Books & Chocolate

I really wanted to like this book. I was in the mood for something light and fun. It had great reviews (although not many in total) and it was a book I'd had on my Kindle for quite some time.

I do feel somewhat bad only giving it two stars, because it's not that it's a poorly written book. It just was not for me. At all. 

All the women came off as self-absorbed, shallow, and just plain ridiculous. The book is simply about these women dumping all NYC men into various categories and then applying stereotypes. The goal of the 'Menhattan blog' that the main character, Vivian, created was to give the women of NYC a guide to navigating the dating scene. No, it wasn't. It was a rant against men and basically left me with the impression that no man in NYC is worth dating and if I wanted to have a relationship with a NYC man then I needed to be plastic and anorexic and a gold digger (but only the classy kind of gold digger). Maybe this is an accurate portrayal of the life for a single person in NYC. If that's the case, thank God I don't live there.

An example is the story of the girl who really kind of liked this guy she was dating and was so excited that he invited her to his house in the Hamptons --- only to find out he shared it with 20 of his friends, and he made her travel on a public train to get there! Oh, the nerve of that guy! Yet, it was pointed out she had her 'borrowed' designer suitcase just for the trip. So, if he shares his luxury items it's shame on him for deceiving you, but it's totally legit for you to share your luxury items?

Ugh. 

There were moments when the authors tried to balance by saying things like, '...if you can live off $150,000 a year and be happy, well good for you but you're in the minority.' I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist. But even these comments were said in a way that was condescending.

And there were way too many characters. Each 'man type' came with a woman to explain the story and we had to hear her backstory. It was way too much and as the story progressed I started skipping these parts.

Then the plot arc for the main character --- sigh. She did not grow. Sure she had 'insights' when things between her and her two men came to a head, but it didn't change her. The end is proof of that.