Yuck.

If I'm being honest I must give this four stars instead of five, even though in my mind all Marian Keyes books are 5 stars. This is a reread that's been a long time coming. I truly have fond memories of reading all of her books and think of them as go-to solid fun stories with some depth to them. I actually remembered nearly zero things about this one and I was worried that I wasn't loving it that much. Maybe I should have reread Sushi for Beginners instead?
At any rate, it was still a treat to read about Lucy and her roommates and their terrible attitudes toward work, and their drinking, and what not. Good fun. And then, just as I remembered, near the end of the book a sort of awakening of the character to what you, the reader, have been clue-ing into.
I did enjoy this very much, though it felt a little long to me. That said, I'm still going back to reread all the others, especially the ones about the sisters.

I scanned the summary of this book and was going to pass until I read the last paragraph and realized it might would be interesting to read how boyfriend-less Lucy would make it down the aisle within a year. Also, as I am currently reading Stephen King’s Under the Dome, I decided I could take a break and read something light.

Upon meeting Gus, I instantly fell in love. I kept hoping he would straighten up and things would work out for him and Lucy. Early in the book, it was obvious who she would end up with at the end. However, I stood firm in my denial. As the story progressed, it became pretty personal for me. I would have made all the bad decisions Lucy did. I was right there with her when she kept overlooking what a jerk Gus really was and kept allowing him to treat her like a doormat. He is exactly the kind of guy I would fall for -- which is really unsettling to say the least. This book has definitely caused me to re-evaluate my taste in men.

So dated, and so predictable. And too long. I’m sure it was progressive for its era, it’s certainly not now. Watermelon still the best of her early books!

I've officially DNF'd this book. I was getting exhausted reading it which is never a good feeling. So I skimmed through and read the epilogue and it's basically as I predicted so I'm glad I didn't actually go through it

My mum read this book when she was my age, and in an existential endeavour to feel enlightened by intergenerational experiences, I wasted a month of my life.

A lot to love and really fckin hate with this one. I wrote an elaborate review and it mistakenly got deleted so I’ll leave it at that. Also the romantic lead calls a beautiful woman who won’t smile at him a dyke as a… joke…?

I really enjoyed this book. Parts of it had me laughing out loud they were so funny and other parts made me smile as I was reading. I found Lucy and her roommates to be hilarious. Her coworkers were also very funny. While the book was funny and had a perfect story book-like happy ending (which I loved), it also had some very serious aspects. Lucy's father was an alcoholic and she was in complete denial about it and didn't even really see what was going on, until her mother left her father and she had to take care of him. Personally, parts of this were very hard for me to read, but I could really relate to her and the problems she faced because of her fathers alcoholism. One of the best parts of the book is when she realizes that she has been going out with the wrong men, men very similar to her father, who drink too much, are mean to her, use her for her money, ect. It was so fabulous to read along as Lucy made these realizations (which the reader saw much earlier), and was able to make changes so she ended up with the right guy in the end, I won't say who because I don't want to ruin the book for someone else who hasn't read it yet. I highly recommend this book. At first I thought it was going to be a chick-lit, turn your brain off kind of book, but I got much more out of it than that. I think that Keyes balanced the humor with the sad and depressing part of the book well, so the reader didn't get bogged down by how sad the subject matter really was. This was definitely my favorite Keyes book that I have read so far, and I look forward to reading more of her books now.

Lucy Sullivan is... SPINELESS.

So this ended up being one of the very first books that I bought on my Amazon Kindle when I was overseas. I don't know why but I manage to always read this book when I am feeling blue. Maybe it's because right now I am being hit over the head with the fact that my happily ever after may look totally different than my friends/family and I need to be okay with that. I loved books in this genre since just like with romance novels, you know that the girl is always going to get the guy in the end and that the villains for the most part will get their comeuppance.

Told in the first person, the main character is Lucy Sullivan. Lucy is in her twenties and lives with two roommates, Karen and Charlotte. We find out that Lucy has a contentious relationship with her mother, a loving one with her father, and an indifferent one with her two brothers. Things in Lucy's life seem to be going okay. She has a job she hates and works with people that seem annoying/tolerable depending on the day of the week. After being bullied into going with her colleagues to a psychic, Lucy is told that within a year she is going to meet the man she is going to marry. Readers get to hang on for a fun ride looking at Lucy's life and those around her for that full year.

I thought that the character of Lucy was aggravating at times. She suffers from depression, but one gets the sense that she really doesn't suffer from depression, she instead uses it to just not do things that she wants to. She is also very rude to a long time family friend, Daniel to the point I wondered about his intelligence since he kept on hanging out with her.

Eventually Lucy meets Gus who she finds herself falling madly in love with. At the same time it appears that several other people in Lucy's life are moving on with their own love lives.

The writing reads like a twenty plus year old with no clue about things. I think that Lucy's selfishness sometimes may get to certain readers. I just found myself cheering her on and unable to stop myself. I think the reason why is that halfway through the book changes gears from being a breezy romantic comedy, to an actual dramedy (comedy and drama combined) and you quickly realize that without realizing it, Lucy was a bit of an unreliable narrator.

The pacing is really good with this book and I was surprised at how fast I was getting through the chapters.

The ending was very sweet and I smiled to myself. I always wished that Marian Keyes would revisit the characters in this book and do a sequel with Lucy actually married to the guy she was destined to marry.

Marian Keyes has come out recently asking for people to not call her novels chick-lit. I guess I never saw that label as a bad thing, though I can see how some people would use that term to dismiss entire genres of books. I love this books and many of her other ones just because along with the romance aspect there is always still an underlining layer of depth and drama.

Shortly after Lucy and her boyfriend have broken up, Lucy goes with some coworkers to a fortune teller. Lucy is told she will be getting married within the next year and a half. When the other girls' fortunes come true, Lucy begins to wonder if hers will, too. Then, she meets Gus, a really charming and fun guy. Will Gus be “the one”?

I really enjoyed this. The first half was good, but it got better in the second half, I thought, as more obstacles came up and Lucy had to deal with family issues, as well as boyfriend and friend issues. Overall, though (no surprise here), the book ended as it should have.

Idk how else to describe it, this book was just so British