The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes
This was a fun, escapist book that I quite enjoyed reading; but was glad when I had finished it. It had the right pacing, which kept me reading, and I felt that ending was well wrapped up.
The story follows three ladies who all have connections with one another in either a direct or indirect way. I enjoyed how the author broke the book up into each lady’s story separately; two were told in the first person and the third in third person. That did help with the transition, in case I missed at the beginning of the chapter that there was a character switch. As seen from the description of the story, Gemma has been forced to live with her mom as she falls apart due to her father leaving her mother after 35 years. I enjoyed her snippets of working with difficult people at the party planning business. We have JoJo who was a literary agent and her connections with her authors as well as a certain senior partner at the firm she worked. Then there is Lily who wrote a book and stole Gemma’s boyfriend and her guilt.
I did get tired of some of the whinging that went on, and felt lucky to have lived in England for a bit to catch some of the references that were made. It also gave me a brief insight into the world of publishing, but I don’t know how much of it is true...as to figures and ‘product placement’ in stories. I had entertained the idea of writing myself, but after this, made me rethink!
3 Stars
