REVIEWED BY LAURA STANNING
If you suspect your partner isn’t being entirely honest about those late nights and “drinks with the boys” then Jennifer Hunter is your lady. She’s a fidelity inspector. Hired by suspicious wives (and occasionally husbands) to test whether their other half will stray, she feels like a modern day superhero, using her ability to read men to save women from the wrong relationships. But when Jennifer herself gets into a relationship with the lovely Jamie, everything changes. Not that he's the straying type - far from it - but he does want her to give up the work she loves so much. And suddenly Jennifer realises she has to make a choice: does she want a relationship of her own - or to go on testing other peoples'?
This is a book I couldn’t really make my mind up about. On one hand, it's an undeniably thought-provoking idea. Faced with a partner's infidelity, would you call time on the relationship immediately, or can there be circumstances that make that choice less simple? If an otherwise loving husband and father makes a drunken mistake, which they subsequently regret, would it really make you happier to know? The other thing that makes this storyline particularly compelling is Jennifer’s complicated relationship with her father: the psychology of how our parents help define our personalities and actions is a very interesting subject, which Brody deals with sensitively and thoughtfully.
Overall, there’s a lot that’s good about The Good Girl’s Guide, which is why it’s such a shame that the characters let it down. I found most of them, including Jennifer herself, one-dimensional and difficult to warm to. Stereotypical characters such as Bridezilla and the ditzy secretary can be entertaining but the author needs to show that they have personality beyond their stereotype, otherwise they’re just irritating. Jennifer’s character development is better scripted but still comes in something of a rush at the end of the book, rather than being a gradual process.
The ending of the book is also a real disappointment. A great chick-lit novel is an escape; one that makes you identify with the protagonist so much that you feel you’re living along with them, and when the happy ending comes you can almost feel that you’re there – that it’s happening to you. I won’t spoil the ending for you by telling you what happens but suffice it to say that it’s unrealistic and awkward – so much so that it pulls you entirely out of the fantasy world the author has created.
The Good Girl’s Guide To Bad Men is definitely worth a read: the central idea is original, captivating and well executed, and reaction to characters is a pretty personal thing. Just don’t expect it to knock your socks off.
6 /10
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