10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Take him back, please, January 29, 2008
Helen never thought she'd be one of those dreaded "other women," but that's just the predicament she finds herself in when she falls for her boss Matthew, a man many years her senior with a wife and children at home. She constantly wishes that they could spend more time with each other and asks Matthew to leave his wife for her. When he arrives on her doorstep with his bags in hand, she realizes you really have to be careful what you wish for. Suddenly her clandestine sometimes lover has turned into a real person - warts and all. She craves her privacy, and is embarrassed when she finds that the rest of the secretaries think that Matthew is not a catch at all, and schemes to hide her role in his separation. Then she decides the best way to get rid of him is the get him to go back to his wife Sophie, even going to far as to befriend her. The only problem - she likes Sophie more than she likes Matthew.
Fallon's story of the other woman is at times funny. I laughed so hard when Helen was watching Matthew snore (did he do that before?) and noticed his untrimmed nose hairs. But Helen is such a nasty character, that readers may find it difficult to sympathize with her and hope she gets her happily ever after. Sophie's character is what kept me glued to the story. She too had an affair with Matthew and he left his first wife for her. Her musings on getting what she deserves and realizing the role she played in stealing another woman's husbands give her the humility that Helen is sorely lacking. All in all, it was a pretty entertaining story if you can get beyond Helen's selfishness.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
TSTL people deserve each other, October 13, 2007
Helen is an assistant to Mathew, an exec at a PR firm and 20 years her senior, and has been having an affair with him for four years. The whole time she's been begging him to leave his wife but just when she starts to feel like ending the story, Mathew shows up at her door step stating that he's left his wife and is moving in. From then on, she tries to find ways to get rid of him. However, not finding an easy way to do that, she sort of resigns herself to trying at having a go of it. Things become really muddled when her curiosity about his wife, Sophie, gets the better of her and she befriends her under a false name.
Sophie then introduces her to a new restaurant owner and sparks fly between Helen and him until she finds out that he is Mathew's son by his first marriage. As things go on, Helen finds herself having to lie constantly to everyone in her life and she wants it all to be over. Finally, she concocts this idea to get Sophie and Mathew back together again so she can have her life back and get back on track. Of course it all comes to a head at the end of the book.
First I will say that although I read this book fairly quickly and it kept my interest, it was a complete cliché. I had read a positive review in People and it looked like it might be an interesting book. I was hoping that this age old story would have an amusing or unique take on it, but it doesn't. Not even close.
Helen is portrayed as the typical home wrecker, a sort of weak, self absorbed woman who goes with the man just because he asks. Of course everyone hates her and blames her for being the person to steal the husband and break up the family. Mathew is the typical cheating male: weak in character, smooth-talking, easily lying, charming guy whose culpability is never questioned. Sophie, although smart, is the deserted wife who still wants him back even though he's screwed her over and she knew what he was capable of because he cheated on his first wife with her. And then there are the catty office shrews who make "mean girls" look like angels. Puleeease!
I did love the ending though; it was very satisfactory and one that I was hoping for as I neared what I knew would be a huge blow up at the end. It was the least the author could do considering how much she perpetuated negative female stereotypes in this kind of story. I would give this book four stars except around ¾ of the way through, it starts to drag and get redundant as the whole match making and lying goes on and on. I basically kept reading at that point to get to the end, which I was looking forward to.
For Americans: this is written by a British author and there are a lot of British colloquialisms in this book. Also, there are a lot of pop cultural references, names of people or TV shows, that Americans won't get and which might take some of what might be amusing about this book away.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This was one funny book..., September 1, 2007
I LOVED this book! It had me from the beginning. I was sad when I finished it. I know the heroine was not the most perfect person in the world, but she was real and funny and I liked her very much! Her lover was not so appealing, but he was created that way by the author. GREAT fist novel. I would recommend this book to most women, except those who are put off by a little "salty" language. If not, give it a go! You will laugh out loud!
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