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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'd Like To Go Out Drinking With Wanda and Walter!, October 4, 2004
This review is from: Time Off for Good Behavior (Paperback)
What I liked most about Time Off For Good Behavior was how it was decidedly NOT a cliche, and that's not always true of "chick lit" books. Wanda swears like a sailor throughout, and while she grows in the novel, she doesn't really change her core personality. Instead, she finds herself again (or, rather, remembers who she is deep down, before she so disappointed her parents and herself by making some bad choices and acquiring the baggage that resulted.)
I so enjoyed how she forbid herself from seeing Walter before she'd worked through some difficult issues. She knew he'd accept her as she was, but she had to make some hard changes first. She may have thought of herself as weak, but I found her to be a strong character throughout.
Overall, a very fun read. I should have counted the number of times I laughed out loud. I know for sure I read with a grin on my face because my husband kept asking, "What is so funny?" as I read it. The hot pink cover caught my eye in the bookstore, and I'm glad it did!
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a TERRIFIC book!!, September 21, 2004
This review is from: Time Off for Good Behavior (Paperback)
I can't remember the last time I've gobbled up a book in one sitting like this. Both hilarious and touching, Lani Diane Rich knows how to mine the human experience for true gems of humor and poignancy. Wanda, the main character, is flawed and wonderfully human. She has a feisty spirit and a side-splitting sense of humor that had me rooting for her from page one. Rich has done a terrific job in creating a character whose humor is an integral part of her self-preservation skills, rather than just someone who's handy with a quick comeback. After a series of bad luck and missteps, Wanda's held-together-with-duct-tape reality cracks wide open and we quickly see just how well her sense of humor serves her as she tries to start her life over.
Wanda's journey of self-discovery rings refreshingly true and genuine and illuminates the teeth-gnashing frustrations that life hands us, as well as the moments of grace we somehow manage to stumble into.
Definitely an exciting new voice in women's fiction!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great voyage of self-discovery, June 20, 2006
This review is from: Time Off for Good Behavior (Paperback)
Wanda Lane has had a string of bad luck. She is divorced from an abusive husband who thankfully lives in Alaska, but finds plenty of time to call to profess his love or his hatred for her. She loses the job she hates when she falls down after striking an annoying lawyer and ends up in a coma for several days, resulting in phantom music playing at the most inopportune times. And now she finds herself attracted to successful civil lawyer Walter Briggs.
But in order to "earn" Walter's love, Wanda feels that she must improve herself. Wanda is not exactly a model of decency. She drinks. A lot. And she curses like a sailor. She does not think before she opens her mouth, and she tends to be self-centered. One could argue she's in need of therapy, which she gets from a local Catholic priest who doles out advice though she's not a member of his flock ("Bless me father for I am not Catholic). With the help of a new friend she found in a want-ad, she decides to create a series of post-it notes, and as she has completed the task, she tosses them out. The most important one - the one she cannot figure out what it means - is "do something meaningful."
As she tries to find herself, perfect widower Walter patiently waits for her to have an epiphany. It is hard to fathom a man as articulate and together as Walter falling for the train wreck that is Wanda, so there was a real disconnect in the romance for this reader. But her voyage of self-discovery peppered with some of the wittiest dialogue and interesting secondary characters to grace a page make this a worthwhile read. This is Rich's first novel and her subsequent novels prove what a gifted storyteller she is.
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