sushi for beginners

sushi for beginners
marian keyes
fiction/chick lit/romance
william morrow
published 2003

Prada-wearing magazine editor Lisa Edwards thinks her life is over when her "fabulous" new job turns out to be a deportation to Dublin, launching Colleen magazine. No more jet-setting to the fall collections. No more fabulous parties and photographs in the society pages. The only saving grace is that her friends aren't there to witness her downward spiral. Might her new boss, the disheveled and moody Jack Devine, save her from a fate worse than hell?

Ashling Kennedy, Colleen's assistant editor, is an award-winning worrier, increasingly aware that something fundamental is missing from her life -- apart from a boyfriend and a waistline. And then there's her closest, oldest friend Clodagh "Princess" Kelly, who is apparently living the domestic dream in a suburban castle. So why, lately, has Clodagh had a recurring urge to kiss a frog -- sleep with a frog, if truth be told?

Set in the sparkling -- and serpentine -- world of women's fashion magazines, as well as the hilarious underground comedy club circuit, Sushi for Beginners is about searching for happiness. And how, if you let things bubble under the surface for too long, sooner or later they'll boil over.

It's been quite awhile since I read a Marian Keyes book and I forgot how much I love her.  She seems to effortlessly write realistic and over-the-top characters.

Lisa is the Miranda Priestly of Colleen magazine, except less nutso and more believable.  Sure, she was a bitch and all about how she was ruined by this move but even in her bitchiness I found something to like.  As she grew into her own self-discovery I liked her more and more.

Ashling is the everyday girl.  She's everyone's friend, always trying to make everyone else happy and so desperate not to be her mother that she finds herself there anyway.  Her slow descent into depression was painfully heart wrenching.  It happens, just like that and I didn't want it to happen to her.

And, minor spoiler*****Clodagh deserved everything she got.

****Spoiler Over.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  This is only the second non-Walsh family book of Keyes that I've read and I found that I could love the characters as much as I love the Walsh sisters.