Wednesday, May 16, 2012

How To Eat a Cupcake: A Novel [Donohue]

Book: How to Eat a Cupcake: A Novel
Author: Meg Donohue


Review: Estranged friends Julia and Anna are reunited after ten years and open a cupcakery together. They work hard to build a successful business and attempt to rebuild their friendship after difficult high school years destroyed their relationship. Meanwhile, Julia struggles with a past trauma and planning her upcoming wedding, while Anna still tries to comes to terms with her mother's untimely death, while dating a man who seems all wrong for her. 


"How To Eat a Cupcake" is boring chick lit with completely unoriginal ideas. Julia and Anna are childhood best friends. Julia (tall, blond, reserved) is the daughter of a wealthy family, while Anna (short, dark, curvy, full of personality) is the daughter of the nanny. Talk about stereotypes. The girls have a falling out in high school which ruins their friendship. The "big reveal" of what happened was certainly poor behavior on Julia's part and I felt bad for Anna, but for Anna to hold resentment for years was juvenile and ridiculous. Julia's "secret trauma" is easy to figure out and Anna's constant complaints about everything were overwhelming. Both girls were unlikable although I will admit they kind of grew on me by the end. The best part of this book were the rotating narratives, which gave me enough of a break to completely not hate either character. This book had the potential to at least be funny, but there were few (if any) laugh out loud moments. 


This is chick-lit that can be skipped. 


Grade: C

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