A wonderful, tongue-in-cheek spy romp starring a wonderful heroine and her imagination. Loved it!

I absolutely hated this book and couldn't finish it. It was my local book club choice. I thought the story was nonsense and the writing poor.

I picked this book up in a thrift store and, honestly, I wish I'd left it there


n  My face for most of this bookn

So, we start off with a journalist at a party who suspects one of the guests of being (wait for it) Osama Bin Laden because (wait for it) he's n  Arabicn.

"Well that's racist as fuck", you might say. And you would be absolutely correct.

It hardly gets better from there.

The rest of the book is mostly Olivia hanging around with the man she believes to be a terrorist and flying from place to place. She gets kidnapped not once, not twice, but a whopping three times. You think she'd have learned her lesson the first time and gotten the heck out of dodge but apparently not.

There's also a lot of deep sea diving, people getting eaten by sharks, mentions of the MI6 and CIA, ripped men in bodysuits and more name dropping than I can count on both hands. If I took a shot for every celebrity they mentioned, I would have been drunk enough to actually believe anything that went on in this book.

I guess the premise of the book is that the heroine is too easily taken by her flights of fancy so it's not like we're supposed to view her as a reliable narrator.

Maybe that's why everything else that happened just seemed really far fetched, I couldn't enjoy reading it because I didn't trust the events that were happening.

If, towards the end, they'd revealed that Olivia is actually a patient locked up in a mental asylum, I'd have gone "Oh well now it makes perfect sense".

Unfortunately that was not the case.

I was drawn to this book since I loved Bridget Jones, adore South Beach, and have been accused of having an overactive imgination, but I was sorely disappointed. I found it over-the-top and silly. It completely lacked the absurdity-meets-reality of the Bridget Jones books.

It made me wonder if Fielding is one of those authors who should stick to writing only what they know.

Soooooo I will admit that this started a little slow for me, but thankfully I'm curious and wanted to know the outcome! I don't want to ruin anything but I will say it was worth the read and I loved it!

— Problema ta, Olivia, este că ai o imaginaţie hiperactivă.
t— Nu-i adevărat, a zis Olivia Joules indignată. Barry Wilkinson, redactor la departamentul ştiri externe al ziarului Sunday Times, s-a lăsat pe spate în scaun, a încercat să-şi sugă burdihanul, s-a zgâit peste ochelarii în formă de semilună la mutrişoara nemulţumită de dinaintea lui şi a gândit: Şi, pe deasupra, mai eşti şi al naibii de nostimă.
t— Atunci, ce-a fost cu articolul ăla despre norul de lăcuste uriaşe şi cu colţi care se lăţise deasupra Etiopiei şi acoperise cu totul soarele? întrebă el.
t— Deasupra Sudanului. Barry oftă din rărunchi.
t— Te-am trimis tocmai până acolo şi n-ai fost în stare să aduci decât doi greieri într-o pungă de plastic.
t— Dar norul de lăcuste chiar a existat. Numai că o pornise deja spre Ciad. Acolo se reproduc ele. Şi, oricum, ţi-am trimis un articol despre animalele care mureau de foame la grădina zoologică.
t— Olivia, era vorba doar despre un amărât de mistreţ care mie, unul, mi s-a părut destul de dolofan.
t— îţi făceam rost de un interviu cu femeile acelea fundamentaliste şi cu un invalid rebel dacă nu mă chemai înapoi.
t— Dar cu ultimul nou-născut al lui Posh şi Becks, despre care fusesei trimisă să faci un reportaj live pentru BSkyB, cum rămâne?
t— Asta nu era o ştire cine ştie ce importantă.
t— Slavă Domnului.
t— Nu am inventat nimic în reportajul acela.
t— Nu. Dar nici nu ai spus nimic în primele zece secunde. Ai stat acolo ca proasta-n târg, te-ai jucat, live, cu părul, după care ai zbierat brusc: „Copilul încă nu s-a născut, dar totul e extrem de interesant. Şi acum, legătura în studio”.
t— Nu a fost vina mea. Regizorul de platou nu mi-a dat semnalul pentru că un bărbat care avea scris pe burta goală: „Sunt copil din flori al familiei regale” tot încerca să intre în cadru.
tBarry a răsfoit cu un aer extenuat vraful de comunicate de presă de pe birou.
t— Uite ce e, scumpete…
tOlivia s-a strâmbat. Intr-o bună zi, o să-i zică şi ea „scumpete”, să vadă dacă i-o plăcea.
t— …eşti o ziaristă bună, ai simţ de observaţie şi intuiţie şi, după cum spuneam, o imaginaţie hiperactivă, iar noi, la Sunday Times, suntem de părere că un liber-profesionist îşi poate folosi mult mai bine toate aceste calităţi în paginile de modă decât în cele de ştiri.

Two big problems I had with this book:
1) TOO MANY CHARACTERS. New characters introduced in like every chapter, and then some would be mentioned again half a book later and I'd have no clue who they were. I needed like a flow chart to try to keep track. Plus at least two or three used different names throughout the book.
2) I feel like Helen Fielding wrote Bridget Jones so well that she tried to base part of this character on her while still making sure it was a unique character, so Olivia Joules came out being a character who occasionally was flaky and prone to accidents and bizarre ridiculousness, and also occasionally was a Mensa candidate. She was worldly and a traveler and knew how to do pretty much everything well, and so it was like two insane extremes, I couldn't figure out who she was supposed to be.
I don't usually give away my books after reading them, but this one is probably going into the garage sale pile. I'll keep my Bridget Jones books forever though.

Very occupational. Have enjoyed it so much. Recommend for long flight readings.

What I liked about this book is that it was a surprise. I don't understand why some readers berated this book for not being Bridget Jones' Diary. It was written by the same author who obviously wanted to write about something else for a change. I also enjoyed it because I've always had a secret desire for espionage.

I was expecting another chick-lit story, but was pleased to find myself reading a light-hearted comedic chick-lit spy thriller. It became hard to put down to prepare meals for my family, do laundry, you know the mundane everyday tasks that prevent us from reading. I just wanted to find out "who dunnit". I'm proud to say that I only peeked at the last page for a second because toward the end of the book the story was so suspenseful.

I finished this book at 2:30 AM today (don't comment - I know I'm crazy) and I liked it a lot. It was a spy thriller with a humorous and light-hearted story line with some romance, travel tips, scuba diving scenarios, spy equipment, etc. I loved the quirkiness of the heroine of the book, Olivia aka Rachel, who is a journalist with a sad story. She carries a survival kit wherever she goes as well as a hat pin (as her mother instructed) to protect herself. She's covering a story in Miami when a terrorist attack occurs and she finds herself in the middle of it. She suspects her recent aquaintance Pierre, a rich playboy who's bringing it on strong, of being involved in the attack and sets out to prove his connection to the tragedy. Her quest to get to the bottom of things takes her on an adventure with some serious perils and romantic entanglements that keep the story interesting and fast-paced.

Probably the worst book I've read in years.

I really enjoyed Bridget Jones' diary, back in the days. But.. when you try to mix chick-lit with a serious theme like terrorism, the result is - well, not quite believable and a bit preposterous.

Usually reading Brit chick lit results in eye clawing and mental shrieking. What can I say the phrases used and the regurgitated spunky yet clueless inner monologues irk the depths of my soul. I didn’t have those issues with Olivia Joules and the overactive imagination. So pigs must be flying in hell.

That doesn’t mean I like this book though. Olivia annoyed the sh#t outta me. She is another in the long line of too stupid to live heroines, who taint my reading life. We discerning booksluts ought to rise up and cull them from the literary herd braveheart style.
In a commercial break from my murderous rant lets get back to the review at hand. Olivia J-O-U-L-E- S (like the unit of energy not the shiny baubles will be from here on out referred to as OJ the orange of juice not the former football playing murder suspect) is a failing journalist seemingly plagued by attention deficit disorder and paranoid schizophrenia.

Her situation translated: Oh Noez, my career is stagnant because I keep handing in articles about the stupid crap I make up instead of my assignment.

My response to her situation translated: Bleh,cry me a river.
Anyways things kick off when she’s subtly demoted from news to the style section of whatever newspaper she works for and is sent to some skin cream launch in Miami. Enter mysterious French Arabic dude who wants to make sweet jihad all over her zexy body. He supposedly makes slug skin cream and movies. She instantly decides he’s Osama bin Laden ( <-her words not mine) but then decides he’s just an al-Qaeda operative so she’s game for tongue wrestling. Stuff is blown up and * shock & awe* our jet setting sheik has dropped it like its hot flying the coop. So now OJ and 4 out of 5 doctors agree slug cream dude is a terrorist . So it makes perfect sense that she follows him to LA then accepts an invitation to his resort in (tropical place). C’mon look at that face of course she can trust him. So what if she doesn’t know him from adam and if he continues to lie about being a director? At least he’s stopped lying about being french. Now Ladies, that’s nothing to shake a stick at.

All the while during OJ’s travel awkward and clumsy hijinks ensue. I guess they are supposed to funny but they just cement how much I loathe her.

Pop quiz time kiddies: You just accepted a strange man and possible terrorist’s invitation to go diving at his private tropical resort. En route after some travel issues you find 5 kilos of cocaine in your carry on luggage ( btw why is coke always mentioned in 5 kilo bundles in film and novels? Why not 3? Or 8?). what do you do?

Well if your OJ you flush it down the the porta-potty toilet and continue on with you to your death wish destination. Ha ha ha ha…. What a bunch of giggles. This is my stop, time to get of this ride.

After 3 failed attempts to finish the remaining 1/2 of this bunk; it’s time to throw in the towel. I can’t bring myself to read anymore . Someones obviously gonna get eaten by sharks at some point…if only it could be her. If any of you fine folks out there in the e-world possess the perseverance to complete this book; please drop a comment with your take on it. Did it make you laugh? Cry? Tremble with rage and annoyance?