Customer Reviews

Being Committed

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Being Committed is an appealing and well written novel. Hannah, the female protagonist is simultaneously funny and touching as she more or less romps her way through her romantic, professional, and family lives.

The story opens with Hannah refusing a marriage proposal from a long-term boyfriend, only to change her mind a few weeks later. As a prerequisite to reuniting, her boyfriend insists that Hannah deals with some issues from her past that are preventing her from being emotionally open. Hannah starts by meeting with her ex-husband, Jack, who she married when she was 20, and divorced five months later. Gab, Hannah's sister-in-law, agrees to help Hannah become more feminine, and in doing so, Hannah develops a closer relationship with Gab, her brother, and their baby. As Hannah does some soul searching, and has some difficult conversations with both Gab and Jack, she begins to question more of the assumptions in her life, including her distant relationship with her mother, her exceptional closeness with her father, and even her career choice of private detective.

Don't let this description of how Hannah begins to find herself lead you to believe that Being Committed is not a funny novel. It is light, entertaining, and filled with feminine antics and wiles. This book is a step up from much of the "chick lit" genre, and I think most readers will enjoy the funny bits, identify with Hannah's coming of age, and relish the love stories.

Traditionally, commitmentphobes were men who feared being tied down with a wife and half a dozen kiddies. But in the 21st-century age of equality, women can be just as phobic as men. And that's the core of "Being Committed," a frothy and amusing tale about women who fear getting in too deep.

Hannah Lovekin has no desire to get married -- she had a brief union with Jack when she was twenty, and it lasted less than six months. Now she's ten years older and wiser, and has a wonderful, adoring boyfriend. Then Jason asks Hannah to marry him, and she turns the poor guy down. Ba-dum -- she decides she does want him after all, when he falls into the arms of a different woman.

Jason still wants her too, but he wants her to deal with her inner demons first -- and that means dealing with Jack. So Hannah contacts her ex-husband, who is still nursing wounds of his own, and begins to struggle through her own hangups. But things get even more complex when Hannah begins to get confused over what man she actually wants....

Maxted has a disarming tendency to tackle not-so-frothy topics in a frothy way. In this case, it's how your family, friends and relationships shape how you feel and think. While the ending is obvious to anyone who has read even a few chick-lit books, it's the twisting ride to the finale that counts.

Maxted has a pleasantly breezy way of writing, and she does a good job of digging into Hannah's soul. And it's engaging to see Hannah examining her relationships with her parents, her brother and his wife, and her ex-husband. The psychoanalysis-on-top-of-froth makes the narrative a little top-heavy at times, although Maxted does balance it out well overall.

Hannah would be an easy character to mess up -- with her hangups and repressed fears, she could easily have been annoying and pathetic. Instead, she comes across as a bit messed up, but a likable, self-deprecating woman. Jack and Jason both come across as three-dimensional and pleasant, although some of the secondary characters (the parents) are lacking.

Maxted's fourth novel is a pleasant chick-lit diversion, with a dose of psychoanalysis and family angst. A nice light read with a few heavy chapters.

. . . and Ms. Maxted's writing is seldom predictable. Yes, this is chic lit, at it's belly laugh - knee buckling best. But just because I adore this gal's humour, her finesse at character descriptions ( people you can wrap your arms around from words on a page) isn't diminished. Hannah is our heroine in this story. Jason the fiance. Jack the ex-husband: ten years gone, ex husband! Quite frankly, I couldn't take Jack seriously until Hannah's Dad (& favourite person in the world) disturbs the mix. Many personalities contribute to Hannah's dilemmas: her mindspeak always the funniest observations of people and their tendencies. In the end, she does seem to resolve her past as much as any of us have ever had any kind of control once it's our past! And I embrace her future.

This was my first Anna Maxted novel, and when I started reading it, I thought it was yet another lighthearted "Brit lit" read. Main character Hannah Lovekin is not a big fan of Chinese food or marriage--so it is a surprise when her sweet, tolerant boyfriend of 5 years, Jason, pops the question. Hannah turns him down without hesitation, but when she begins to miss him--especially after he gets engaged to someone else less than 4 weeks later--she rethinks her decision. She then promises Jason that she will do whatever it takes to repair their relationship, but Jason's list of requirements is a bit more than she bargained for.

At this point, the carefree tone of the novel changes, and more serious issues are introduced. One of Jason's demands is that Hannah make peace with her ex-husband, Jack, with whom she shared five months of matrimony at age 20. Jack and Hannah's marriage came to a screeching halt due to a mix of infidelity, immaturity, trust issues, and misunderstandings, and they have not spoken in 10 years. In the process of trying to sort things out with Jack, Hannah must come to terms with a series of issues from which she has been running all of her life, including her parents' marriage, her estranged relationship with her mother, and her own ability to express real emotion.

I enjoyed this book more and more as I continued to read further. I found Hannah's transformation to be completely believable, as Maxted does a nice job of laying out the process for the reader and detailing all of the factors involved. Although this was my first Maxted book, it definitely won't be my last, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this 4 1/2 star novel to others.

It took about 2 pages to get hooked to this story. Hannah is a funny, silly, smart, picky character, and very likable. Hannah is having some problems committing to her current boyfriend. She refuses his marriage proposal and then is devastated when he finds another woman. Hannah must set this straight! She steals her boyfriend back, only to be given demands, one of which is to settle her feelings once and for all over her previous marriage which ended after 5 months. Well, as you can guess, this spells danger for current boyfriend, which he doesn't predict.. but Hannah is far from being in control.. just as you are about to put the book down something fantastically suprising happens, and you must keep reading.

Anna Maxted never fails me. She is...profound and funny, and tells a damn good story. She knows how to get you involved in her story and characters. She allows you to feel what they feel, and all the while, Anna connects with you by giving you insight and wisdom. As an author of my own book, She Is..., Anna Maxted's books always inspired me to write better. I'd find myself reading her books and suddenly jumping up to continue creating my own cast of characters in my novel. She taught me the meaning of adding depth to the characters' emotions and personalities. She is by far one of the best chick-lit authors around!

Anna Maxted is one of my favorite Brit-chick-lit authors. I loved Getting Over It and Behaving Like Adults and looked forward to reading Being Committed. Hannah is a thirty-something private investigator with commitment issues. Jason, her boyfriend of five years, proposes marriage and she says no. When she discovers that he is engaged to another woman just a few weeks after breaking up with her, she tries to get back with him. He accepts, but under one condition: that she attends therapy sessions with him and seeks closure with her ex-husband Jack. As Hannah tries to figure out her feelings for Jack and Jason, she discovers many things about herself and about secrets behind the marriage and infidelities between her mother and her father. There are various fun twists throughout the novel.

Again, Maxted creates a fun story that has quite some poignant storylines that make her novel have more depth than the average chick-lit. The author has always mixed dark issues with lighthearted language, making the novel entertaining as well as thought-provoking. In here, Maxted does a deep study of romantic relationships and commitment issues. The lines are full of wit and insight. My favorite passage is: "There are certain men who need to get married, for whom the woman is almost incidental to proceedings. The woman is the tedious yet necessary ingredient, similar to yeast in bread. This sort of man fixes on his target rather like a pit bull, and any girl who can't run fast enough is at risk." Witty remarks such as this one occur throughout the novel. I love Hannah's dry humor. The part where she talks about waxing, er, certain embarrassing parts is hilarious! I laughed aloud many times, sometimes in public, much to other people's puzzlement. This is a novel that will make you laugh, nod in agreement with Hanna's musings and move you with the poignant developments. Anna Maxted has quite a unique voice and I recommend this gem.

Could this be a new category in bookstores? Intellectual Beach Book of the Week! I hope I haven't given the impression I see myself as an intellectual...it just that Maxted's books do have this wonderful combination of satire, wit, poignancy and light fun.

Her books are the type where you open to the first page while standing in the book store aisle, and are immediately drawn in. 'Being Committed' is one of her better books. This one is a little more upbeat, the main character not as needy as others. She doesn't follow the latest fashion trends, could care less about make-up and hair and has a self-deprecating tomboyish air.

Maxted's books always turn out with the happy ending I want and don't want. The girl gets the boy and everyone lives happily ever after. Still, you like the characters so much in the end, it would be disappointing if it turned out any other way.

This book is by far much better than Ms. Maxted's last novel (Behaving Like Adults). The main character (Hannah) is likable enough and humor is peppered throughout the novel to lighten it up a bit. Parental infidelity is a major theme throughout this novel. As a result of her mother's infidelty, Hannah has a fairly disturbing relationship with her father, her best friend, and her lovers. I think the story may have been slightly more believable if the character had been about 5 years younger. Overall I would rate this novel 2.5 stars (but I can't give a half star) because the material is not as light as I'd like it to be for something that is considered to be chick lit. Just my personal opinion but Ms. Maxted would do well to steer clear of issues such as parental infidelity, rape, repression and the like if she wants to grow her fan base in this genre. The base content is somewhat distressful.

A chic lit book about a woman's obsession with being married. Very very funny and surprisingly enlightening.