Holly's idiosyncratic flatmates Josh and Kate, her working-class florist acquaintances (including one tough chick who beats her up), various unpromising young men who will never go for her (but sometimes do) and ungainly, unsociable Addison himself. Colgan keeps the dialogue skipping along with tongue-in-cheek, exclamatory asides such as "Poo!" and "Had I let a four-year-old do the shopping?" In the end, it's Holly who has to carry this serviceably silly novel. She is snake-tongued, unambitious, rude a lot of the time, but she'd be almost likable if she didn't sound so familiar. Though the field is dangerously close to being glutted, American readers may fall for this desperate-to-be-liked, lowest-common-denominator girlfriend.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
