Customer Reviews

Promises to Keep: A Novel

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I am not as big of a fan of Jane Green's books now as I used to be. Jane Green's earlier books -- Jemima J or Mr. Maybe, for example -- were what I would classify as classic, high-end "chick lit." They were generally about young, single women struggling to find their place in the world....but they were also sharp and funny and witty and heartfelt. Jane Green's fiction today is what I would classify as "women's fiction" with much more "mature" themes about marriage, infidelity, parenting, illness (probably reflecting the author's own different place in life). While there is nothing wrong with those subjects, in my opinion her writing has lost some of the sharp wit and fun of her earlier books. That said, she speaks in a voice that is uniquely hers. I think I could identify one of her novels after reading a single chapter without seeing the title page. And her characters continue to be, for the most part, very sincere and relatable. At the same time, her current books tend to be more depressing and more "inspirational" in subject matter. This book is no exception. I have no real objection to well-written books about difficult subject matters like serious illness, it's just not what drew me to Jane Green and not what I am hoping for when I pick up her books.

I have previously talked about love Green's books because I can relate to her characters. No matter if she was writing about a single girl, newlywed, or happily married woman, I found bits of the character that I enjoyed. In "Promises to Keep," the author writes about three women. One a happily unattached girl, one happily committed, and one happily married. I was not able to relate to any one of them.

In this story it felt like Green forgot what made real, interesting women, and instead turned to stereotypes to create her leading ladies. Steffi meets every "single girl" stereotype there is. She's unable to keep a job for long, dates guys that are horrible for her, and floats along in life. Lila, who has given up on having children [spoiler alert]suddenly finds herself unexpectedly pregnant[/spoiler alert]. Green talks so often about how happy Callie's perfect relationship is that I start to roll my eyes. I just couldn't get behind these ladies like I had in Green's previous stories.

Although it was hard for me to get behind the female characters, I did find the peripheral characters enjoyable. The story of Walter and Honor-Steffi and Callie's parents-was adorable to watch unfold. The character of Mason-a book publisher and client of Steffi's restaurant-has an interesting story that kept me guessing throughout the book. Even though these characters played minor roles, I kept reading to find out how their subplots ended.

While I found some of Green's characters a bit off, the story she told was powerful. Once the plot started going-about halfway through the book-I was unable to put it down. The emotional highs and lows of the characters' journey grabbed me. I kept a box of tissues next to me and needed to use it frequently. Even though I often found myself unable to connect with the characters, the story was so powerful that I did end up enjoying it a great deal.

Review: I expected this book to be another fantastic Jane Green read, but that was not the case. The disconnect I felt with the main characters meant it took longer for me to get into the story. Once I connected with the plot, I found the book to be an pleasurable read.

I've only read a couple books by Jane Green and was not impressed but this book was unbelievably good! Granted I am nearly 9 months pregnant and have a toddler of my own but this book had me bawling. I was so invested in the characters and what happened to each that I almost couldn't finish the book out of fear of what would happen. Steff is your typical chick lit, flighty character and you can pretty much predict what would happen to her in the end. Still the story was written in such a way that it will keep you engaged and hoping for a happy ending for all of the main characters. Callie's husband at first had me guessing if he was going to go the route of the busy working husband who would turn out to be a cheater or a loving husband that would be there no matter what.

The other nice thing about this book was each chapter opens up with a recipe. Some of them sounded so tasty I may just have to try them out myself. Really there wasn't anything I actively disliked about this story. The only slightly negative thing I can say is much of the story is predictable but I find that true of all chick lit books. This is definitely a must read book but have a few tissues on hand.

Okay, first off, I know that writing a book is incredibly hard work. And so not easy to do. So Kudos to Green on her successful career.

But.

[SPOILER ALERT - spoilers coming up.]

Can you say, "hackneyed"? Even on page 157, Green is still delivering pandering, expository dialogue: "If you weren't my sister..." The character who is dying says "I'm scared" about 8500 times; her loved ones (all 10 of them; yeah, I'd love that many close friends!) echo this about 1500 times; the woman who moves to the country has to tell us how happy she is about 2,000 times. Oh, yes, and we have to be reminded that the vegan chef is a vegan -- about 25 times.

And what really riled me was the character of Lila -- who is 43, and not interested in having kids. At first, I thought, "Thank you! Finally, a real character," -- but then Green goes down the road that every conservative sitcom (including "Sex and the City") has traveled: successful, headstrong woman doesn't want kids, then "accidentally" gets pregnant, then -- oh yes -- she's THRILLED to be a mommy. Barf.

Note to all writers: There's nothing wrong with having an abortion, and not every woman who gets knocked up has this "magical" transformation. I'm sick of seeing female characters get magically transformed by pregnancy. How about a real woman for a change?

Most of the characters are not characters, but caricatures -- the "rumpled" always-wrinkled-suit-wearing hot guy in publishing; his well-to-do-snobby-to-everyone wife.

If you must read this, borrow it from the library.

I've liked all of Jane Green's books to varying degrees, and I didn't hate this one, but it was super depressing. I understand that this book was for her friend, but it was really really depressing. As other readers have mentioned, it was also very predictable. Some of the story lines lacked development and there were too many "all of a sudden" moments. This book lacked the sparkle that many of her other books have had. Perhaps this is a collateral effect of the heavy subject matter, but it kind of made me want to sit alone in a room and wallow. I did, however, appreciate the recipes. I'm actually about to try one now!

What happened to the author of laugh-out-loud Straight Talking and Babyville? The woman that could capture real life situations and the crazy emotions women (and sometimes, men) feel while trying to make sense of the world, families and relationships? If I wanted a "perfect family, perfect jobs, perfect kids, perfect love" kind of book, I would have....well, I don't think I would ever want that- I want to read about characters I can relate to, not a bunch of made up crap about perfect families that don't exist, cancer or not.

I'm sad that one of my favorite authors continues to phone it in- first the thrown together "Dune Road" and now this. So disappointing.

I would love to have the time I spent reading this book back.

I've been borrowing Jane Green books from the library lately because they all started to go down hill around 2007. I started reading her stuff at 17ish and now at 25 I'm just depressed at the idea of becoming someone in her novel- a depressed mother/wife with doubts about her marriage/ life with themes involving comfy and cozy. I miss Babyville and Mr. Maybe. I think it's time that I give up on her. I certainly won't miss her sentences "for this...." "for that...." Sometimes I use to make a game of the cute little colloquial sayings, they were annoying but not as annoying as "for this is the life she chose"...

What happened to Jane Green? I read all of her novels. The last ones are really bad. I think since she moved to America she fells into American stereotypes and her stories and characters are not so great anymore.
"Promises to Keep" is a huge disappointment. The characters are really blah, all the drama is so pathetic, all stories are so clishe and all ex-wives crazy?
Do not read this - it's a waste of time.

I wanted to love this book. I bought it because it was by Jane Green, and I adore most of her other titles, and had no idea what this one was about. Chapter after chapter of how Callie loves Reece and Reece loves Callie and their perfect wonderful life...you knew something horrible was coming. The flaky sister. You knew she'd have to step up and grow up. The love interests, the estranged parents, the friend with the boyfriend issues. Seriously. Did Ms. Green take every single Nicholas Sparks cliche, shake them up in a jar, and pull out 5 or 6 and change the names? Truly an emotionally manipulative story. Yuck. Very disappointing after "The Beach House", which I thought was one of her stronger efforts of late; and "Dune Road", which I also liked. "Promises to Keep" isn't worth the time. If you've read one Nicholas Sparks book, or even seen one of the movies, you know this story.

I downloaded this book because I am a fan of Jane Green's early works, but this one really has me debating on whether I will be reading any of her future work. I have noticed lately that the main characters in her books seem to be perfect mothers who live in the lap of luxury but are above it all (unlike their materialistic friends). Very different from the flawed characters she used to write about (Jemima J, Mr. Maybe)-the ones that I could relate to.

As far as Promises to Keep goes, I don't know where to begin. I found the recipes very irritating-especially in an audiobook. If I wanted to know how to make the neiman marcus cookies, I would have purchased a cookbook! It was excruciating to have to listen to 2 minutes of recipes at the end of each chapter.

I agree with the other reviewers that the description of the story was misleading. I was looking for a light read and this was not it. The other thing was that it took 7 discs to get to the meat of the story (there were 10 discs in all). There was a lot of repetition. (Steffi was a vegan, Callie was the perfect wife and mother, etc). On the other side of that, the ending seemed abrupt and we get to the epilogue where everything is wrapped up in a neat little bow-everyone's life is perfect again. I would have liked to have seen some of the other (happier)stories play out.

With all that said, I appreciated the author's note about how this story was based on the life of Ms. Green's friend and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to put that pain down on paper.