| Title | : | If You Were Here |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0451234383 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780451234384 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 306 |
| Publication | : | First published April 13, 2011 |
| Awards | : | Goodreads Choice Award Humor (2011) |
If You Were Here Reviews
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Jen's schtick is growing old for me. Predictable and far-fetched. The only thing that saved it for me was her tendency toward footnotes. I am a sucker for footnotes, it's like being in a meeting, lecture, sermon, etc, and having a very sarcastic* person sitting next to you whispering comments.
*and I know quite a few of these -
I love Jen Lancaster-- I really do. Her BITTER IS THE NEW BLACK is the first trade paperback I ever impulse-purchased from Borders and I never regretted it. She's made me howl with laughter while commuting (which has the added advantage of your seat mate inching over to give you more space). But this book... I'm just not sure how I feel about it. IF YOU WERE HERE is supposed to be a novel. It reads, however, like another of Jen's memoirs (which is not a bad thing). It certainly has Jen's trademark humor and footnotes. The Amish zombies were also too, too hilarious. But... I had a hard time liking the heroine. The heroine is completely out of touch with reality, totally self-centered, and just exhibits no depth at all. Plus, the characters with whom she interacts are so two-dimensional (with the exception of Ann Marie). Perhaps I've known too many Slavic women, but Babcia also just grated on me. And I would have liked a slightly less deux ex machina ending. Bottom line is, this is more of a "borrow the baby rather than birth the baby" book-- I got it from the library, I enjoyed it for the evening, and then I gratefully gave it back.
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If you grew up in the 1970′s and 1980′s you know the impact John Hughes made. From National Lampoon to Home Alone, Uncle Buck to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, everyone has got a favorite John Hughes movie. You probably still stop what you are doing to watch The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink. You also wish Sam chose Duckie and not douche rocket Blane. I could go on for days. Apparently so can Jen Lancaster in her first foray into fiction.
Mia makes a living writing Amish Zombie novels and after some “issues” with a gang, it’s time to move from the big City. Mia grew up loving John Hughes movies and has always wanted to live in the suburb were most of his movies were made. Mia and her husband Mac embark on an epic (swear) journey to find the perfect house, but they end up settling…..for Jake Ryan’s house. Said house hasn’t been touched since Sixteen Candles and Mia is convinced all their HGTV viewing will help them DIY the shit out of the house.
If You Were Here is Jen Lancaster’s fiction debut, but make no mistake she is still fall out funny. I did some very unladylike snorts whilst reading and one scene in particular (bathtub reading scene) made me cry, I could picture it happening. It’s also very bittersweet, Mia has a habit of going to place flowers on John Hughes grave and letting him know what’s been going on in her life.
There’s also nods to Mrs. Lancaster’s real life for example Mia’s dogs Duckie (Loki), Daisy (Maisy), etc. So you know Mia is all sorts of Jen and Mac is a little bit of Fletch (Mrs. Lancaster’s husband) things we’ve loved in her memoirs. But rest assured, the writing style is exactly the same, right down to the footnotes.
While I loved the book, I wasn’t a fan of the ending. I felt it came really fast and was wrapped up a bit too neatly for my taste. Especially when we’ve been through issue after issue, and bam there’s the end. On a side note, I had no idea Holmes on Homes aired in the US. There also wasn’t very much momentum, at some points the book dragged for me.
That said, it was cute but I think I like Mrs. Lancaster’s memoirs a bit better. If you’ve never read Mrs Lancaster’s memoirs, you’ll love this book. But if you’ve read the memoirs, you’ll wish she had actually bought the house and told the story instead of the fictionalized version.
Now pardon me, I feel the need to watch Sixteen Candles. -
Do not read this book if you haven't ever purchased a house or watched a whole lot of HGTV. The real-estate lingo got old REAL fast, and this is coming from someone who HAS recently bought a house.
Also, don't read this book if you'll be distracted by the fact that it's supposed to be a "novel." Maybe some of the plot is fictionalized, but the main characters of "Mia" and "Mac" are very thinly disguised versions of "Jen" and "Fletch". Even the poor suckers who are friends with these "characters" seem just like the real friends Jen mentions in her other books, which are memoirs. And if the conversations Mia has with her girlfriends (not to mention the conversations Jen has with hers) are real, then she is the most self-absorbed human on the planet. Sorry but novels usually have the pretense of subplots and two-sided conversations.
Finally, don't realize this book if you easily get disgusted with rich people wasting their money on things they don't need. I'm sorry, I like "Gossip Girl" and "The Devil Wears Prada" and plenty of books where people spend ridiculous amounts of money in order to fund extravagant lifestyles. So I'm really not sure why reading about how "Mac and Mia" search for the perfect suburban 5-bedroom, 8-bathroom home with a pond and a pool pissed me off so much. Maybe because I knew they were based on Jen and Fletch so it seemed too real? It was just too much. I wanted to slap them.
I guess the fact that Jen Lancaster isn't very good at description didn't really annoy me in her memoirs, but it did here. Describing someone by cramming something like "her cerulean blue eyes" into a sentence just wasn't satisfying.
Oh, and the footnotes! I get sick to death of these in Jen's memoirs, but when have you ever seen silly-joke footnotes in a novel? No thank you!
I made it 56 pages in before I gave up and returned this to the library. -
OK. Now all of Jen's previous books had been memoirs, with my hands down favorite being Such a Pretty Fat. I've read every book of hers, but that one is hands down her best. Every book after it has gotten worse (for me) and basically feel as if she's trying too hard. The kicker is that she doesn't need to- she's a naturally funny person, but I feel like maybe she's done what she could with memoirs. So when it was announced she was doing a fiction book... I was thrilled.
Until I read it. First off, the characters of Mac and Mia are obviously characters of Jen and her husband Fletch. Right away I felt let down that she didn't reach for something completely outside of her norm and try something new. Not the case.
I thought I could really relate to the story though because it's about new homeowners and the nightmare of home improvement- we all know I've been there and have tales to tell. As I continued my reading I felt more and more disappointing because at a point it just becomes unrealistic and far reaching. I almost closed the book all together when the one contractor comes into the picture because it was just over the top. And the ending? Mike Holmes? Really, Jen?
So if I had to give this a rating out of 5 stars, I would honestly give it one. It's a harsh rating, but it's deserved but this book was not nearly as entertaining as it could have been. -
Jen Lancaster usually writes humorous memoirs about her life with her husband and dogs, her family and friends. This is her first foray into writing fiction. Turns out it is a thinly-disguised story about her life with her husband and dogs, her family and friends. To be fair, I haven't read any of her other books and they are supposed to be quite good, or at least some of them are. She wrote Bitter is the New Black and My Fair Lazy, along with a few others. Her style of writing would work better in memoirs. Fiction needs a much stronger plot.
It started off okay in a lightweight summer beach read sort of way. Mia, a writer of teenage Amish romance novels, and her husband Mac are fed up with their city neighborhood and go looking in the Chicago suburbs for a house to buy, one that they can use the skills they learned from watching HGTV. Mia finds the perfect house, one used in the movie Sixteen Candles, a film by John Hughes whose films she adores. She grew up longing to live in the homes she saw in his films. The house turns out to be more work than they thought it would be.
The book is filled with pop culture references and sarcastic asides (mostly in footnotes) which are funny sometimes although I wonder how many of them most readers would get. There are many references to HGTV programs and John Hughes movies but also to the movie Mean Girls and Stephenie Meyers and Mr. T and Charles in Charge and so on and so on, so many that the weight of them was just too much for the weak plot that it eventually fell in on itself, just like the floor did in the book under the weight of the dropped toilet.
Things I liked about it: It really was funny in parts. It's also exciting in a way when you "get" a cultural reference. Makes me feel like part of a club or something.
Things I did not like about it: The thin plot combined with the overuse of footnotes and pop culture and too much cutesiness (the landlord was a trust-fund 20-something named Vienna Hyatt) got to be too much for me. Another issue for me was the excessive profanity.
Would I recommend it? No, not really.
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You guys (please add an extra syllable when you read that)! Having a lot of money and buying a huge, fancy, neglected mansion that needs fixing up is hard. Like really, really hard. Toilets fall through floors! There are ants! There are unreliable contractors! Whatever is a Mia to do? Luckily, she is the author of a completely implausible book series about Amish zombies that is, surprise, surprise being optioned into a movie! So let’s go ahead and drop millions into a home improvement project and spend the entire book dismayed at how hard life is. I found that attitude very difficult to relate to.
I’ve read enough of Lancaster’s earlier memoirs to recognize this foray into fiction for what it is. A very thinly veiled fictionalization of Lancaster’s own life. So I felt a little duped by the familiar ground. If you were to remove all instances of celebrity name-dropping and pop culture references and then remove all mentions of HGTV, you’d be left with a 30-page story. I didn’t like Mia. I couldn’t figure out why she and her husband were together. She was a lousy friend and compared her home project to post-Katrina New Orleans which I thought was in poor taste. Sure, she’s fictional, but Lancaster came up with that comparison and it made me furrow.
If you want to be entertained by home (mansion) improvement shenanigans, watch the great Tom Hanks movie, Money Pit. At least that provides some laughs. This book was dreck. -
I have to say.. it's like Jen Lancaster is in my head, which is frightening. I actually worry that she's telepathically channeling me (are you Jen?). This book was classic Lancaster, and I must say - Bravo on the 1st novel (Bravo the expression, not the network, though Lancaster would probably prefer the later). Jen's style - her quirky asides and her funny balls-out approach to writing are what keep me laughing - this time in a GM dealership while having my tires rotated and oil changed (and note: none of the guys were as sensitive or ginger as Keith in Some Kind of Wonderful). I was chuckling to myself, looking like a nutcase. The woman next to me said, "What are you reading?" To whit, I showed her the book and explained the premise of the book. She nodded and said, "Oh, Chic Lit". Bitch. I'm an English teacher! I wanted to say, "But it's Jen Lancaster Beeeeeeeetch" (ala Dave Chapelle's 'I'm Rick James' Beeeeeeeeeeeeetch!!!") but that didn't happen. Fine! Be smug! Don't read Lancaster, but her books are amazing. The fact is - she GETS people and she is a mini-story teller, which is what I've been told I do (we could be besties.. or we'd probably be like magnets and repel). She looks at the funny in everything and sees the moment where we all go "WTF" but most people disregard that moment and move on. Lancaster RELISHES it. She points at it and laughs and convinces us all that we should to. This book, with the "DIY" angle is hilarious. I'm not married, but ohhhhh does this sound like every married-household I've encountered on a weekend. But my favorite part of the book is all the Stephenie Meyer references and the funny zombie-book nod, I almost died laughing because EVERY writer has had the stinging pains of jealousy going "why didn't I think of that?" and in the same breath - but I could've done it sooooooooooooo much better!! Haha!! Oh, also, I see people criticizing her for hiding this as "fiction". Um... did you not take English 101? If it didn't happen to you, it's fiction, and while I could see Lancaster pretending this were her true story, it's not true, yo (so hardcore), so hey - it's fiction. And if you didn't know - a LOT of fiction is actually (gasp) non-fiction, drawing on characters and situations from real life. While I know not everyone will love her style, her sarcasm, her wit, etc, criticizing her for billing this as fiction? No. Now I will go all Swayze on yo' ass. The reason this is 4 stars (I would go 4.5) is that I did get a BIT tired of the same situations, but I'm picky, so there.
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If I'm being completely honest, the two star rating is probably not entirely fair. I suspect that had I not been a fan of Lancaster's breezy, snarky memoirs going into If You Were Here, her first work of fiction, I might have enjoyed it quite a bit more. But I am a fan of her memoirs, and despite my best efforts to enjoy Here on its own merits, I couldn't help but compare it to her previous material--and those comparisons most certainly did not help its star cause.
Lancaster takes the age-old writing adage to "write what you know" to extremes. Having read about her real-life adventures in living in Chicago, buying a house, surviving layoffs and unemployment, adopting a menagerie of animals, and lusting after all things designer, I found myself more than a little surprised at at how little attempt she makes at fictionalizing her fictional shelf. She makes an effort to change names--but even that feels laughably half-hearted, as her real-life pit bull "Maisy" becomes "Daisy," etc. The only real difference that the fiction label seems to bring is the occasional unbelievable adventure in this tale of home-ownership. The weakest parts of the story are clearly the bits that are fabricated whole-cloth, leaving the reader think that if there is an advantage to Lancaster in choosing fiction over non-, she hasn't been able to fully capitalize.
Having said all of that, I suspect readers new to Lancaster will get what they expect from the novel: a quick, fun, and delightfully acerbic beach-read. -
I totally love Jen Lancaster's non-fiction - and there were definitely parts of this book which made me laugh out loud, or read them aloud (to myself, I'll note; they were that good). It was a good read and a good story and I don't feel I wasted my time. But.
The great thing about Jen Lancaster's non-fiction is that you are getting a real person - for better or worse, and sometimes she's more worse - but she's robustly *real*, and that's apparent in her writing. She writes about herself openly and honestly, and I feel like I know her, as much as one can know someone from her books. It's not that the main character of this fiction story (who, like Jen, is a career writer, married with pit bulls, who just moved out of the city) is not interesting - she certainly is. Mia is funny and observant, and the story of her moving into a money-pit house and arguing with her husband over the renovation is enjoyable reading. But the characters are ultimately flat - fun, but flat - and the story has a happy ending which we all knew it would.
I think I would have liked this book more, if I knew Jen less. If I had the choice, I'd rather read another non-fiction about Jen, than a ficiton about someone she's created. And because I like Jen Lancaster and love her stuff, I feel bad saying that. But there it is. -
I did not like this book. I've read all the memoirs, and enjoyed them, they're often laugh-out-loud funny. This wasn't. I love the eighties too, but with so many pop culture references this book wouldn't stand the test of time even if it were good. The problem, in my opinion, was sloppy writing, and like many others have mentioned, it was too close to Lancaster's real life to be fiction. In fact the only reason I felt it was "fiction" was to give the author a chance to brag about her success in a less obvious way than another memoir.
There were lots of loose ends that would have made the story more interesting: what happened between Kara and her parents, and what did Babcia do to Vlad? Many times when she was "talking" to John Hughes, I had to wonder who she was talking to...and then remembered, oh yeah, John Hughes...so as a device it really didn't work.
In other words, to quote Mia's niece Claire, it was "like an IKEA catalog, only boring-er." -
The story is light-hearted and entertaining. It took a little while for me to get into the characters; since it's written in the same style as Jen's other books, I had to keep reminding myself this was fiction and not another memoir. But by time Mia and Mac sign the papers to move into their first home I was hooked.
The various wars with the homeowners' association, neighbors and ex-landlord were funny and clever without being over-the-top ridiculous. Regardless of how predictable some parts of the story were, I really enjoyed it.
I received this book through Goodreads First Reads. -
If You Were Here is one of the best books I have read in a long time! Hilarious, witty, snarky and very entertaining! It is a must read when you need some laughter in your life. I would definitely give it a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating!
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Three stars for the novel, but a solid five stars for the audio version. So an average of four stars.
The narrator was PERFECT for the material, and Lancaster's footnotes were incorporated seamlessly into the story, thus saving me from the usual footnote fatigue that develops when reading Lancaster.
Like the other reviewers who show up on the Goodreads first page for this book, I enjoy Jen Lancaster's voice. I've read most of her memoirs, and will probably continue to read them.
And like other reviewers have noted: fiction, alas, is not her forte. Description, character action, character arcs - not on display at their finest here.
What does work is Lancaster's trademark snark aimed at people beyond her close circle, and Lancaster's ability to find the absurd and to laugh at herself (Mia is SO her, right down to her aversion of nudity and her conservative political values.)
Some of the events that happen to Mia and her husband Fletch - I mean, Mac - are right out of Lancaster's memoirs and blog. And she doesn't try hard to hide it. As others have noted, she substitutes Daisy for Maisy, Lancaster's real life pitbull, and Tracey for Stacey, Jen's -- I mean, Mia's -- best friend who is also a writer. And like her blog and memoirs, that stuff is humorous and rings true.
But when Lancaster steps outside the familiar and adds fictional embellishment, it stops ringing true and becomes transparent and absurd. Case in point: Jen's mortal enemy Vienna Hyatt (get it? get it? Spoiled heiress named after a European city and a hotel chain? Subtlety is not Lancaster's strong suit.) Nor is Hollywood satire in Lancaster's wheelhouse. For satire to work, it has to be grounded in reality - and what Lancaster depicts ain't nowhere near that state, even for LaLaLand.
One gets the feeling that Lancaster wanted to do a memoir about home renovation, figured out the material was too thin, and decided to turn into a novel by tacking on the Hollywood stuff at the end - which made the last 1/4 of the book feel schizophrenic. Nor did the book seem to have a proper ending. It kinda sputtered to the finish line: first there was the ending to the home renovation story, then the resolution to the Hollywood story, and finally an epilogue.
But there were some genuinely funny moments along the way to the end, and the audio book narrator was so pitch perfect that I had a hard time stopping the book when I needed to. -
i didn't realize when i checked this out of the library that it was a novel, & i admit it, my first reaction when i did realize it was, "ugh." i have written before about how i am not always the biggest fan of jen lancaster's middle-aged sorority girl republican-voting style, but at least in her (numerous) memoirs, she is confined to events that actually happened. i worried about what might happen when she was let loose in a fictional terrain. the answer: ...pretty much the exact same kind of book as one of her memoirs, but with a little more narrative cohesion.
the plot follows a reasonably well-off couple that bears a marked resemblence to jen & her own husband. they decide the time is nigh to move out of the city when they inadvertently find themselves in the midst of a battle with a local gangbanger that actually devolves to drive-by shootings. (so you have your little soupcon of race/class discomfort that you can expect from pretty much every lancaster book.) after weeks of scouting fancy digs in posh suburbs, the narrator discovers that the jake ryan house is on the market--the house that jake ryan, heartthrob of "16 candles" lived in in the movie. it's not in great shape, but she is determined that she & her husband can fix it up & make it great.
what ensues is everything that could possibly go wrong with a home renovation project, & two people discovering that they were not cut out to live in a posh suburb. things go from bad to worse to truly mind-boggling, almost as if lancaster had been reading all those fiction-writing books about how your character has to hit rock bottom before you resolve the narrative conflict & tack on a merry denouement in which everything works out for everyone, even the best friend who is outed as a nationally-syndicated sex columnist to her very traditional indian parents.
it's all a bit formulaic, & painfully autobiographical in places, but it was a pleasant enough romp. it got me through a rough evening of pregnancy nausea, which is all i really want from a book these days. -
First off, I do have to mention that you need to know a little about John Hughes and his movies, particularly ‘Sixteen Candles.’ The only reason I mention this is because it plays such a prominent part of the story. I loved the humor in this book, as it is quite over-the-top! Suspending reality helps to enjoy this story….as it is a story of home renovation gone WAY wrong!
Mia and Mac are tired of living in the city limits of Chicago, as they do not feel safe in the home they are renting from socialite Vienna Hyatt, a twenty-something heiress who wants to be the next Paris Hilton. Having a local gang member-wanna be living down the street, Mia fantasizes about John Hughes country…Abington Cambs. It was hilarious the various houses that they walked through before settling on the house that was featured in Sixteen Candles. Mia and Mac won the bid on the house, and the house was much more work than then had expected. Having watched years of HGTV, Mia and Mac felt that they were able to do any necessary repairs, but they had no idea what awaited them once they moved in!
I enjoyed this story, especially the digs in to Stephanie Meyers and her Twilight series (Mia writes a series on Zombie Amish Teens in Love), and the laugh-out-loud antics that Mac and Mia find themselves in quite frequently. It was nice to read a book that wasn’t rife with grammatical or syntax errors. The writing flowed well, and this was a very quick read. The story line was very much over the top, but it made for a fun summer read. The characters were quirky and likable or laughable, as the case was for Vienna. You found yourself routing for Mac, as well as wanting to smack him upside the head and wanting him to get a clue! -
This is the sixth book I've read by this author. I like her writing style ... it's funny and sarcastic. My one complaint about her style has always been her use of footnotes. I find them distracting having to look down then back up to find my spot. Just include them in the paragraph.
This is her first fiction ... the rest of have been memoirs of her life. Lancaster may as well have just kept real names as they are so similar ... I could definitely hear Lancaster's voice. Mia is really Jen; Mac is really Fletcher. Even her pets are there. Her Polish grandmother was fun, though.
Mia and Mac buy a mansion ... they have spent a ton of money for it plus megabucks to restore it. They did the work themselves ... keep in mind that they have no experience and Fletcher Mac wants to figure it out on his own rather than doing any research. Crazy considering he's dealing with electricity! It was way over the top and irresponsible for them to buy this house and fix it up just because it was featured in a John Hughes movie.
All in all though, I'd recommend this if you are looking for a fun sarcastic read. If Lancaster writes another fiction, I hope she steps out of her comfort zone and truly makes it a work of fiction.
Blog review:
http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2012/04... -
I love, love, love Jen Lancaster! Such a Pretty Fat is the first book I ever laughed out loud at in my whole life. She’s just one of those writers whom I will always read whether or not I’m interested in the book at face value. But I was nervous when I heard she was writing her first novel and making the jump to fiction. (Perhaps it’s just book snobbery — if it’s a memoir, it’s okay if I read it. If it’s a novel, then I really am reading chick lit.)
I was pleasantly surprised with If You Were Here, though. Semi-autobiographical, there is a lot of the real Jen and Fletch in this book. In the novel, the first of three, the fictional Mia and Mac buy a serious fixer-upper primarily because it was featured in John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink. The renovation (rebuild?) that ensues challenges their finances, friendships, and their marriage.
Nothing about this book was particularly stunning, and I might not have liked it so much had it not been written by Lancaster. The things fans love about her are not lost — her signature snark, her love of animals, the dynamics of her friendships and marriage. It feels very much like what we’re used to, and that will make me pick up the next in the series … even if it’s chick lit fiction and not a memoir. -
I'm sorry. I wanted to like this book. I really did. But how long it took me to get through it is a testament to the contrary. The author has great skill in transcribing her character's thoughts into narration. the "thinking process" felt true and accurate. However, when it comes to what goes on inside our heads--the minute to minute, hour to hour drone--I think most of it ought to be left to the thinker. Frankly, I was not at all engaged with the main character, thus her internal conversations were uninteresting to me.
Perhaps if I was a DIYer, I would have been more enthusiastic about the plot. And perhaps if I enjoyed lighthearted man-bashing, I would have found the storyline amusing or even funny. Neither of those things are true, so neither of those results followed.
I would like to give the author credit for using a device I've never before seen used in fiction. When the narrator had a side comment to share, something that could have been written as a parenthetical phrase, the author created a numbered footnote. Though I skimmed through the last three chapters so that I could finish this read, I did not miss one footnote. Not one. They were interesting, funny, and often emotionally engaging. -
I am a huge Jen Lancaster fan, and her memoirs often make me laugh out loud. Her first foray into fiction was ok, but certainly not her best. The plot centers around Mia and Mac repairing a money pit of a house in Abington Cambs, the John Hughes hallowed grounds. Her war on Stephanie Meyers was hilarious- I loved the Amish Teen zombies in love jokes- and there were many laughs throughout. But because I have read all of her novels, and often read her blog, I know her reach into fiction wasn't really that deep- her own pitbull is named Maisy, Mia's was named Daisy. Lancaster's husband is an atrocious cook, so was Mia's, etc. I get that you use your own life as fodder, but I would have faith in Jen Lancaster to be even more creative. And while I am a huge H and G fan, the house descriptions were a bit much. But she till makes me laugh, and it was a fun book to pass the time.
***And do not read this on an e reader, I forgot about all of the footnotes, and e readers with foot notes = incredibly annoying. -
Let me say this: I adore Jen Lancaster & gobble up her books as soon as they come out. Whereas I'd give most of her other works a shining 6 out of 5 stars, this one only gets 4. If you were a first-time reader of her books, perhaps you'd enjoy it more. But her characters so closely mirrored herself & husband & other friends her readers have come to know, it was hard to enjoy this as fiction. Also, some of her best, most identifying vehicles (footnotes, etc) that work so excellently in her nonfiction simply fall a little flatter here. In her nonfiction, we understand that these notes are her own cognitions of her life, but in fiction, what are they supposed to be? Jen's thoughts? or Mia's? Anyways, I certainly enjoyed this (and didn't hate it with a passion like some other reviewers) and would recommend it to other Lancaster fans like myself, but it wasn't my favorite, and I can only hope her next novel is back on-par.
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Be forwarned - you need to have watched the movie Sixteen Candles, watched HGTV religiously, read the Twilight series, know all the real estate shows and home repair shows and their cast AND have a subscription to US or People to get all of the REFERENCES (every line in the book) to current pop culture. Funny, yes. A book that will be quickly outdated - by tomorrow! Heaven help anyone who tries to read it without be familiar with the above - it wouldn't make any sense. It is like someone name dropping with every other word. I would expect this book to have a very narrow audience. AND THE FOOTNOTES - that has already been done by Lisa Lutz (didn't like it in her books either - annoying). Does this author have an original idea.....oh yes, the Amish Zombies...couldn't forget that! Her format is much better for her memoirs.
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This is going to be really hard for me to write & to put out there because I'm such a HUGE fan of Lancaster's. But, unfortunately, this book did absolutely nothing for me.
In fact, I couldn't even finish it. It's been sitting at half-done for weeks and I finally made the decision to save the hours & brainspace it would take to finish it.
I am not a fan of her fiction. Maybe it's because I read her blog, maybe it's because I'm so used to her memoirs, but this entire book felt recycled. Most of the stuff in her novel - although fictionalized & slightly exaggerated - had already been written (and read - by me!) in her blog.
Definitely disappointing. I had no idea this was first in a SERIES, which I will not be checking out.
Sigh. -
I think I'm giving up on this one. I don't even really know what this book is about. It's like a reality show in book format about a couple who is searching for the perfect house. I guess they find the perfect house which just so happens to be the same house that "Jake" in the movie 16 candles lived in. They buy this house then it ends up being a hugh money pit. There are a bunch of foot notes which are often snarky references to pop culture. I was not a fan of that. I was bored and unimpressed. It's supposed to be a light hearted funny book, which it probably is, but for me it did not hold my interest.
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I'm taking a break from this... because so far it's horrible. I LOVE her nonfiction. That being said, if she was going to write a fiction novel, she should have put a little effort into it! I can not take the thinly veiled references to her life and barely-changed names. It's a watered-down version of her hilarious memoirs without her funny snarkiness that made me a fan in the first place. I will probably finish because I love her. But I will never read another fiction book she writes. Stick to nonfiction! Update: I'm never going to finish this book. I officially gave up on it.
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Sorry I tried to read this book but I didn't like it and gave up. The descriptions of each house Mia viewed was boring me to death and the whole war with neighborhood gangs I honestly didn't get the point. The humor was dry and even though I understood her comments about the competition with Stephanie Meyer and wanting to buy Jake Ryan's house, it wasn't funny at all. I have never read anything by Jen Lancaster, so I guess I'm not a disappointed fan... I'm just plain disappointed.
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This bok will not get a full review and won't be posted on the blog. If You Were Here is definitely a book that is not our style. A book that bashes other authors even if written in fiction, just doesn't it cut it for us.
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Beyond annoying. I can't relate to the complaints of a rich person trying to find their perfect mansion. And the look-how-clever-I-am footnotes pushed me over the edge. I only made it to chapter six.
