Title: Jennifer
Johnson is Sick of Being Married
Author: Heather
McElhatton
Review: After
reading this book two things were clear; Heather McElhatton is a very good
writer, and she has mastered the ability to write humor that is actually funny
(a lot harder than you would think).
Unfortunately her humor was extremely lazy, so much so that she only had
the one joke and repeated it several times. Now more often than not the joke
was told expertly, but with the talent she obviously has I would have really
enjoyed it if she had expanded her repertoire.
So if I say all conservative Christians are silly, not as smart as us,
racist, lying, deceitful, manipulative, bigoted, homophobes and you think
“right on”, then this is going to be the funniest book you have read in a long
time. She hits the well page after page
and churns out unending jokes on that premise until the cows come home. Some of them were downright hilarious, but in
the end they just got stale.
We start out with the disaster of a honeymoon wherein our heroine has
been given a week at a Caribbean resort.
Unfortunately it is a Christian resort without alcohol, the yoga is
called joy-go (yoga with the influences of Satan removed), and ultimately a bad
case of food poisoning. Once back in the
great state of Minnesota she then has to deal with all the bad people in her
life, the above mentioned Christian conservatives. It is a constant struggle against her in-laws
and their backward thinking, with them beating her down until ultimately she
finds her inner strength to overcome.
The conclusion is a one-two punch of absurdity that suddenly jumps into
the story without build-up, or any explanation.
It was like watching the last 10 minutes of a movie at 64 times the
speed. By rights the second punch should
have been a novel unto itself but the author simply decided to skip ahead a
year, cheating the reader out of the details.
Plus it was far removed from any semblance of reality, even compared to
the rest of the book, that it didn’t fit in.
In the end it was an okay book, well written, definitely funny at times,
but a little stale. I look forward to
the author’s new efforts because she has the ability for some really great
humor writing, especially of she takes some risks and leaves the one joke
behind. And lest I forget, the funniest
character in the whole book was the refrigerator, which just goes to show how
creative the author can be.
Publisher: WilliamMorrow
ISBN: 978-0-06-206439-4
Copyright: 2012
Pages: 335
Quick Review: 3 stars
out of 5
Why I Read It: I enjoy
humorous fiction.
Where I
Obtained the Book: Sent to me by the publisher for review. TLC Tour
Synopsis: No so terribly long ago, Heather
McElhatton's flawed, neurotic, yet lovable average American heroine Jennifer
Johnson was sick of being single. Now Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being
Married. The author who brought us the wildly popular Pretty Little Mistakes
now favors readers with the next delectably eventful chapter in Jennifer's
life, as her new fairy tale marriage (to the wealthy son of a department store
tycoon) hits a serious snag, thanks in no small part to a honeymoon-from-hell
in a fundamentalist Christian compound and the prospect of a life of bizarre
servitude to her devout mother-in-law's church committee. This is outrageously
funny, wonderfully edgy contemporary women's fiction in the Helen Fielding and
Sophie Kinsella mode that anyone who has ever laughed at the raunchy humor of
Sarah Silverman or Chelsea Handler is going to love.
Author
Biography: Heather McElhatton is an independent producer for
Minnesota Public Radio and Public Radio International. Her commentaries and
stories are heard regularly nationwide on This American Life, Marketplace,
Weekend America, Sound Money, and The Savvy Traveler, and she hosts the live
radio show called Stage Sessions. She will soon be appearing with Ira Glass on
the television version of This American Life.
Other Reviews:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this one for the tour.
ReplyDelete