Plum Sykes

2.5 Stars

Very lightweight, borderline Young Adult novel. The characters of Ursula and Nancy could be developed further into a “detective duo” but hopefully not with the painful and vacuous Oxford students that featured throughout the novel. With the exception of Horatio very few of them had any redeeming qualities at all.

Also there was an often excessive use of footnotes to explain the idioms and fashions of the time. Some of these footnotes were quite entertaining and given Nancy’s unfamiliarity with all things English I thought they would have been better served being incorporated into the dialogue.
… (més)

I bought this book for 50 cents at my library sale and decided to give it a go. I can't believe that I actually read it in full because it was cringing, although quite witty and well-written in parts. Possibly that's what kept me going , thinking that the protagonists would eventually wake up to the real world, or realise that not everyone cares about Pucci or Versace. It is possible that it was meant to be a satire of the vapid NY socialite scene, but sadly it doesn't come across as such, and no doubt that many readers will read it the way they read Hello! or New Idea. Plenty of much better chick-lit out there, don't bother with that one...… (més)