Customer Reviews

The Cigarette Girl: A Novel

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book would do it for you! It's not as funny as Isabell Wolff's "The Trials of Tiffany Trott," nor any of Marian Keye's books ~~ for an American writer, this is pretty dishy and funny. If you like reading about sex in L.A. or Hollywood, then this book is it.

Elizabeth West is a free-lance screenwriter who is dreading being in the "Zone." The Zone is that age between 28 and 35 where women start thinking about their biological clock and settling down with a man. So every date is a "Maybe" and most often than not, it's usually a "No Way." Or about how a man would call for the second date and he never does ~~ it's about how women try their hardest to capture a man's attention and how hard they work to keep it ~~ it's a cynical view of dating and marriage.

This book explores a woman's dating life (er, well, sex life) as she tries to find the one man that she would spend her life with. Elizabeth West portrays the average L.A. party girl, fascinated with designer shoes and making it big with her screenplay, keeping in touch with her friends and living life in the fast lane (except drugs ~~ that's not her style, alcohol is more like it). It's not a thought-provoking book by any means, but it is escapism.

The Brits writers (Keyes, Trott etc.) still have the corner on the single woman's plight as she searches for marriage, meaning to life and so on ~~ dashed with lots of humor; but Wolper doesn't do such a shabby job with her first book. It is fun to read and you can still relate to Elizabeth West as she struggles for acceptance in the hardest city of the world ~~ Hollywood. It's a lot more realistic than you expected from Tinseltown, but it's still a glamourous read.

The Cigarette Girl is a very honest novel about life as a single woman approaching 30. Carol Wolper writes a very entertaining tale of a young woman named Elizabeth who encounters many men and writes screenplays for action movies. This book is much like Sex in The City (on HB0) It chronicles the life of a woman, her relationships with her girlfriends, their very frank discussions on sex and dealing with men. A great, easy, quick and funny book. I suggest it to any single woman with a sense of humor about life and men.

The description on the book jacket looks promising; the book is not. A shallow sex-crazed airhead and her life and loves in L.A. Her main criteria for a man seems to be one who will sleep with her (and that euphemism is *never* used, it's always the "f" word). Men who already have girlfriends are an even bigger draw for this woman, who doesn't care if they leave their girlfriends, just as long as she gets some action on a regular basis. Brand names matter very much to her. Her sense of humor will give you some chuckles, but is not the laugh riot the reviews imply it is. Wolper adequately describes her characters, but unfortunately you quickly come to the conclusion that these are people that you want to avoid at all costs.

This book is obviously about Carol Wolper. She knows her lead character so well, that I felt I was getting to know the author. Wolper's, Elizabeth, taught me that the thoughts I'm having at 25 are not independent of other women my age, nor do they go away at 35. We all want to find the true love of our lives, but today's woman neither has to sit around waiting or beg, lie, cheat, and cry to win him. Elizabeth is true to herself and her independence; she's funny and intelligent. Everything the "Rules" tell us not to be. Although it may take men longer to "catch" up to her actualization, she is definately worth the wait to the man who will finally appreciate her.

"The Cigarette Girl" was none too appealing to me at all. I was expecting a Bridget Jones type story and got some hard-to-follow mishmash. Elizabeth was a picky, sex-starved female who could not make up her mind. I'd say, folks, wait for the paperback version to come around!

A not so edgy take on one Hollywood wannabe's struggle to meet her version of Mr Right. The heroine, Elizabeth, an up and coming 28yo screenwriter has has a career breakthrough working on an action flick for a charismatic director who she's in lust with. At the same time she's trying to get a man who will give her everything she wants (lots of hot sex basically). Unfortunately for me, Wolper has made the character of Elizabeth so uninteresting I couldn't care less. Hard bitten and sarcastic,I didn't find her exploits witty or even vaguely amusing. The infatuation with the director is inexplicable - Elizabeth is supposedly an intelligent woman but she cannot resist this guy who is a serial bimboist. The reverent tone in which he is breathlessly described is laughable. Other characters in the novel seem to serve no purpose. Elizabth's "script" quotes added to the embarrassment. The last straw was the ending. I suppose I shouldn't have expected too much when I read the (I assume irony free) thankyou - to the "late, great Don Simpson" in the acknowledgements.

I read this straight through in one day, I was so connected to the character I felt like it could have been autobiographical, (which is both very sad, and a little comforting)! It's so interesting to see this side of a woman that is usually not portrayed in novels. For anyone a little bewildered about the rush to marriage, but sensing that you're supposed to be feeling like you're running out of time, this is the book for you. Such an easy read. I've recommended it to everyone I know, and I laughed most of the way through. Don't expect the typical ending, and you won't be dissappointed.

This book started with wit, charm, and great humor, and ended like a balloon that pzzzzzzzzzzt out all its air. There are so many great one liners in the book that it almost didn't need a story around them to make it funny. In fact there wasn't much of one there. Elizabeth, a 28 year old, living in warped L.A., and exsisting in what she refers to as 'the zone', is looking for a man who can fulfill her sexually and will stick around. To me she seemed very depressed and had a negative attitude ...yet very smart and funny in a twisted sort of way that readers will appreciate. Her ultimate decision was so dispicable that I thought perhaps the last chapters of my book were torn out ..because it couldn't possibly end this way! Yet it did. Looking back I am glad I read it. The funny one-lines throughout the book are well worth wading through the life of such a miserable person.

Elizabeth West is a screenwriter for tough action flicks, but her life is one sad soap opera. She goes from unavailable man to unavailable man hoping to establish a relationship which will appease her anxieties about being in "the zone". Elizabeth is by no means a strong female rallying a battle cry against the ticking of her biological clock, rather she is shuddering in its wake. The concept of "the zone" and the conclusion that Elizabeth finally comes to - that there are different ways of being happy - are the only aspects of the novel that kept me from throwing it out the window.

I was given this book as a gift, so I was committed to read it to the end. While I find myself in the same place in life as the main character Elizabeth, I was unable to form a bond with her or did I have much admiration for her. Her narration is analytical, but I felt that if she had figured out half as much as she boasted about her life, she would have made some better choices. While I wholly support self-directed women who work towards what they want, I found that Elizabeth was not the kind of person I would want to be. I admired her ability to find the honesty in sex, but I felt that she wasn't using the knowledge she found to the best of her ability.

Quite a few times, I found myself scanning ahead because I was a little tired of her going on about her philosophies and wanted to get to some definitive action. I was about 3/4 of the way into the book when I realized that nothing major was going to happen. I think I was expecting a story that happened in hollywood to have a little more going on. At the end I asked myself, "What happened in this story that was so important that I chose to read it over any other book?" and I can honestly say that nothing really important did happen. To agree with a previous reviewer, it was light reading, although I wouldn't say "trashy." There is a lot trashier out there.