Angels [Paperback]

Marian Keyes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2004

After catching her husband having an affair and being fired from her job, Maggie Walsh suddenly finds her perfectly organized existence has become a perfect mess. She decides, for the first time in her life, to do something daring -- and flees to her best friend, Emily, in the faraway wonderland of Los Angeles. In this mecca of tanned, beautiful bodies, unsvelte, uncool Maggie is decidedly a fish out of water. Yet, overnight, she's mixing with film folk, pitching scripts, even experimenting with sex -- and discovering that the end of a marriage is not the end of the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Thirty-three-year-old Brit Margaret ("Maggie") Walsh is going through a "bad patch": she's drunk her contact lenses for "the third time in six weeks"; she's lost her job; and her nine-year marriage to Garv is over. Thus begins Keyes's enormously entertaining fifth novel. She resurrects the "maintenance-level dysfunctional" Walsh family: sisters Claire (Watermelon), Rachel (Rachel's Holiday), Helen and Anna, plus a befuddled dad and hyper-as-a-hummingbird mum. Maggie, however, is the "good" sister, so it is especially shameful when she must slink back home. She tends to the "mourning sickness" over her failed marriage, which Keyes describes with surprising depth and verisimilitude, and begins fantasizing about what might have been with her first love, Shay Delaney. Accepting an invitation from her best friend, Emily, a struggling screenwriter, Maggie visits L.A., the mecca of reinvention. She decides to trade in her "plain yogurt" persona for that of bad girl and takes an oft-bumpy walk on the wild side, with results that are riotously and embarrassingly silly. Amid her drunken nights and poor flirting choices, she throws herself into the glittering cesspool of La-la-land: acting as Emily's assistant, she witnesses the superficial frivolity and vicious fickleness of the entertainment business. Keyes's observations may be familiar (on aura reading, fake boobs, sadistic eyebrow groomers, the dependence of social status on cars), but her cleverly hilarious approach, especially as a foreigner, keep them fresh. Although this is unquestionably a fun read, Keyes refrains from turning it into fluff and delivers a well-rounded story. Her themes of love and redemption coupled with her familiar, best-friend tone have made her wildly popular in the U.K. and, like her latest novel, should ensure her a Hollywood ending in the U.S. as well.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

There are many ways to respond to losing your job and seeing your marriage dissolve. Fleeing into the fantasies and neuroses of Hollywood may not be the sanest choice, but when a screenwriter friend offers her a home, Maggie Garvin packs her bags and trades Dublin for Los Angeles. The result is another entry in the Bridget Jones line of young women finding their way through life. As with her other popular novels, including Last Chance Saloon and Rachel's Holiday, Keyes provides more than just quick laughs. There is plenty of wit in the roller coaster of emotions and in Maggie's learning to navigate the hype and hysteria of the film world not to mention protecting the innocents of Hollywood from her screwball family as they turn tourist. But there is also compassionate treatment of the anguish of miscarriage and how sorrow can separate a couple. Recommended for all public libraries. Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 426 pages
• Publisher: Harper Collins (April 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060512148
• ISBN-13: 978-0060512149
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marian Keyes lived in London for ten years before returning to her native Dublin. After receiving a law degree and studying accounting, she began writing short stories in 1993. She is the author of three previous novels--Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, and Rachel's Holiday--all major bestsellers around the world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A four star book, but could have been better, May 10, 2003

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Angels (Hardcover)

ANGELS by Marian Keyes

A young woman finds that her marriage was not all that she thought it was, in ANGELS, a novel by Irish author Marian Keyes. Maggie Walsh (Garvan) was a happily married woman, married to Paul Garvan for many years, when she suddenly realizes that they weren't really as happy as she thought. The opening line explains that she has just left her husband, and in flashbacks she tells the story of her marriage to Paul (or Garv, as she calls him). Told in a somewhat sarcastic/light hearted tone of voice, Maggie goes over the events that led to the ultimate low point of their marriage, and why she finally decided to leave him, at least for now.

Maggie, who is usually conservative by nature, at least compared to her crazy sisters, shocks everyone by announcing she is going to Los Angeles to live there for a month with one of her best friends, Emily. She leaves her husband, family and friends in Ireland, and makes that big trip to California.

Maggie's stay in Southern California is one of the craziest times of her life. She parties, she meets new men, she lies out on the beach, and she slowly forgets about Garv, sort of. In the mean time, she finds out how much fun she can have while being single, but it doesn't last.

In the mean time, Emily is working on that very important movie script, and it's her last chance at a life in Hollywood. The antics and schemes that they go through to get this script bought are almost as hysterical as an "I Love Lucy" show. And when Maggie's family decides to take advantage of the situation and come down to Southern California for an impromptu vacation, things really get funny.

ANGELS is my introduction to the writing of Marian Keyes, and I have heard a lot of positive things about her. Unfortunately, ANGELS is probably not one of her best works, as so many of these same people have told me. My main gripe with the book is that although the story was entertaining and funny, I found that it went on and on, and sometimes i felt it wasn't going anywhere. I think this book could have been cut short a bit, but overall, it was an enjoyable fluff read. I don't recommend ANGELS as an introductory book to the world of Marian Keyes, but it is a fun book nonetheless.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outlasts Milk, August 5, 2002

By 

Virginia Lore "rumtussle" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angels (Hardcover)

Rita Rudner is quoted as having said "In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk."

Maggie Walsh is known to her family and friends as plain vanilla yogurt. At room temperature, no less. Of the five Walsh sisters she is the only well-behaved one (as far as people know). Having married her first boyfriend and landed a paralegal job that was "as glamorous as a cold sore," she is known to be the steady, dull one. So it comes as a great shock when she leaves her husband of nine years, loses her job, and takes off from Ireland for Los Angeles to stay with her screenwriter friend Emily. It isn't long before she discovers that culture shock is the least of her problems in the land of dissolving marriages, movie extras, plastic surgery, and casual sex.

Angels is a book full of joy and sadness, artistry and humor. There is a story underneath a story underneath a story here, and Marian Keyes works simultaneously both forward and backward from the break-up to lead the reader to the story's surprising conclusion. I read it, laughing out loud in parts, and thoroughly enjoyed what I thought was a well-written light read. But the last third of the book sandbagged me with its unexpected depths. By the end it becomes clear that if Maggie Walsh is vanilla yogurt, it is yogurt with raspberries buried underneath the surface. One last thought: this book must have been fun to write, because it sure was a blast to read. Definitely worth 5 s tars.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Marian Keyes never fails!, May 13, 2003

By 

Dianna Johnston "Compulsive Reader" (Joplin, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angels (Hardcover)

I've now officially read every book written by Marian Keyes that has been published in the U.S., and she has yet to disappoint me. Granted, Angels isn't my favorite book by her (Rachel's Holiday holds that honor), but I was still very entertained and will continue to buy anything she has in print.

Angels tells the story of another of the Walsh sisters -- this time around it's Maggie, the well-behaved one, the one with the perfect life...until she loses her job and her husband in one fail swoop. Slinking back home to her family, Maggie quickly realizes she needs to turn her life around. So when her friend, Emily, invites her to stay with her in Los Angeles, Maggie jumps at the opportunity. L.A. has a sort of backwards effect on Maggie, however -- instead of turning her life around, Maggie somehow turns it upside-down, doing things she never thought she'd do. And the journey ends up being more than just a flight over the Atlantic...

I really enjoyed reading about another Walsh sister. I love the dysfunctional, eccentric qualities about each of them, and I think I could relate to Maggie the most. Marian Keyes has continued to write engaging, wonderful stories that are both funny and heartwarming, but also serious in subject matter. Undoubtedly she will remain on my favorite authors list for a long, long time.