Bookends

 

By Jane Green

Friends from college and ten years later, still friends. Except for one: lovely Portia who turned out to be lovelier on the outside than on the inside. After graduation, the gang lost contact with Portia. The other members of the gang are still very close and see each other virtually every day. Catherine and Si are single. Si is still looking for Mr. Right but Catherine pretty much gave up after a sad affair with a married man. Josh got married to newcomer Lucy and his wife is the now the fourth and much loved member of the gang. Portia is just an afterthought. Until a friend of Si's mention her. Turns out Portia is doing very well for herself and is the power behind a popular TV show. Which the three original gang members, thinking back on it, now realize is based on them! Which then leads them to considering getting back in touch with Portia. Meanwhile Catherine and Lucy have decided to open a bookstore together, with Catherine doing the bookselling and Lucy doing the snacks and beverages. And this is about when Portia comes back into their lives and brings up old feelings and old questions and new drama when it appears she is up to her old tricks.

This was an interesting story, although the Portia drama doesn't amount to much. Almost everyone gets their happy ending, even the villain, Portia. Except for poor Si, who gets diagnosed with a serious illness. The revelation of his illness to Josh and Lucy is the final chapter of the book so maybe the author felt she needed the added drama. I think the story would have been fine without that part though. 

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

Jemima J

By Jane Green

Jemima is a young, beautiful woman. But she is fat. So, of course, she has no friends or lovers. Fat, fat, fat and hopeless. She is so fat, even her tears are fat.
Then one day, she discovers the internet and begins a relationship with a fitness instructor, Brad, in California. Jemima, living in London, sends him a photoshopped  picture of herself. Brad is charmed and talks Jemima into coming to California for a visit.
Weighing over 200 pounds, Jemima knows she can't show up in California like that. So she undertakes a drastic program of diet and exercise and manages to drop all her excess weight. In the novel, her skin tightens up and her breasts don't get saggy, although in actuality, that much weight loss so quickly would leave her with loose skin and saggy breasts, as the contestants on NBC's Biggest Loser know. But never mind reality, this is a romance novel, after all.
So she goes to California and dazzles Brad with her magnificent toned body and movie star good looks. He actually asks her to marry him. But Jemima is carrying a torch for her former coworker, the gorgeous Ben, who likes Jemima but can't see Jemima the woman through all her fat. (Ben hasn't seen Jemima since she lost weight.) Obviously Jemima and Ben belong together but Ben isn't there and Brad is. What will Jemima decide? And what is the problem with Brad's angry and hostile assistant, fat Jenny?

This is just another of those fat girl loses weight and wins the man of her dreams stories. It was an OK read. The story of fat Jenny might have been more interesting, though.