Customer Reviews

Chasing Harry Winston: A Novel

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(38)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(59)

 

 

Do not waste your money, time, or effort on this piece of trash. I enjoyed Devil Wears Prada immensely and thought Everyone Worth Knowing was a decent effort as well. But this third novel by Lauren Weisberger had me groaning in agony. The characters are vapid and selfish, the story line thin to non-existent, and the writing is totally disjointed. There were points in the story where I thought I was missing pages in my books because, apparently, Weisberger and her editor forgot the meaning of the word "transition."

I also take issue with the fact that the three main female characters, who are approaching thirty, seem to be more jealous and catty than they are happy and excited when something goes well for one of them. Of course we all feel pangs of jealousy from time to time, but these young women did not one iota of emotional substance keeping them together. Nor did they have any friends besides each other. I guess that makes sense -- Who else would want to spend time with them?! I certainly wouldn't.

There is more I can say but most of it would be a repeat of what the other 1- and 2-star reviewers have already written. I am not even going to bother keeping this book around. I will donate it to a used book shop or the Salvation Army as soon as you can say "This book stinks!"

This is probably one of the worst books I've ever read. The plot, if you can call it that, went nowhere and the book just dragged on and on and on. I kept hoping it would get better but it never did. The characters were boring and so cliche. The story lacked any kind of depth or emotion and was just filled with superficial material. I've never written a review for a book, but it was so terrible I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Having read so many bad reviews, I was surprised by Chasing Harry Winston. It's actually much better than I expected it to be.

After being dumped by her boyfriend of five years, baby-obsessed Emmy (a restaurateur) decides that she'll sleep with as many random men as possible. Tired of sleeping with many men in succession, ultra-glamorous, Brazilian Adriana decides to enter into a monogamous relationship and possibly get engaged. Leigh, a book editor, is tired of her life, despite a job she loves and a (seemingly) perfect boyfriend. One evening over dinner, two of the three decide to change their lives dramatically within the space of a year.

In Chasing Harry Winston, Weisberger dumps the format she adopted for her first two novels. In some ways, this is good, and gives Weisberger the chance to branch out a bit. This is no outsider-looking-in tale told from a whiney first-person perspective. There's no hellish boss, no glamorous fashion or PR industry. The characters in this novel are surprisingly more unique than those in Weisberger's other two books; with the exception of the perfect boyfriend, I definitely found myself relating to Leigh a little bit. However, the author doesn't seem to be able to create anything new--it seems like this plot has been seen before, most notably in Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City.

The characters, disturbingly, define themselves primarily by their relationships with men; their careers and the other parts of their personal lives repeatedly take backseats to boyfriends and fiancées. Adriana, despite her "tricks" for getting men to chase her, is really the one doing the chasing. It was tough, too, for me to believe the Leigh-Russell relationship. On the other hand, the predicament Leigh finds herself in is very understandable: you find yourself dating the "right" guy, so you feel bad about breaking up with him because you're scared. It's a dilemma I think many women can identify with.

For having reached the age of thirty, these women are very immature and shallow, and overly concerned with having the stress-and-anxiety-free, "perfect" lives that no New York woman I know has. It was also difficult for me to see why these three are friends--they're all so different, but Weisberger never explains to her readers why they were drawn to each other in the first place.

Somewhere in the plot, out of place, is a trip to the Caribbean, during which the girls find themselves in a dicey Curacao airport drinking suspect alcohol bought from a card table, and popping pills. It's pretty much the only funny part of the book. I get the feeling that this is something that really happened to Weisberger or someone she knows, and she felt she just had to put it in. But the scene just didn't belong in this novel.

Although not as funny, clever, or well-written as The Devil Wears Prada, there was much more emotional depth in Chasing Harry Winston than in Everyone Worth Knowing. Keep in mind, though, that Weisberger is pretty much a one-note author.

Needless to say, I picked this up because I loved her book, The Devil Wears Prada." This novel in comparison is CRAP. The whole way through I kept hoping I would begin to like or relate to to care about her characters, but they always fell flat. The writing is blurry at best and cluttered with cliches. I wish I had spent my money on a better book.

Gave up on book 210 pages in...nothing happens. Yikes. Just a lot of whining by girls with very little reason to whine. Good God. I was down on Everyone Worth Knowing as it seemed derivative but it was WAY better than this. And while the title may have been explained later, didn't make much sense. At all. Just have nothing good to say about it. Set pieces are dropped halfway through and a lot of the things this book treats as absolute truths (most notably Adriana's advice about men) may work on some men, but definitely not on others. Just not very good - it's got as much weight as reality TV and moves at a slower pace.

I was very disappointed with this book. My review will probably echo what a lot other reviewers have said, but here it is anyway -

I found this book to be incredibly shallow and severely lacking in plot. In fact, I just finished it last night and already I can barely remember the main plot points. I did laugh in a few spots and very occasionally found that I was able to identify with a particular character or situation.

One of my biggest peeves about this book was Emmy's resolution. I literally cringed every time I read the phrase "Tour de Whore" and references to Emmy wanting to "prostitute myself out." Am I the only one who was bothered by this? If you want to write a book about a women's journey to sexual freedom or whatever, then great, I'm all for it. But does she have to refer to herself as a prostitute and whore throughout it? Also, it was clear throughout her "affairs" that she was not comfortable with what she was doing. Apparently it's not okay for a woman to want to know someone on a deeper level before sleeping with them...

Another big problem that I had with this book was the fact that the characters were entirely unoriginal. Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, anyone?

I also felt like there was a serious lack of organization and flow. There were also characters who appeared to be important and then pretty much disappeared (the hairdresser, Emmy's sister and her family,) situations that never got resolved or explained. The narrative was often confusing and jumped from present to flashback to internal monologue and back again with little to no transition.

The ending was ridiculous and boring at the same time. I also don't really understand the title, it really doesn't fit the story. As soon as I finished reading this book, I wondered, "WHAT was the point of that?" As I said earlier, I finished it less than 12 hours ago and I've already forgotten what it was supposed to be about. Don't waste your money on this one - if you must, get it from the library.

This book is a major departure for Lauren Weisberger-- in that it is terrible to the point of nearly being unreadable. Don't get me wrong-- I don't take my chick lit too seriously. If a book has a pink cover with stilettos on it, there's a slight chance it might have reasonably good writing and character development, but usually the best you can hope for is a cheesy but fun, quick read. This book, however, crosses the threshold from silly to painful. The characters are one-dimensional, stereotypical, and derivative of every other mainstay of chick culture-- she might as well have named Adriana Samantha. Oh, and the way that she defined one of her characters as ethnic-- she made her say "querida" in every other sentence, because you know, that's how Latinas talk. And by the way, I live in NYC, and it's not too often that you stumble across world famous actors/ directors/ sportscasters/ authors who are just dying to go out with you. Or, for that matter, that you suddenly get movie deals dropped into your lap. I was also annoyed by the title, which as it turns out, applies only vaguely to only one character-- it's almost as if she chose the title because she thought it sounded good and not because it had any huge relevance to the book.

But perhaps what drove me the most crazy was how they kept waxing poetic about how old they are. The characters are all 29 year-olds who turn 30 over the course of the book, and they all act like they're turning 60. In one scene, they're out to dinner celebrating one of their 30th birthdays, and the waitress says something to the effect of "I hope I look like you when I'm your age." The characters roll their eyes, saying the waitress couldn't be older than 24, as if that were a zygote in comparison to their many years. Because in the six years between 24 and 30, you go from being a naive cheerleader to being a mature, condescending crone. The book was peppered with phrases like "when you get to be our age, you rush into marriage for the wrong reasons" [paraphrased] and it just wore on me after a while. I'm 29 myself, and it just doesn't fit with reality.

If you're so desperately curious and need to read this book, please, do yourself a favor, and visit your local library.

trust me, I wanted to like this book as much as the next person. I enjoyed Lauren's previous two books, and had high hopes for this one. However, I found the plot line of this weak, the story line totally unbelievable and the conclusion totally contrived. It almost seems like she phoned this one in, cashed her check and left us to pick up the pieces. Save your money; I wish i had.

I kept reading in hopes of a big drama filled moment, but it never happened. The book is a flub. I found myself saying "thats it?" when I finally finished it. She missed on this one. I've read the devil wears prada and everyone worth knowing and both were page turners in my opinion. Better luck next time, Lauren.

Chasing Harry Winston was a total disappointment with lack of originality and storyline. The book tries to be Sex & the City in so many ways by having single New York women, love and friendships. Even though you hope the story will become interesting at some point it becomes clear that the story line is not original and same goes for the characters. The novel had potential and yet did not deliver.
Just a heads up Weisberger if you are going to write about single women in New York, you have to write something more umm let's see ORIGINAL!