Customer Reviews

Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys: A Novel

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

 

 

"The last fifteen years of failed dates, the boys with wandering hands, the boys whose hands didn't wander enough, the ones who left and the ones who wouldn't let me leave. They didn't deserve to walk into a room with Cassandra French on their arm."

Thus, with that dysfunctional experience with male-female relationships in her past, 29-year old Cassandra French, employed in the business office of a Los Angeles movie studio, proactively sets out to mold three young men with promise - her "boys" - into the New Age men they could be, replete with polished manners, polite language, sensitivity to a woman's needs, chivalry, and good fashion sense. Cassie has kept Owen, Alan and Daniel chained to cots in the basement of her Westwood home for months, alternating behavioral modification "lessons" with doses of calming morphine. (I've lived in SoCal for five decades, and have never been in a home with a basement. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, my Dad built a bomb shelter under our garage - but that doesn't count.)

CASSANDRA FRENCH'S FINISHING SCHOOL FOR BOYS is, believe it or not, a remarkably comedic novel. Author Eric Garcia pulls this off by making his heroine decidedly unhinged, but not cruel or even unkind. Indeed, she reads her charges bedtime stories, tucks them in at lights out, entertains them with games and a regular "movie night", keeps them properly fed, and fully intends to release them back into the world once they "graduate". But things begin to unravel when she "enrolls" in her school a famous actor who'd seduced and bedded her for uncommonly selfish and boorish reasons. Once under restraint and in her control, he subsequently dies in a freak accident involving chains, manacles, electric current, and yoga.

I haven't come across such an engaging female lead since Rebecca Bloomwood of Sophie Kinsella's SHOPAHOLIC series. Even when faced with the immediate problem of body disposal, in which caper she involves her best friend Claire, Cassie still has the presence of mind to notice the quality of Claire's cashmere sweater and footwear, and discuss corpse removal options over Amaretto and low-fat Fig Newtons.

I'm not awarding five stars because the ending seemed forced - perhaps not surprising considering the bizarre and implausible storyline that Garcia backed French into. But the plot is inventive and light, and would make the perfect vehicle for a Big Screen movie starring Sandra Bullock.

Nearing thirty, Hollywood studio attorney Cassandra French constantly grades herself on six courses: Personality, Looks, Physical health, Mental health, Career, and Relationships. Her scores will vary in the first five courses depending on her situation, but she is a drop out when it comes to relationships as she has found men to be shallow and self indulged when they are sober; when males are drunk they become obnoxiously shallow and self indulged.

Tired of dating groping alcoholics, Cassandra has a good time attending a baseball game with Owen until the seventh inning stretch when beer consumption takes effect. Cassandra locks the drunken Owen in what she now calls her kennel. When he becomes an obedient canine, she brings him two companions, Alan and Daniel as students at her finishing school for changing slobbering male dogs into caring gentlemen. Movie star Jason Kelly takes Cassandra out, but she learns he is using her to sue her studio. Irate, Cassandra abducts him, but he is a moron unlike his three litter mates as he kills himself by electrocution.

Eric Garcia pays homage to the chick lit and hunk lit tales by skewing the sub-genre with this fabulous satire that stuns readers when they realize that this is not another sensitivity quest. Cassandra is amusing as she seems the prototype keeping up with the chick lit Jones until the audience realizes that her boys waiting for food in her basement kennel are not dogs, but human males. The support cast that include her "boys", her employer, and her two pals especially the yoga queen enable Cassandra to star as the queen of the ironically anti-chick lit romp.

Harriet Klausner

On first glance, this novel appears to be yet another book of the "chick lit" genre: protagonast Cassandra French faces professional and personal woes in modern day LA. However, there are several surprises in store, with the first being that this book was actually written by a man. In his author's notes, Eric Garcia explains that he is "surrounded by women," suggesting why he may have written a novel which would appeal mostly to females. Yet males may be drawn into this book as well given the black comedic elements revealed within the first few pages. It seems that Cassie has become so fed up with the opposite sex that she decided to kidnap a few "boys" and train them to become men (hence the title). Strange? Definitely. Funny? Well, yes, that too.

The exploits of Cassie and her friends--street smart Claire and bimbo Lexi--are humorous enough, and the story is certainly engaging. However, the plot elements were a bit TOO bizarre for me at times, from Cassie injecting the boys with morphine to keep them docile to her diasterous involvement with a top movie star. And of course, there is the happy ending: although this is par for the course in most popular fiction, the sweetly perfect conclusion seemed rather out of place here. To be fair, I must admit that I have never been a fan of black comedy, which mostly likely tainted my view of this novel. If your tolerance for dark laughs is as low as mine is, you will probably find, as I did, that the more morbid aspects of this book detract from its humor.

I rated this 3.5 stars
This book was light and amusing and I enjoyed it - pretty far fetched and totally unrealistic so you can safely say it is total escapist chick lit with a twist. This is what happens when a smart woman gets a bad idea to take care of the conditions she faces when dating in our world today. It's all about retraining. Everyone can learn, right? You just need the right classes and the right teacher. Enjoy!

This book was thoroughly odd and enjoyable. It tracks the progress of Cassandra French, a bored Hollywood lawyer whose dead father's voice urges her to reform the ill-behaved men around her. Accordingly, she locks 3 men up in her basement with manacles and handcuffs. She gives them fashion tips and shows them movies featuring kind treatment of women.

Everything goes awry when Cassandra gets mixed up with an actor, Jason Kelly, who's suing her place of employment. Jason is so slick and disrespectful of women that Cassandra drafts him into her school, but he's not as cooperative of the others.

The book definitely has a dark streak, as demonstrated by the S&M gadgets Cassandra uses to restrain and control the men, but it is funny as well. I didn't think the ending went as far as it could have, and was in fact kind of timid. Still, this was an interesting and different reading experience.

What we have here is chick lit (with a fabulously catchy title!), written by a male author, with a dose of American Psycho thrown in. The inside book flap compares this to a Hiaasen novel, a claim I am going to have to resoundly disagree with. This book is nowhere near the level of Hiassen's zany comic intrigue, but it is a darkly funny tale, even if it as some annoying plot holes.

One major plus for the book is that Cassandra is one of the most refreshing chick lit protagonists to hit the shelves. She's definitely sexy, but she's sensible and not afraid to open her mouth and get in trouble. So many other books have whiny and indecisive main characters. Cassandra knows when someone is going to bring her down, and she avoids pitfalls with a spunky attitude.

Does the plot make sense? Not really. Is the twist at the end even remotely plausible? No way! Did I laugh along the way at the situations? Yes. There's an absolutely brillant running gag with Cassandra's mother (who has been convicted of telephone fraud and is forbidden to use phones), along with some other darker comedy. Try this if you want something new on the chick lit front, but don't expect a masterful plot, just a fun romp.

I am not sure how this book managed to get so many 5 star reviews. I typically reserve the 5 star rating for books I truly think are great. This was not one of those books (at best I found this book to be bizarre).

The story revolves around Cassie (who is not 29 by the way -- you other reviewers were not paying attention!!!) On the surface, Cassie is your typical single chick-lit heroine. She's single and looking for love. The book deviates from traditional chick-lit beyond this. It seems that Cassie is not satisfied by the quality of available men so she sets out to reform them. She is a domestic dominatrix of sorts. Basically, Cassie kidnaps 3 full grown men, locks them up in her basement and for the most part they seem grateful to her for it. At some point in the book she manages kidnap a fourth but he ends up dead and by that point her friends get dragged in to the mess. There is no way that anyone could ever find this plot to be believable. Some reviewers seem to like that about this book. I like to escape from reality just as much as the next gal but this was more of an escape into mediocrity.

Beyond the book review I will add that if you plan on reading this book anywhere outside the confines of your own home, you may want to invest in a book sock. Let's put it this way... there is a picture of a man licking a woman's boot on the front cover. Bring this into your workplace lunchroom and you will attract the office [...] for sure!

It has not been often, in my life, that I have had to put a book down, to laugh out loud, nor am I in the habit of taking a book with me to the kitchen to make toast, because I could not bear to put it down for 5 minutes.

This book, is fun, and not just run of the mill fun, but special fun, with whipped cream on the top. I got it in the mail yesterday, and finished it in one straight read.

I bought this book for my son, a diehard Garcia fan of 15, and before he got home to start it, I snagged it. What a great read! Garcia wrote so well from the feminine perspective, capturing all the elements of what truly irritates women about relationships with men, and relating so well snippets of quirkiness peculiar to us girls.

Cassandra French, is written with such delicious, self deprecative wit, and she is quick with a snipe about herself as well as others. It is such a clever plot, you cannot resist the urge to get sucked in from the first page.

In a week, I will probably read it again. :)

What a fun read! I was curious and read what others had to say. Some people never get it! Don't go see Star Wars and complain that it is completely unrealistic. OK, you are right, but so what? That is not the point of movies like Star Wars or novels like Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys. Willing suspension of disbelief and all, this was a great read, full of humor, witty observations, and superb writing. I could not believe the author is a man. Eric Garcia did a terrific job portraying the women in this book, nuances and all. For example, Cassie is visiting her mom, who is under house arrest. Her mom says:

"Speaking of movie stars," she said at one point, "did you see the news on TV this morning? About that actor?"

"What actor?"

"The one from that movie, where he played that guy. You know the one I'm talking about."

That sounds like my mom and every single one of my aunts. You sometimes need to have psychic powers in order to have a conversation.

So it happens that Cassie, a lawyer at a movie studio in L.A., is disgusted with the rude and uncouth men she encounters as dates. Some of them, although major brutes, have potential, so she decided to establish a finishing school to make these boys into men. Sure, her methods are not always conventional, but her intentions are sickly honest. The boys are chained in her basement, sedated and on a lean diet, but they are learning to be everything a woman desires.

Cassie's best friends are Claire, a ruthless executive at a TV network, and Lexi, a bimbette yoga instructor who Cassie secretly despises. Lexi's dogs (the wuzzles), a handsome movie star, and the owner of a gimmicky club all take part in unraveling Cassie's life. The ending was ingenious and most satisfying.

Cassandra French is an underemployed Hollywood lawyer with too much time on her hands, a mother who is under house arrest, two ditzy friends who get her into one predicament after another, and she is pushing thirty. She has also had way too many bad dates. She has been using all the latest self-help and it frankly isn't helping. So far, so good. But then she launches her finishing school for boys--three men manacled and imprisoned in her basement, where she is hopefully turning them from boys into men--real men who know how to treat a woman.

Think that's hard to believe? It's only the beginning. Things deteriorate rapidly with complications spiralling out of control. No, I can't tell you what happens, that would only spoil it for you. You'll just have to read it.

Author Eric Garcia is a talented and very inventive writer. He is the author of three Rex books--in which dinosaurs live among us disguised as humans. Those books were a little hard to believe, but Cassie French is over the top. Hard to stay with it at times. Still, if you just accept it as madcap unreality and go along for the ride, it's enjoyable. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber