Review — Beautiful Bodies, Laura Shaine Cunningham

I’m not a chick lit reader at the best of times (but at the worst of times, when I’m very bored, I’ll read anything), but when there was a £1 clearance sale at Amazon UK and I felt the obligation to buy books that I could share with those situated close to me (read: Neil’s mother and sister, who are both chick lit readers), I took the plunge and risked it.

It starts off promisingly enough. I was quite interested in the telling of each woman’s tale, how each of them is so different from the rest, but they were all best friends due to circumstances two decades ago. It made me think of what the expatriate situation was like in Xiamen (before so many expats arrived in 2005-6), everyone had to be friends because we were all strangers in a (comparatively) strange land.

The synopsis is this: six women, all long-time friends, are meeting on what will be the coldest night of the year, to celebrate the impending arrival of a baby.

There is Jessie, who is glowing from an unexpected encounter; Nina, a self-confessed nymphomaniac who has moved home to take care of her dying mother; Sue Carol, who we first meet crying her contacts out over her cheating husband; Martha, the wealthy realtor who has her whole life planned out; Lisbeth, the dreamy model still conjuring an ex-lover into her life; and Claire, our mother-to-be.

The women are gathering to hear the story of how single and unattached Claire came to be pregnant — she’d dropped out of sight several months prior, and is now seven months gone. There are, of course, several sub-plots going on: Jessie’s falteringly new romance, Nina’s concern for her terminally-ill mother, Sue Carol’s marriage breakdown, Lisbeth’s continuing obsession with her married ex Steve, and Martha’s four-year strategy for producing children that isn’t quite going to plan.

The novel culminates in a fight, then a really huge storm (as in a weather system, not emotions, although they’re there, too). I, for one, found the ending a bit of an anti-climax, because it kind of really neatly tied up the loose ends and did that heartwarming best-friends-against-all-odds-type of thing.

I didn’t not enjoy it, it’s just not the kind of story I’m into. So it’s going into the ‘give away’ pile (which is quite small).

Browse the other books I've read.

• 6 Jul 2007