Customer Reviews

The Chocolate Lovers' Club

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

 

 

I love chocolate and I love good chick-lit, especially of the British variety, so I was ready and excited to dive in to this potentially delicious read. Unfortunately, good chocolate just isn't enough to carry a story when the characters are vapid, shallow and seem completely implausible as actual human beings.

The book definitely has some redeeming and hilarious moments - a fabulous break-up revenge scene and a plot-turned-caper to retrieve Chantal's stolen jewels - but it was so hard for me not to shake my head in disbelief at the way the characters acted and spoke that the good moments just didn't outweigh the bad. I was especially turned off by Lucy, the narrator and convener of the Chocolate Lovers' Club. No self-respecting woman would actually stick with a cheating boyfriend for so long and actually be proud of herself for it, nor would true friends let such stupidity go on indefinitely. And when her Crush shows interest in her she's about as awkward and moronic as a girl could be - and not just once, but over and over again. I appreciate characters drawn from reality, people whose lives aren't perfect and whose problems are real if sometimes mundane, but Lucy was over-the-top. Chantal was the most appealing character for me, and her problems seemed the most legitimate, but even she possessed a fair amount of bizarre and unrealistic quirks that didn't fit together.

If you want to learn a million different types of chocolate, or drool over your book a bit, then this book is a worthwhile read. As far as chick-lit goes, however, I was really disappointed. I want to find women in books that strike me as people I might know, friends I might have - not women who make me cringe and give the worst name to the fairer sex.

I found this book pretty ho-hum and definitely not worth staying up for (I usually can't put down a good book and often read well into the wee hours). It was hard to feel any kind of bond with the characters, so I wound up skimming through the last third of the book.

I love chocolate as much as the next person, but I found the constant mention of it to be quite tedious and off-putting. Like another reviewer, I just wondered why the characters in the novel were not completely obese. Not only that, but each chocolate "moment" was a self-conscious and awkward reference to a different brand and different type of chocolate, as if the author had a mandate to check-off a list of as many different kinds of chocolate as possible. It was as if the plot and the events in the book were just excuses to refer to chocolate. Case in point: "From her handbag, Chantal produced a bar of Clive's single Madagascar that she'd bought earlier in preparation for this moment" --- the moment, in this instance, was right after a funeral, and Chantal gives the chocolate to the bereaved spouse, as if to suggest that now chocolate (and this particular brand of chocolate, to boot) has been consumed, everything in the friend's life will be better!!

I also found it hard to "get" the characters' motivations -- I couldn't understand why Lucy, loving Crush as she said she did, would decide to get engaged to Marcus in the first place, and then persist in wanting to go through with the wedding despite a last-minute declaration of love. And then hours after the wedding is called off, she was having hot sex with someone who wasn't the fiance. She seemed so completely indecisive and wishy-washy, it was hard to feel any sympathy for her.

The whole business with the drug drop-off hours before the wedding was also completely unbelievable, and seemed to be stuck into the book just so the author could invent an adventurous romp for the characters.

I'm glad I didn't buy this book, and only borrowed it from the library. I like my chick lit to be intelligent, funny and engrossing, with at least one character whom I can feel I like and relate to. This book didn't have much of those characteristics, and there's a whole lot of better chick lit (including Brit chick lit) out there.

This book is fantastic. At first I thought, "Oh, no, not another cheesy tale about the lives of four friends who just happen to love chocolate." I've read "Shoe Addicts Anonymous" and that was just too generic for me so I thought this one would be similar. This one is different from most chick lit. There are lots of plot twists going on, creative ones, and Lucy is hilarious with her jobs and attitude. She reminds me of myself. And the "operation jewelry" endeavor was so funny. The only thing I didn't like was the gay guys owning the chocolate shop. Why do most chick lit book have to have the token gay guy? It gets tiring and old!! But great job on a very entertaining read!

I really tried to push through this one but I gave up two chapters away from the end. Maybe we Americans expect too much from our chick-lit, but I need a believable narrator. The narrator in this book is too silly for most people of average intelligence to relate to. Sticking with a boyfriend who constantly cheats on her is the first in a line of many flaws. She also seems to eat absolutely nothing besides tons of chocolate bars, so I don't have a lot of sympathy when she complains about a lack of cash or her weight. The other characters add spark, especially Chantal, but her exciting story is not enough to carry the book.

Lucy Lombard and her three friends are addicted. To chocolate. The foursome often meet up at their safe place, Chocolate Heaven, to divulge in chocolate and digest each other's problems. Lucy has found her boyfriend cheating on her yet again, and has to decide if she can give him a second chance- for the fifth time. Nadia, who gave up her career to be a stay at home mom, is struggling with her husband's own addiction- the much more dangerous addiction to gambling. She is watching their money dwindle down to nothing, and has to make the decision to stay with her husband or take their son and leave. Chantal is struggling through her marriage; even though the money that came with her husband is fabulous and keeps her bejeweled can't make up for the complete lack of any sex life. She often enters into extramarital affairs, until one man steals $30,000 worth of her jewelry and an escort she was hiring turns out to be otherwise involved- with another friend. And do-gooder Autumn is having her peaceful life broken up by her drug abusing brother moving in with her.

The Chocolate Lovers' Club by Carole Matthews focuses on these four friends and the challenges they are facing in their lives. The usual Matthews humor is there, but I could also find a serious tone underneath all the chocolate talk. The plot centers around the friends and their addiction to chocolate, but if you look deeper, each friend is struggling through other addictions- Lucy's addiction to a cheating boyfriend, Nadia's husband's gambling addiction, Chantal's addiction to sex, and Autumn's brother with a drug addiction. The Chocolate Lovers' Club is a favorite of mine simply because of a well designed plot, enough humor to keep me laughing, yet enough real life drama's to let me really take something away from the women's stories.

From the moment I started reading this book, I didn't want to stop. It was a great read from beginning to end, and SO very funny. The character development is great; I felt as if I personally knew the women in the story. This was one of those books that left me wanting more because it was such an enjoyable read. I sincerely hope that Carole Matthews writes another like this one. Loved it!

There are an awful lot of these Sophie Kinsella wanna-be books around these days. This one wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I liked the women's friendship but I thought some of the plot situations were a little ridiculous. The obligatory gay supportive friend gets old. And if I ate as much chocolate and junk food as these people I would be sick all the time. (Isn't it amazing how people in books, movies and TV shows can live on crap and not be walking around looking ill? I want to be a character in a book like this so I can live on chocolate.)

I'd recommend this book as a quick airplane/train read, but it's sort of forgettable.

This book sounded like the perfect light read for my vacation- a tight group of friends bonding over exotic chocolates and tales of woe should be an automatic chick-lit home run. Unfortunately, this book was more a swing and a miss to me because the main protagonist Lucy was clearly more caricature than character.

I would like to believe that no self-respecting young woman would truly be so proud of her ability to stick with a serial cheater of a boyfriend. I would like to believe no self-respecting young woman would be so proud of her absolute inability to perform any of the basic functions of her employment. I would like to believe no self-respecting young woman wants to read and sympathize with so vapid and annoying a main character.

It was a real shame to me that Lucy was so stereotypical and idiotic a character, because the problems faced by the other women in the book rang true and could have elevated this book above the fray if they hadn't been constantly undermined by clumsy babbling irritating Lucy.

A disappointing 2.5 stars.

"The Chocolate Lovers Club" is the story of four friends who in times of trouble and woe, meet up to console each other and eat chocolate. It seems their major problems have to do with men (bosses, spouses, lovers). Their stories intertwine, yet it didn't hold my interest; not for them or the delicacies they enjoy eating so much.

It was like reading several episodes of Sex & the City as it followed the romantic escapades, trials and tribulations of 4 quirky women. It made for great vacation reading. I look forward to more from this author.