Customer Reviews

Pants on Fire

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having been a fan of Alderson's column in The Age (Australian newspaper) for years, I was looking forward to reading this book. I read it over a couple of days on holiday and it's perfect when you want a "light" entertaining read. It is well written, with many funny scenes and is well worth reading, however I think Mad About The Boy is better. My favourite books by Alderson are Handbag Heaven and Shoe Money, which are compiled from her many fashion columns. May be hard to get in the US, but would be worth tracking down!

It's a fine, light and entertaining read. I'm still reading and I can't put it down .I like the humorous way that the author - an Australian writer- shows the incoherence of life.

It's about a journalist who lives and works in London and moves to Australia to work in a women's magazine to try to forget her broken heart. She mets a lot of people involved in a lot of confusion.Love, sex, drugs, work, richness and poorness are some of the things that this "girly" book embodies in an intelligent way.

As another reader said, is a class above most girly reads.

It's a good read, and it's worth tracking it down, since it 's not so easy to find it.

Ahh, chick lit at its finest.
After buying this book, I immediately went out and purchased all the books ever written by Maggie Alderson (she's a great newspaper columnest too).

i loved this book!!! if you're a fan of jane green, jennifer weiner, jennifer crusie, sophie kinsella, or marian keyes, you'll love maggie alderson. this book is charming and funny. it should be read by everyone who is a fan of chick-lit.

I fell in love with the author on a trip to Australia but was disappointed to learn not many of her books are in the big chains (e.g. BN, Borders) back in the States. I bought this "used" for 1 penny!! It is not used, in fact it's brand new. Even though the shipping was expensive it was totally worth it. I would definitely go this route again. Oh and the book was good too, lots of references to my favorite places around Sydney :)

Ms. Alderson creates a fabulous cast of characters in this fast-paced world of the Aussie socially elite. We've got a gay designer, an emotionally disturbed co-worker (quite a few of them actually), a dreamy cowboy, several others and at the heart of it all: Georgia, up-rooted British editor just trying to make it in this new crazy world into which she's transported herself.

This novel has all the elements of a great summer read. I enjoyed it all in one sitting during a cross country flight. It's quick, it's witty (you will laugh out loud) and it's endearing. Don't miss it!

In this fun, fast-moving story, Londoner Georgia (not Georgie, thank-you very much) is starting over in Australia after breaking up with her cheating fiance.

Through her job working at Glow magazine, she ends up in the middle of Sydney social life--a dazzling whirl of parties, easy drugs and sex, and friendships both superficial and strong.

She recovers from her broken heart, makes some good friends, learns about herself, love, friendship, and trust, and ends up with a romance after all, even though she'd intended to keep things light. (No, I'm not saying who it's with or what happens--you'll have to read the book to find out!

The Good:
Pants on Fire could have easily become a cautionary tale about the evils of drug use or promiscuity, but it didn't.

It also avoided cliches with Georgia's best friend, Antony, who's gay, but not a caricature.

The secondary characters, and there are quite a few of them, are neither perfect nor 2-dimensional 'types'. They're realistic--people you might expect to meet if you were part of the in-crowd in Sydney.

I've never been to Australia (my husband did have the opportunity to be stationed there at one point, but we opted for Germany instead), but Pants on Fire made it come to life for me.

The Bad:
Be warned: lots of promiscuity, and drugs in this one. I had a bit of trouble with all the casual drug use--that's not something I see in fiction much at all, unless it's the villain, and it's a cautionary tale.

Entertaining, but it was more of a "slice of life" story than one that actually went somewhere.

The Verdict:
A quick, fun read, as long as you know what to expect.

This is one of the best chick lit books I've ever read. The narration is sharp and the plot keeps one constantly turning the pages. One of the things I like about this book was the portrayal of a glamourous, if insular lifestyle. While many characters are superficial drug aficianados, the narrator doesn't preach about the evils of a fast life but rather enjoys the characters for what they are.

Only two problems with the book: the narrator doesn't seem to have much of a "presence:" this is made up for by the many memorable (if vaguely annoying) people that she meets and befriends. But thinking back on her, I can't remember what she's "about." My other problem is that the romance at the end is tied up a bit too neatly. But come on, it's chick lit, and this is a damn good book!

I am not one to read this sort of book usually, but found 'Pants on Fire' by Maggie Alderson to be a hilarious, light read. As an Australian it is quite interesting to read about Sydney from an overseas perspective (even if that really is mostly fiction since Maggie is actually Australian).

So if you are bogged down is something more literary and need something lighter, give this one a go.

A great, light, entertaining, humourous read. A class above most "girly" reads. Well done Maggie Alderson!