Customer Reviews

Larger Than Life

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In the past, I read Playing Away and roared with laughter and sometimes recognition. Adele Parks got the sexual and emotional aspects of infidelity down to a tee. Now she has returned with another novel that illustrates her wit and intelligence.

Larger Than Life - much like Playing Away - centers on infidelity. However, the theme is somewhat different from her first novel. This second effort has a darker subject matter.

After years of patience, Georgina has finally obtained full possession of Hugh, the love of her life. He's chosen her over his wife and children. Now she's able to take a step back, relax and be at ease. She no longer has to go to great lengths to be the glamazonian mistress she's always been. But things take a turn toward disaster when she finds out she's pregnant. Will Hugh stick around? Was the fantasy life she once lived with Hugh better than the reality she now endures? There are some interesting turns throughout the novel.

As previously said, Larger Than Life has a rather dark language. The problems Georgina encounters after making the transition from mistress to girlfriend are insightful and poignant. Adele Parks is a great chick-lit author and I look forward to more work from her in the future.

At eighteen Georgina saw Hugh for the first time and knew he was her soulmate though he did not quite see it that way at that time. Now fourteen years later, Georgina lives in London with her beloved Hugh, and on top of that likes her job and is financially solvent. Georgina wonders if life can get any better than hers is?

When Georgina learns she is pregnant she has a mixed reaction. She wants to be a mother, but worries how Hugh will react. While wondering who to tell as she fears Hugh might recoil from her and her mother detests having a thirty something child, Georgina immediately rules out abortion. She knows that if Hugh behaves badly, she is financially secure to raise the child on her own. She is only in the beginning stages and as she grows rounder, her world as she knows it spins off its axis starting with seeing Hugh in a different filtering of me-me not we-to the three.

This book should be labeled chic lit even though it contains elements of mainstream drama and because a pregnant woman seems within the lanes of this interesting sub-genre. The amusing story line is told mostly in the first person, which provides an interesting series of events as Georgina progresses with her pregnancy. Her actions, frustrations, and reactions change too. Hugh comes across as a pathetic loser making it difficult to see why the bright, gregarious G saw anything in him. Fans of chic lit and character studies will want to read LARGER THAN LIFE as this is a fine one sitting novel.

Harriet Klausner

If author Adele Parks keeps writing like this, I really think that Brit Chick Lit author Jane Green will have some competition! I was hooked well before the first chapter ended and was thuroughly entertained by this intelligent novel.

Thirty-two year-old Georgina finally has everything she has ever wanted: Hugh, the manshe has loved for years and now has all to herself, she also has a wonderful career in Advertising at which she makes boat-loads of money. Georgina is thrown for a loop to say the least when she finds out she is pregnant. How will Hugh handle the news? Will you, me and Baby makes three be their new anthem? Georgina is pretty sure she wants to be a mother, or is she? Everything in her life for the last fourteen years has been filtered through Hugh. Georgina becomes obsessed with her pregnancy and how she is going to handle the rest of her life and there are many trials and tribulations associated with both. This book is a combination of chick lit intelligently mixed with a study of human behavior.

I should also mention that this is my third Downtown Press book. Previously I have read: The Song Reader and The Man I Should Have Married. Good story lines and entertaining, intelligent reading seem to be the hallmark so far of Downtown Press.

After reading Adele Parks Game Over and Larger Than Life, one can instantly see the mastery the author has over writing and narrating a novel. The language is funny, clear, and entertaining in some parts.

However, her themes tend to be very negative. Certainly, in the end, the characters undergo a realization and surpass any immorality of their previous behavior, but it takes till the very end of the novel until that metamorphasis occurs.

The author gives an interview at the end of the book, and indicates that writing an imperfect heroine with complications in her character is more challenging to create. However, as a reader, I want to feel like I am rooting for the main character at least fifty percent of the time.

It was entertaining just for the sake of reading something. Georgina spends the entire time justifying her relationship with Hugh which in the last few pages of the book realizes the truth for what he is. Too bad, I would have liked the author to further develop George's reaction to Hugh in the end and the birth of the baby. The birth of the baby would be more meaningful than ending on such disappointment from Hugh.

This book was good except for the fact that it too way too long for the heroine, George, to get over her worthless boyfriend. IT was certainly entertaining, but I didn't like George much for the first 200 pages. She was self-centered and obessed with Hugh. And her looks. (How many ways can the girl say she's fat?) A bit shallow, for sure. Also it made me mad that after she got pregnant and she knew for sure that she was expecting, that she went and drowned her sorrows in alchol. That's awful!

Larger Than Life is one of those books in which the central characters are so well described and developed, you feel you know them. It's interesting to see how George's character grows from the self she's created for Hugh into a woman who sees through him to take a closer look at herself and the life she is about to create for her new baby.

I had read Game Over previously and absolutely fell in love with the way Adele Parks writes.I couldn't wait to crack this book open. Her main character, Georgina, is the type of woman we can all realte to. Parks mix of pregnancy, vomit, the advertising world, and a sleezy man make this one book you will not want to put down. I enjoyed it because it wasn't mooshy and delt with real "career" girl issue. A great read!

Some would think that "Larger Than Life" by Adele Parks is just another Chick-lit book, but don't be fooled. This book is much more. This is a book about a woman who spends most of her life changing herself to get the man that she wants (who cares if he is all ready married to someone else.) When she finally get him, she gets pregnant, and learns more about him and herself. This is a great book that shouln't be missed.