Customer Reviews

Smart Girls Like Me

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

 

 

Despite the title of this book, Betsy is not a smart girl. She may have better grammar than the people she works with, she may even be more intelligent than most of them, but she gives little evidence of actually being smart. She spends the bulk of the book being snippy about her best friend's upcoming wedding (to the point that if she were my maid of honor, I would have fired her!) and obsessing about her juvenile relationship with her maybe-boyfriend. At the end of the book she has the predictable revelation about her life and her relationships and the true meaning of being happy, but she spent so much of the book acting like an idiot that I couldn't really bring myself to care.

The writing is just so good that sometimes I have to pause and review how this author has just expressed a thought I've had myself without such clever delivery. And the story is poignant in a way that really speaks to me after I've left my 20's and my friends have started to drop off, one by one to husbands and babies. Her funny and dead-on references remind me of the Apatow/Rogen movies-brilliantly witty but tender at the same time. I can't wait to read what this author writes next!

Though Betsy, the main character, is realistic and usually likable, I could not relate well to her. She is self destructive at a point in her life where I would expect her to be getting it all together. Perhaps that is too judgemental, but I had a hard time getting comfortable in her shoes. As Betsy negotiates friendships, work, romantic relationships, and ultimately her own purpose, the reader is taken on a roller coaster ride through her many twists, turns, flips, and sometimes upside-down positions. From the way Betsy treats and is treated by her best friend Bridget, to her emotional havoc with boyfriend Ryan, the story does not always flow. Yet, in critiquing from a literary standpoint, the book is written well, with an excellent use of the English language, as Betsy loves words. From a plot perspective, though, I found the story lacking. However, the ending does not tie everything up in a nice knot, which is actually appreciated. The reader is left wondering a bit about Betsy's next decision, which may be full of possibility and discovery.

Growing up and growing wiser tale from a young woman who's about to watch her best friend get married and wonders where her own future lies. Betsey cannot get into the spirit of being maid of honour for Bridget, although she tries because she loves and values their friendship. Vadino deftly conveys the limitless confusion and decisions that mark this time in a woman's life. When her friends start getting married and they start to ponder over their own failed relationships and going nowhere job. Betsey has a quirky romance with an office mate and her rapture (however brief) stirs doubt in Bridget's heart, having gone past the initial rush of new love and now settling into a life. The crossroads these two friends find themselves at is a familiar dilemma and this is a well crafted debut novel.

This is a fabulous book - before I even finished it I bought it for three of my friends for Christmas - it's just that kind of book you'll want to share with all your best friends. I myself wouldn't have picked it up if it weren't for a friend's very strong recommendation. Usually I find books like this terribly depressing, but in this case, I truly put it down feeling more excited about my own life and options. Plus it's hysterical - I laughed out loud more than once. A must read!!

As the millennium counts down, twenty four Betsy Nilssen feels lonely as her best friend Bridget Callahan is marrying a medical hunk on some exotic privately owned South Pacific rock. As the maid of honor, Betsy will be there, but she would rather be at a swinging New Year's Eve Party rather than attend a wedding unescorted.

At the same time as 1999 counts down, she fears the end of days will begin on January 1 so she has filled her Manhattan apartment with non perishable food and frets over Y2K shutting down the world. However, the first bright spot occurs when Ryan Wells returns from Japan to work at the same place that bores her since he left. She is attracted to him and him to her. As they begin to see one another and she dreams he will accompany her to Bridget's wedding, she learns he is also sleeping with their boss Eva. Hurt and despondent as she was sure he was the one, she quits her quits her job and moves back to her parents' house in the burbs. Betsy fails Bridget until all hell breaks out between the once best friends in the tropics.

SMART GIRLS LIKE ME is an engaging chick lit tale because of the witty cheeky asides, barbs and skin removing hits tossed like hand grenades by a biting Betsy. Her observations peel away the veneer of polite packaging from her musing that a wedding invitation is actually an overdraft credit card to what happens to best of female friends when a third party nukes the relationship dynamics. Although the plot is thinner than Twiggy ever was, fans will enjoy this intelligent look at the impact of a fiancé on the relationship between best friends.

Harriet Klausner

I'm a guy. I don't usually read books like this - ones about relationships from a girl's point of view. But Vadino obviously had some strong and inspiring male influence in her life. Judging from the story, she's still all woman at heart, but seems to understand the male psyche quite intricately, which makes this novel a pastime of pure pleasure for anyone, regardless of gender. The writing is smart and at the same time made me quite horny in parts. I look forward to her future works and can only hope that they entertain, scintillate, and arouse me as much as this one.

Betsy, the main character in this story of quarter-life-crisis, is an entertaining but familiar mess. She hates her job, and feels generally immature and inadequate in nearly every other facet of life. We've all been there: the place between college and the real-world, when it seems that everyone else "gets it". In the space of the ~270 pages Betsy learns about love, friendship, work, and how to be comfortable in her own skin.

This is an enjoyable and well-written debut novel. Vadino is a talented writer with the ability to articulate thoughts and feelings that often seem impossible to explain. This was a fun read, and one that I would definitely recommend for girls in their early twenties.

This book makes me nostalgic for that first fever-pitched step into adulthood, the 20's, where love, work, friends and family fight it out for top billing.

The protagonist, Betsy, could follow every "good girl's" rule regarding being a maid-of-honor, or office dating, or fashion, or Y2K, but whether it be disregard, rebellion or even ignorance, she blazes her own trail.

Above all, Vadino is a refreshing and brilliant writer. Her insights will send little smiles creeping across your face, but be prepared for hardy laughs and heartbreak, too; after all, isn't that what we all remember most about our 20's?

Remember your childhood best friend, the one with whom you played every day? Then, in high school you shared the most intimate secrets, called each other in the mornings to decide what to wear. You cried when she was sad and laughed when she was happy. Then, when you both went away to college you missed each other but there were still the shared summers.

That's the way it was with Betsy and Bridget. That is, until Bridget deserted her as Betsy put it. In other words, planned to marry. While sitting in a fitting room Betsy realized that Bridget was no longer the girl she grew up with - this person is totally focused on the most wonderful wedding in the world (which will take place on a South Pacific island). All of this was incomprehensible to Betsy who simply wanted her friend back so they could go to New Zealand where they could kayak and meet surfers. Of course, that was not going to happen now so Betsy simply wished that if the world were going to end it would do so before this "stupid wedding."

"Smart Girls Like Me," a deliciously funny debut novel, is all about growing up, growing away, and finding out who you are. That's a chore for Betsy and sheer pleasure for those of us who accompany her via the printed page. When we meet Betsy she feels that her life may be at a dead-end, losing Bridget, and even Georgina is engaged. What is Betsy doing? She's living in a closet in Zoe's one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. She works for couture.com, an online fashion site. The editor-in-chief is Nancy who was recently ousted from Elle. However, as Betsy describes her, "We have no proof that she can access the Internet or, for that matter, read, and she remains blissfully ignorant of the difference in meaning an apostrophe can lend to the word `its'." Life is not good.

But, wait - Bridget has fixed her up with Graham, her date for the wedding. Could he be the answer? Read and see whether he is or not. You'll laugh, you'll remember, and you'll wind up touting this book to all your friends.

- Gail Cooke