Customer Reviews

The Anglophile (Red Dress Ink Novels)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Shari Diamond has two main goals for herself: finishing her dissertation on the lost language Volapuk, and fulfilling her needs of all things English- including the men. Does it matter that she is living in the East Village of New York and dating a nice Jewish boy that makes her own Jewish family extremely happy? It just isn't enough for Shari, but on a conference to Chicago, everything changes. Shari quickly falls for (and cheats on her nice Jewish boyfriend) with the handsome, albeit not-so gorgeous, Englishman Kit Brown.
Shari is shocked to discover the next day that Kit is actually a speaker at the conference- he is also studying Volapuk- and has found the last living speaker of the language that Shari has been searching for years to find. She is watching her dissertation go downhill with each convincing word Kit is speaking. What should her next move be? Why not invite Kit back to New York, meet her whole family, then travel across the Pond with him and finally see England for the first time.
The Anglophile by Laurie Gwen Shapiro is not the best. It took me until Chapter 5 to figure out what exactly the book was about and where the plot was headed. It failed to keep my attention until the last few chapters, but then it went right back to confusing with strange love twists. The whole story line was not engaging and with characters just popping in and out of Shari's life made it even more difficult to understand what exactly was happening. I hate to say a book is a waste of time, but this is nothing that I would recommend to readers.

Thirty-five-year-old student Shari Diamond has a penchant for all things British. She meets fellow linguist (and super hot Brit) Christopher T. Brown -- Kit, for short -- by chance in Chicago, and there begins her romance and the perpetuation of her incredibly potent fetish. Kit and Shari become inseparable, making a jaunt from New York City to London in no time. But in his native land, Kit seems to have a whole lot of secrets -- and Shari has a whole lot questions without answers.

I went into this novel with such high hopes. As someone obsessed with British culture and language and a devoted reader of chick lit, I thought this novel would marry all of my favorite things in one nice, pleasant package! I wasn't expecting The Great Gatsby, but this was just pure rubbish.

Honestly, I pretty much hated it. For starters, Shari is a selfish, spoiled and self-obsessed -- and the fact that she meets Kit when she has a boyfriend and doesn't waste any time sleeping with him immediately turned me off this story. Going on a journey that spans more than three hundred pages with a character you don't like isn't exactly a good time. Still, I pushed myself to finish -- even though it felt like ripping my teeth out at points.

The plot is just . . . thin. And meandering. Everything relies upon chance and a complete suspension of belief at points -- like the fact that Kit and Shari are suddenly in a serious relationship after knowing each other for a matter of days. Um, what? And while I did enjoy the very brief tour of London and surrounding areas in the latter half of the book, I spent most of the novel confused and overwhelmed. I mean, she's traveling the world with this guy? And there's some weird subplot with a childhood friend, and then we sprint ahead a year in time out of nowhere at the end of the book and Shari's aunt has a pet skunk and there's some strange medicine swap snafu and Kit becomes some secretive, weird guy and then they meet Ringo Starr and . . .

I know, slow down. That's how I felt, too.

As much as it disappoints me to say, I'd pass on this one. There are plenty of other British (and women's fiction) books in the literary sea to waste your time on The Anglophile.

Americans are obsessed with the British. Or maybe not all Americans, but it's clear that many chick lit novelists are! Laurie Gwen Shapiro's latest offering The Anglophile in fact features a woman who absolutely loves anything to do with the British - especially the men.

Shari Diamond, a linguist working on her Ph.D, is the Anglophile in question. She has been obsessed with nearly anything British since early childhood. Since she can't exactly go and live in England, she contents herself with dating British men who live in the U.S.

During a business trip to Chicago, she meets an extraordinarily handsome and accomplished British man named Kit who is visiting the states. They end up hitting it off rather well. As a matter of fact, he turns out to be a Linguist also.. and professional competition. But they get along so well that he offers her a trip to England. How could Shari turn that down?

Throw in a dead skunk, very strange family members, an old childhood school friend (who is rather cute himself), an ever-growing suspicion about Kit, and soon Shari doesn't know what to do. Will she end up having to choose between her dissertation and a man? Or two men?

The Anglophile was an interesting read, especially for someone like myself that also loves anything British (including the men). The author has definitely done her homework with the subject of the Brits and their history. It was a refreshing change for the main character to have a slightly unusual profession as a linguist.

The only downfall to this story was that the plot seemed to go all over the place at times. I couldn't figure out why the side stories of the dead skunk was in there, among other things. The romance subplot of the story was very predictable as well - due in part to the back cover copy.

Overall, however, this was an unusually smart and offbeat chick lit story that I recommend. If you like the British, you will like this book.

I wanted to like this book--I sincerely did. I picked up this book hoping for a cute, sweet, light "chick lit" read with a bit of a lesson in romance. What I found was sorely disappointing.

Every one of the characters is poorly developed and exceedingly one-dimensional. They all speak with the same voice, with only occasionally and slightly differing lexicons to set them apart. They each have their own miniscule backstories, and each is developed through the "tell, not show" technique. We don't see these characters being fleshed out; rather, we are told that these are fleshed-out characters. It's as if I could hear the author thinking, "OK. Now what else can I add to this person's background to make him/her more quirky?" The result is utter failure to interest.

What's worst is that the plot goes almost nowhere. The best of the book happens in the first 5 chapters, and then nothing occurs. Of course, there are episodes and dialogue, but none of these adds up to any sort of satisfying conclusion. They are isolated events that are meant to bring depth but only bring boredom. The climax of the so-called plot occurs way too late to bring successful resolution (which, by the way, the author cops out of with a lame "deus-ex-machina" technique and too-neatly tied ends).

Shapiro's writing style is stiff and hard to get into; it's not musical or rhythmic at all, and even awkward at times. The marketing of the book led me to expect a quirky, amusing romantic comedy, but what I found was instead a dry, poorly constructed tangle of a novel that tries too hard to be something it's not--the "chick lit" it claims to be.

If you feel like you must read The Anglophile in spite of this review, read chapters 1 through 5, and you'll get everything out of it you need to--the rest is at worst superfluous and at best lacking in energy, momentum, humor, and romance. Trust me, you won't want to read any further.

The Anglohile is about Shari Diamond, a 35-year-old Jewish grad student at NYU, who is getting her PhD in lingustics and loves everything English. She is studying an old language which only has one known speaker left., and this book follows her trials professionally and personally.

The book opens with Shari meeting a handsome Brit, Kit, on a tour of the Sears tower. However, Kit is a rival linguist studying the same lost language as she, and she also must deal with pursuing this new interest and a stagnant relationship she is already in. The book is much like Shapiro's "The Unexpected Salami", in that much of it takes place in NY as Kit meets Shari's odd and quirky family, and the two travel to England together to find the last speaker of the lost language they are studying. It also turns out that Kit has a connection to this person, and there is more to his story than he has let on. A childhood friend and fellow academic, Owen, also emerges to compete for Shari's affections, and complicates her life further.

The book is overall very enjoyable, and Shapiro is a smart and funny writer. It is also refreshing to see a female protaganist who isn't the typical 25-year-old, weight-obsessed girl who works in publishing. Shari is smart, wise, and mostly comfortable with herself. The book jumps ahead in time abruptly, and the ending feels a bit too quick (things don't seem to get resolved with enough explanation) but it is an fun, enjoyable read overall.

I love that this frothy and engaging romance is propelled by serious braniac credentials. The academic setting--especially in the first chapters--is well-drawn; the tensions and politics that move the plot of this book are a true, funny satire of real-life academia.

I agree with another previous reviewer. If you love all things British, then you will like this book. I have read it about three times only because I am an Anglophile myself. The main female character, I believe dreams of meeting a typical British guy, and she finally does meet one and goes all ga-ga over him despite being involved with another guy (a nice Jewish one with perfect teeth). However, she finds the British guy too hot to resist, but then she finds out that he is her competitor for research information that deals with her PhD. This only deters her momentarily from him, but his appeal out weights all of this. It must be the accent, I know that would do it for me.
It is a very cute story with some silly moments, but like I said if you are an Anglophile, like myself, and can imagine yourself traipsing through England with the sexy accent of a British guy then you have found your book.

I agree with another previous reviewer. If you love all things British, then you will like this book. I have read it about three times only because I am an Anglophile myself. The main female character, I believe dreams of meeting a typical British guy, and she finally does meet one and goes all ga-ga over him despite being involved with another guy (a nice Jewish one with perfect teeth). However, she finds the British guy too hot to resist, but then she finds out that he is her competitor for research information that deals with her PhD. This only deters her momentarily from him, but his appeal out weights all of this. It must be the accent, I know that would do it for me.
It is a very cute story with some silly moments, but like I said if you are an Anglophile, like myself, and can imagine yourself traipsing through England with the sexy accent of a British guy then you have found your book.

Thirty-five years old Shari Diamond has been fascinated with Anglo-Saxon history since she met Christopher Robin as a kid when he starred in her copies of the Winnie classics. Studying for her PhD in dead languages at NYU, Shari searches for the last known person alive who speaks Volupuk as she has for several years.

In Chicago to give a talk on Volupuk, she meets British bloke Christopher "Kit" Brown, who makes her forget her boyfriend back home Kevin Bernstein. However, to her shock, Kit is studying Volupuk and insists the last user lives near York. Ignoring Kevin's concerns, Shari rushes to England where she meets a boy from her past, but neither Owen nor Kevin hold a candle to Kit until she learns in a garden his secret connection to the last speaker of Volupuk in the world.

Besides highlighting the rapid loss of languages as the world grows smaller through modern day communications, THE ANGLOPHILE is a fine chick lit tale starring a dynamic heroine, her Jewish New York stereotyped mother and the men in her life. The story line focuses on the rivalry between Kit and Shari in search of the last known user of a shortly to be extinct language. When that is gone, like many languages which are oral only, cultures die. The romance is an 18 carat diamond that includes the efforts of Kevin and Owen to compete with Kit for Shari's heart, but it is the language that steals the show though that plays a minor role in this fine thought provoking tale.

Harriet Klausner

This was such a great book. I could not put it down! I loved the humor in the book and the romance story line. I recommend for anyone that gets just a bit weak for a british accent.