In a traditional family, the last thing you can be is who you really are, but it's time for Jacqueline Sanchez to find the woman underneath it all...Everyone has their role. My mother is the martyr, my father the distant unapproachable figure, and Noel, with a few brief stints in jail, is considered misunderstood, not a handsome loser. Yolie is just outspoken, not a miserable bitter shrew, which would be her clinical diagnosis in the "real" world. And the rest of my brothers and sisters have problems that my parents consider normal, like bad marriages, unruly children, and too many bills. So is it a surprise that I'm considered the troublemaker of the family? Not happy at home? Move away for college. Hate your job? Find another one. Fallen out of lust, er, love with your husband? Divorce him. I, so far, am the anomaly - or flake - in the family because I'm vocal about how unnecessary it is to be unhappy, and how important it is to do something about it to change your circumstances (thank you, Zoloft!). If I had it my way, my whole family would be comparing dosages at the dinner table the way some families talk about sports or politics...
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Since leaving hometown L.A., Jacquelyn "Jacqs" Sanchez graduated from Berkeley, married and divorced a gringo and is now working as the personal assistant to the San Francisco mayor's wife. Jacqs hopes to parlay this gig into a job in politics, but a series of unsuitable men, the lingering pain of her divorce and her friends' romantic crises distract her. Candela is an engaging writer, particularly when she manages to make a family full of depressives seem funny, but nothing much happens—characters appear, display their quirk and disappear—and Jacqs, who forever regrets not having gone to law school, is unconvincingly stuck wondering what she should do with her life. With its mildly degrading personal assistantship and frequent fashion name-drops, Candela's debut novel skirts Prada territory, but the boss is fairly benign, and a series of who-slept-with-whom nonmysteries overtake the "awful boss" narrative. The book has its fun moments, but not enough punch to connect them. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Page turner? Check. Laugh-out-loud funny? Check. New voice with a new take on life for modern women? Check. Can I tell you how glad I am Margo Candela came along and gave me a great big reason to prune my toes in the bathtub all night? I couldn't put this fun, very alive book down." -- Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
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More About the Author
Margo Candela is the author of The Brenda Diaries (SugarMissile, Oct. '11) Good-bye To All That (Touchstone, July '10), More Than This (Touchstone, Aug '08), Life Over Easy (Kensington, Oct '07), Underneath It All (Kensington, Jan '07) and the short story and essay collection, Life Observed (June '11).
More Than This was a Target stores Breakout Book and an American Association of Publishers national book club selection at Borders Books. Good-bye To All That (Touchstone, July '10) was the only novel picked by Los Angeles Magazine for its 2010 Best of L.A. list. The Brenda Diaries is her fifth novel and first in The Brenda Diaries series.
More Than This was a Target stores Breakout Book and an American Association of Publishers national book club selection at Borders Books. Good-bye To All That (Touchstone, July '10) was the only novel picked by Los Angeles Magazine for its 2010 Best of L.A. list. The Brenda Diaries is her fifth novel and first in The Brenda Diaries series.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finding The Woman Underneath It All,
By Danielle H. (Greenbelt, MD) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Underneath it All (Paperback)
Margo Candela's debut novel, Underneath It All, is the perfect book to curl up with on a lazy afternoon and escape. Candela creates a likeable character in Jacqueline "Jacqs" Sanchez, a Latina, thirty-something divorcee who has the thankless job of assisting the Mayor of San Francisco's wife with being "Mrs. Mayor" (think a scaled down version of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada). Couple that with a traditional Latino family she believes should all be on anti-depressants and hilarious interactions with a host of other colorful characters(including her married older boyfriend and her Indian best friend who is engaged to a man who may not be who he claims) and you have got a well-written novel that I hope finds its way to the big screen.Jacqs is a character that a lot of women will see parts of themselves in. While the ups-and-downs of her life are quite dramatic, they are still real and can teach some valuable lessons (think Carrie in Sex and the City). Candela also does a great job of integrating Latino culture and traditions into the storyline. I appreciated that because this was my first time reading a novel with a Latina heroine and I learned a lot. This is a fun, witty novel with plenty of sarcastic asides to keep you laughing out loud. I liked the fact that the chapters were short and each named for a different memorable character, of which there were many. However, because Candela is skilled at character development, it was not hard to keep up with their storylines. I would love to see any of them return in a sequel, perhaps even carrying more of the story. This was an excellent first effort and after reading the excerpt from her next novel due out later this year, it appears that Candela has a promising career ahead. Reviewed by Danielle H. APOOO BookClub
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Talent? Sure - but luck helped new author, too,
By
This review is from: Underneath it All (Paperback)
Margo Candela deserves the lion's share of accolades for her debut novel, "Underneath It All" (Kensington Books, paperback $14).She is, after all, the one who put in the hard work to create her smart, successful and sexy protagonist, Jacquelyn "Jacqs" Sanchez, the fictional personal assistant to the wife of a fictional San Francisco mayor. Candela also went through the arduous task of finding a literary agent who was a good fit for her. And let's not forget the time and energy spent creating a Web page to introduce herself to the world. But Candela also can thank one other thing for her success: Insomnia. Not Candela's insomnia, though she might have suffered a few sleepless nights along the way to getting published. One evening, Sulay Hernandez, Candela's eventual editor at Kensington Books, couldn't get to sleep, so she decided to do Internet research. That's how she "stumbled" upon Candela's Web page at 3 a.m. Hernandez liked what she read, sent an e-mail to Candela, and within a few days obtained the manuscript from Candela's agent, Jenoyne Adams. Hernandez loved the book, and Kensington bought it a short time after. Though Candela says that her characters are purely fictional, her cultural background as the daughter of Mexican immigrants imbues her novel with a realistic flavor. The California locales also ring true, which is no surprise: Candela, the middle of five children, was born in Los Angeles and then headed north to San Francisco to attend college. She eventually moved back to Los Angeles, where she now lives with her husband and son. Aside from insomnia, Candela owes much to her mother, who spent part of her childhood in El Paso before settling in Los Angeles as a young woman (Candela still has relatives in El Paso and other parts of Texas). "I wasn't sure how to translate wanting to write into an honest job," Candela said. "When I mentioned this to my mother, she wondered why I wouldn't do something in the realm of writing, since I seemed to enjoy it so much." Her mother's gentle but insightful suggestion took root. When it came time for Candela to transfer out of junior college, she enrolled at San Francisco State University and majored in journalism. This put her on the road to becoming a published author. "Underneath It All" is fast-paced and funny, the literary equivalent of "Sex and the City" meets "The West Wing" but with a decidedly Latino flavor. Candela's protagonist is by no means perfect. Yes, Jacqs has the brains, beauty and fashion sense to maneuver through the political and personal shenanigans of her boss, a former soap opera star turned big-city mayor's wife. But Jacqs still suffers the pain of a failed marriage and just can't help looking for love in all the wrong places. And then there's the culture gap between Jacqs and her more traditional parents back home in Los Angeles. What advice does Candela offer to aspiring writers? "Treat the whole experience as a business," she said without hesitation. "You have to invest time and effort and also make sacrifices to get anywhere in life, and writing is no different." "A healthy dose of pragmatism doesn't hurt either, but aim high." Hernandez, Candela's editor at Kensington, obviously knew a good thing when she saw it: "What I loved most about 'Underneath It All' is that it's so many things -- it doesn't have a formula. It's funny and yet touching. There were so many aspects of the heroine and family that reminded me so much of my own life." While Hernandez might still suffer from insomnia, Candela shouldn't lose any sleep worrying about what readers will think of her novel. "Underneath It All" is a winner, pure and simple. [This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Different Kind of Chick,
By
This review is from: Underneath it All (Paperback)
Jacqs isn't perfect and that's what I liked about her. She makes dumb choices and she doesn't try to sugar coat the realties of her life. It was refreshing to finally read a chick-lit book where the main character isn't perfect or worried about how fat she is or isn't. Once I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down.
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