Customer Reviews

Sleeping Arrangements

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Although I adore this author, I prefer her much more as Sophie Kinsella. When she writes as Madeleine Wickham she lacks the wit and humor that won me over. The characters in this book are not particularly likable and share very different values than I do. Subjects like infidelity, teenage sex and teenage substance abuse are taken very lightly and almost passed off as nothing. The ending seemed a little too picture perfect for the "realness" and meatiness of the rest of the book and basically left me no better and no worse for having read the book.

Each new release by Madeleine Wickham (or Sophie Kinsella, for that matter) excites me to no end. I have read nearly all of her novels and have never been disappointed. Although this one ends differently than I anticipated, I still had a hard time putting it down, just like all the others. Can't wait for the next one!

I was surprised a bit by this book, in that I was expecting a very Shopaholic type of story since this is the same author for those books as well (though she writes under a different name, Sophie Kinsella). Instead, I got a story that was a lot more family and relationship oriented, which is not a bad thing at all. Just different. Despite this surprise, I really enjoyed what I read, and the story is a very funny romp about a summer vacation gone awry. It is a great summer beach book and will make you chuckle quite a bit. Just don't expect to get a Shopaholic like story from it! I would recommend it.

I am a HUGE fan of the Shopaholic series so I eagerly embraced this series of books by Madeleine Wickham. That being said, I felt as though the characters were stiff and I found I couldn't relate to them. Two families find themselves sharing a villa for vacation, and unbeknownst to the rest of the family one wife and the other husband used to be lovers. Akward? To say the least! However I just was even interested enough in the situation and story to even finish the book which is highly unusual for me. The story just seemed to drag from one angry depressing moment to the next. I think I'll just stick to the Shopaholic series and leave Madeline Wickham books alone.

Having read most of Sophie Kinsella's novels, I was eager to dive into her work under her real name, Madeleine Wickham. What I have found is that the Kinsella works are more like adult fairy tales, where everything works out with a happy ending. In her Wickham works, the endings are more true to real life. So if you are wanting a fantasy happy ending, please do not bother with the Wickham works as they will be too much of a downer for you.

Now on to the actual book. I enjoyed "The Gatecrasher" much better. I felt that these characters were way too self-absorbed. Each one wanted to meet the desires of his or her own Id constantly. Amanda actually turned out to be my favorite character of all, mainly because she acted like a real person to me. The rest were too one sided. I hated the Nanny in the book as I felt she was way over the top. I did enjoy the ending because it didn't have the fairy tale ending. It gave a real-ending to the problems presented in the novel.

As for future reading, I think I am going to stick to her lighter fare under Sophie Kinsella.

It's hard to believe that Sophie Kinsella wrote this. She's come a long way in her writing since then. It was almost like a child wrote this book. Her books since and including the Shopaholic series are clever, witty and the characters are always endearing. These characters were very one-dimensional. It had a nice premise but just didn't follow through for me.

Chloe is just about ready to pull her hair out, so her family's Spanish vacation is coming at a perfect time. She, her partner Philip, and her two kids, Sam and Nat, desperately need the time away, so she's thankful that her old friend Gerard has offered them his villa. All of a sudden a little unsettled about the fact that she and Philip have been together for years but never gotten married, Chloe wants to use the trip to figure out what their relationship means. Philip needs to stop worrying about work and just relax, but it's hard knowing that your bank has just been bought out by a bigger company and no one knows yet who will be fired.

Hugh Stratton is looking for the chance to finally get to know his two young daughters, Octavia and Beatrice. He needs a break from his busy job at a large conglomerate bank. His wife, Amanda, just needs to calm down and de-stress. She feels like a single mother and is quite the control freak, keeping tabs on the staff remodeling her house while they're gone. She's even hired a nanny, Jenna, to watch the girls so that she and Hugh can have some quality time alone.

The Strattons have just managed to find the villa and settle down and relax when strangers drive up to the door, claiming that it's their villa. It could be a simple mistake, except they all know Gerard. They decide that the only thing to do is to try to fit all nine of them in the house. It's big enough, physically, but it can barely contain all of the personalities inside.

It wouldn't be all that awful to share a vacation with another family, except no one knows that Chloe and Hugh have a history together. As they're grappling with what being back together means, Chloe's 16-year-old son Sam is smitten with Jenna, whose attempts at relaxing everyone ("Stocking up on the old cigarettes and booze. Joke!") just makes them even more tense. Then another connection between the two families surfaces --- this time between the men. Both families are more and more annoyed, and the couples are oblivious to the kids and Jenna learning that maybe this wasn't a mistake after all.

SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS is an entertaining romp akin to any comedy of manners. If Shakespeare lived now and dealt with children, nannies, vacations and layoffs, he'd be proud. There's just enough comedy and romance to make this book about a vacation a perfect vacation read. Or beach read. Or weekend read. Wickham, who also writes as Sophie Kinsella, is an old pro at comedic tales that surpass the normal boundaries of chick lit. The story and its characters are lovable and dimensional. Everyone in it is grounded and human, and no one walks into the story with a Cinderella life that can't be explained. These are all people with complicated histories, which do even more for the relationships they have and develop with the others.

Love and marriage, sang Frank Sinatra, go together like a horse and carriage. But it's much more complicated than that, says Wickham. Her novel shows us the many nuances that come with any long-lasting, functional relationship. Still a quick enough read, SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS will leave any reader satisfied.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Hannah Gómez

Maybe I'm outgrowing chick lit? Or maybe this was just crap. I'm not sure. The last few chick lit books I've read have not really been enjoyable to me, so I'm sort of leaning towards the former; but maybe I'm just making bad choices. There were not any characters in this book that I liked. They are all reprehensible, selfish and annoying. Two families are thrown together in the same house for a week of holiday and it's starting to look like it wasn't an accident. The books that Wickham wrote under the pen name Sophi Kinsella are highly enjoyable fun. But the ones written under her own name have been barely more than average in my opinion. This one is just pretty bad. I wish I could go back to my self two weeks ago and take this away.

Two separate families are anxious to go on a holiday. Chloe and Philip are both frustrated with work. Chloe is a seamstress who is tired of squeezing women in dresses a size smaller than they really wear and a recent takeover in Philip's company has left him wondering if he will have a job in the near future.

Amanda and Hugh are going through a rough patch in their marriage. Philip is obsessed with work and spends so little time with his family that his children barely even know him and Amanda is currently stressing the redecoration of their home.

When both families receive an invitation to their friend Gerard's villa they each look forward to a restful week in Spain. What they find out when they arrive is that Gerard has accidentally double booked his villa and they end up having to share it as every hotel in the area is fully booked.

To make matters worse Chloe and Hugh were once a couple whose relationship ended badly and their respective spouses have no knowledge of the past relationship. Faced with the shared sleeping arrangements stress mounts between the couples and soon all the adults are fighting between themselves and Chloe and Hugh are drawn to each other again.

Overall I thought the book was an okay read but I was a little disappointed in it. I love Wickham's writing as Sophie Kinsella in the Shopaholic series and really enjoyed The Wedding Girl by her but Sleeping Arrangements was a let down. The characters were not as likeable as characters in her other books. Hugh is a major jerk throughout the whole book, Philip's lack of a backbone was annoying, Amanda is too uptight and Chloe was just not likeable. The only bright spot in the book was the nanny, Jenna. She had a weird sense of humor and always made the scenes she was in surprising. I'm really on the fence about recommending this one so I'll say read it if it's readily available but I don't recommend searching it out.

As a loyal Sophie Kinsella (Shopaholic series) fan, I anticipated another fun read under her real name, Madeleine Wickham. However, the author's writing style differs greatly between names, and I was somewhat dissapointed with this book.