Bookends [Paperback]

Jane Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2000

Cath and Si are best friends. Total opposites, always together, and both unlucky in love. Cath is scatty, messy, and emotionally closed. Si is impossibly tidy, bitchy, and desperate for a man of his own. They live near each other in West Hampstead, close to their other best friends Josh and Lucy - who are married, with a devil-spawn child called Max and a terrifying Swedish nanny, Ingrid. When Portia steps back into their lives, - beautiful Portia, the undisputed queen of their group at university, who broke their collective hearts one night and from whom they have all gradually, silently, grown apart - her reappearance sets off a chain of events that tests them to the limit. Does Portia have a hidden agenda, or is she just looking for happy endings all round? Whatever the answers, none of them could ever predict the outcome...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bookends, Jane Green's third comic novel of contemporary love and lust, proves beyond a doubt that when it comes to light reading, plot is everything. Bookends makes a great case study because it has little going for it besides plot. Dialogue? Stilted. Characters? Clichéd. Writing style? Sloppy. And yet the book is well-nigh impossible to put down. A few friends meet at university: Simon, the chirpy gay character; Portia, the glamour girl; Josh, the adorable, unpretentious catch; and Cath, the overweight, insecure narrator. Portia strays from their crowd, but the other three remain friends into their 30s. Now successful Londoners, each faces a personal crisis: singleton Cath leaves a secure job to start a bookstore; Simon looks for love; Josh's marriage goes through growing pains. And then Portia, as intimidating and elegant as ever, wanders back into their lives--with surprising results. Green is a past master of the ugly-duckling-turned-swan story. Cath's transformation--neatly echoed by the changes in the lives of her friends--is completely addictive. Plot does indeed rule. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Popular British author Green (Jemima J and Mr. Maybe) follows up her two hits with a less sparkling effort that examines the intricacies of enduring friendships. In college 10 years ago, a small group of misfits ¢dowdy Catherine, gay Simon, cute naOf Josh and his object of affection, the regally beautiful Portia¢were best friends. After a messy split from Portia, the others have continued their friendship without her. While promiscuous Si and celibate Cath have lousy luck with men, Josh is happily married to earthy Lucy. The members of the tightly knit quartet commiserate about extra body weight, job dissatisfaction and the search for love, but are basically content¢until Portia reenters their lives and threatens their stability. Green touts her return as almost sinister, but the forecasted tornado ends up a mere zephyr. The novel opens with a promising bang, only to peter out before fulfilling its potential. Green has a knack for creating both atmosphere and characters that ring true, but the dialogue is sometimes strangely stilted and does little to propel the oft-meandering plot. There are some bright spots, like Cath's blossoming relationship with dreamboat James, but they are too few and far between to steady the pace.
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: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140276521
• ISBN-13: 978-0140276527
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (158 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,621,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jane Green is a bestselling author of popular novels. She has been featured in People, Newsweek, USA Today, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan. She lives in Connecticut with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dramatic, comedic, and real look at friendship + love!, August 11, 2002

By 

ChickLitGurrl™ "Shonell Bacon" (Lake Charles, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bookends: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm a sucker for a romantic comedy, and after Bridget Jones's Diary, I became eager to read more books in that genre. When I picked up Bookends by Jane Green, I was looking for a light, fun read, but what I received was a novel that would not let me put it down. Bookends is hilarious, witty, and full of tension and drama, and characters that you will love...and some you might not like all that well.

In Bookends, the reader is introduced - by way of narrator, Catherine "Cath" Warner - to a group of friends who meet in school and though individually different as night and day, they become a tight clique of trusted friends. That is, until the ever-beautiful Portia - the friend thought to be the sun in the clique's universe - destroys friendships that were meant to last forever.

Fast forward ten years where we find Cath and lifelong friends, Josh and Lisa, and her best friend, Si, living and loving in their early-thirties, in London. Si, the sweet, adorable, and gay love of Cath's life spends most of his time in friendly counsel with Cath regarding the lack of men in their lives, and discussing how each deals with that situation in their own way, whether it's Cath's refusal to believe she wants a man in her life, or Si's ability to lower his standards, for fear of living alone.

Just as everyone's life seems to be on track, a blast from the past in the form of an older and more self-indulgent Portia, pops back into the group's tight circle and in an instant, lives are shook up, adulterous innuendoes are cooked up and friendships are tested.

I have to say, this book is a wonderful read. I fell in love with the main character, Cath, and her feelings on friendship and love. Green does a great job in creating characters that you want to care about, characters that you can feel and even relate to. I think readers will be thoroughly and happily surprised that there is more to this book than pure entertainment. I finished this book with tears in my eyes because I felt a connection with Green's characters and I felt moved by the way Green deals with some heavy subjects in this novel.

I would definitely recommend Bookends - love the title - to those who want a fast read with a lot of bite and wit.

Shon Bacon

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, September 9, 2004

By 

Redacted - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bookends: A Novel (Paperback)

I can't believe I spent 4 hours reading a truly horrendous book. Bookends, by Jane Green. Terrrrrible. Even more amazing is that there was 350 pages of this drivel. I can't believe I bought that stupid book. I want my 10 dollars back, dammit. Spoilers ahead, so beware.

Here's why it sucked: It was about 5 college friends, four of them stay together after college and one of they lose touch with. It's clear that it was meant to be about the one friend, Portia, coming back and having significant changes on their lives. I know this because the narrator keeps telling me how Portia has "changed the dynamics of the group" and has "changed the balance." Over. And. Over. Which would be understandable if it weren't for the fact that Portia coming back had NOTHING to do with the changes that occured. One of the changes is that Si gets AIDS cause of his jackass boyfriend. Oookay. Nothing to do with Portia. The last hundred pages of the book are about his disease and everything else is ignored. It would be fine if it all came together somehow, but I dunno. It felt like she had finished the book and then edited that part in because there was some word limit she didn't hit.

Another change she attributes to Portia is Josh cheating on his wife with Portia (or so she believes). This would understandable if it weren't for the fact that Josh wasn't cheating with Portia. However, despite being best friends with Josh for ten years, instead of asking him about it, she just decides to be mean to Portia and Josh. Later, she realizes that Josh ISN'T cheating with Portia and instead she believes he's cheating with the maid. Holy crap. More meaness towards Josh. Of course, it turns out Josh was completely faithful all along and in reality our lovely narrator is a verifiable nutjob. Oh, and she apologizes to Josh and Portia for being mean and they're like "hmm...okay. I was wondering what was up with that." I don't know what kind of long-lasting friendships this author had, but I feel sorry for her.

Of course, no book is complete without the narrator, Cathy, finding her true love. Insert James. Insert James, Cathy's bitch. James is a hunky, artistically talented, and somewhat wealthy to boot. Why is this guy single at 36? For some reason, he's attracted to Cathy who's not all that good looking, can't dress, and admittedly slept with any guy at university that feigned any amount of interest. WTF? The only thing that makes this digestible is that fact that this book is supposed to be "romance" and that genre tends to go hand in hand with "delusional" so, okay. Fine. BUT. (There's always a but.) The "romance" factor isn't even that great. Cathy basically ignores James for the majority of the book because she's dealing with Portia's "changes." He gets annoyed, but she smiles at him and is forgiven. She goes out on one real date with him and they proceed to have sex. Sooo romantic.

Oh, and the sex. HA. Holy crap. Here are two quotes:

"I start to cry. Crying this time with pleasure. With forgotten memories."

"It is exactly like riding a bicycle, and everything I thought I'd forgotten comes back in a flash, and it feels wonderful."

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS DRIVEL!??! I actually laughed out loud. The narrator seems to be not so much a "lovably imperfect protagonist" but rather a "self-centered shallow nutjob." A little boy doesn't like her. She refers to this little 7-year old boy as the devil, etc. etc. Even though he likes others who are nice to him and treat him as an adult instead of complete idiot, there is NO WAY his dislike could be HER fault. No. The little boy MUST be evil. Yes.

Terrible book. Terrible. I want my money back.

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and relaxing, June 30, 2002

By 

Britt Arnhild Lindland (Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bookends: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have just finished my second Jane Green novel, Bookends. And loved every word of it.
Like the first Jane Green I read, Jemima J, this one is about the life of single Londoners, following the footprints of Bridget Jones. But still the book is worth it's own money, and is not at all predictable and boring.

A gang of University friends stay together for years after they left school, though they have lost contact with one of the girls from the gang, the beautiful Portia, queen of the gang. She broke their hearts one night and after that drifted away from the close gang. Life goes on, Josh marries Lucy, Cath stays single being hurt one time to many, and the gay Si is always hunting for the perfect man of his life.

The book is a wonderful, charming and witty story about friendship. How to give everything for your friends, how to stay together through thick and thin. Though the part of the book that charms be most is Bookends, the bookshop and café Cath and Lucy opens. Through this Cath meets James, but is this man the one for her? Jane Green has a charmimg way to take us through the every day life of her characters.

The ending is surprisingly, and may be a little out of Greens usual style, though it makes you think about the values of your live, the values of your friendships.

Britt Arnhild Lindland