In Dream a little Dream Sarah is just fine. Yes, Dan her ex-boyfriend dumped her two years ago for Perfect Lexie. Yes, she has a crap job being PA to Jonathan, her boss who is a truly disgusting man at Red Brick Productions. Yes, she is also a disappointment to her mother – by being single and not progressing in her career. But she’s fine.
Sarah day dreams of being on the research team at Red Brick Productions, but every time she asks Jonathan about a promotion he fobs her off. Brett enters Sarah’s dreams at night. Brett is an old friend of a friend who she always liked.
Sarah has a good friendship group who meet up every Wednesday for a Pub Quiz. There’s Interior Designer Natalia, Sarah’s Housemate Carly, Alastair, Josh, Sarah’s ex Dan and his girlfriend Lexie. The dynamic between Sarah, Dan and Lexie would be awkward, if it were not for Sarah insisting she’s fine with it.
Then Brett enters her life, landing a job at Red Brick Productions. Sarah does the only logical thing, she calls the man in her dreams Dream Brett and the man in the real world Real Brett (just never to his face, well apart from one slip up).
Sarah has a lot to grapple with. First, Dan & Lexie announcing their engagement and quick marriage. Second, dealing with Dream Brett and Real Brett and remembering that they are two different people. Third having fought for a temporary place on the research team at Red Brick, proving her worth by coming up with an idea for a new reality show called Grannies Go Gap and developing the idea.
The idea that someone whom you have dream fantasies about, where everything is lovely and perfect, comes crashing into your real and imperfect world is a good idea and was well executed in Dream a little Dream. The beginning was slightly over written, with Fletcher seeming to labour hard to get the reader to like and have empathy for main character Sarah.
Sarah was a really likeable character and one that had plenty of depth. Unfortunately the other characters, including Sarah’s friends and Real Brett lacked depth. There is a moving scene with Carly and Josh, which made me tear up. It was extremely well and sensitively written and gave these two characters a sense of realism, but it was such a shame that this scene took place towards the end of the book.
The pacing was reasonable. It was just a bit slow in the beginning and middle, meaning that the end felt wrapped up relatively quick. The plot was mostly predictable, with the odd unexpected twist and turn.
Dream a little Dream is a wonderfully engaging read, made so by Fletcher’s warm and inviting writers voice.
In Shopaholic to the Rescue, Becky is on the hunt for her father, Tarkie (Suze’s husband) who have gone missing with a dodgy character called Bruce. In the RV is Becky, Luke, Minnie, Becky’s mother, Janice (Becky’s mother’s best friend), Suze (Becky’s best friend) and Alicia Bitch Long-legs. There’s a growing gap between Becky and Suze, one that Alicia is taking advantage of to become Suze’s new best friend. Danny joins the crew to.
Can Becky solve the mystery of her father’s sudden disappearance? Can she find her father and help him to put right an injustice? Can she find Tarkie and build a bridge across the gap to Suze? Can she find out what Alicia Bitch Long-Legs is up to? In short: can Becky put everything right?
Shopaholic to the Rescue pinnacle of the Shopaholic Series, but also of Kinsella’s ability to write comedy. There is literally a laugh on every page of this addictive page turner. As with every other book in the Shopaholic series, in between chapters are littered with entertaining letters, emails or texts of response mostly from Derek Smeath (her former Bank Manager).
All of the characters grow and develop, but what was most outstanding is that Becky’s character also grew. Becky has so many internal struggles going on and guilt in Shopaholic to the Rescue, that she looses her mojo, and even, dare I say it? Finds no pleasure in shopping and has no desire to shop. The plot is enjoyably predictable with an ingenious ending. The pacing is perfect.
Overall Shopaholic to the Rescue is a superb addition to the Shopaholic Series. A thoroughly entertaining and captivating read. A must read for fans of the Shopaholic series.
I first discovered the amazing Writer Elizabeth Gilbert when she did a TED talk on creativity (see this TED talk at the end of this post).
Gilbert became a huge success back in 2006, when her memoir Eat, Pray, Love became an international bestseller. It was later made into a film. Prior to this Gilbert had always felt that it was her responsibility to take care of her creativity, so wrote while holding down other jobs. This big success meant she could afford to write full-time. I intend to read and review Eat, Pray, Love at some point in the future.
Gilbert was inspired by creativity, the creative process and the concept of creative living. She began to explore how other cultures throughout history had viewed creativity and the artists that create. This lead her to study the ancient Romans and Greeks. Which in turn led to her quirky and unconventional views about creative living, which she explores in Big Magic – Creative Living Beyond Fear.
is split into six parts: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust & Divinity. Each section deserves to be written about individually, which is what I have done below:
Courage
Gilbert starts by defining what creative living means to her. She describes it as having the courage to follow your aspirations, longings and talents. Gilbert writes about desires, that you are driven to do from somewhere deep within. Things or activities that have great meaning to you. Gilbert’s examples include: writing, dancing, painting and basically anything with any sort of activity that has an element of creativity within it.
Gilbert writes about fear. She recognises that fear can and does stop some people from living creatively. But as she explains, fear is boring – as fear’s inner voice repeats the same things. Whereas living creatively is never boring. Gilbert advises the reader that fear is not to be conquered, but acknowledged and thanked for its concern. Then the reader should do the thing that scares them anyway.
Gilbert’s key message in this section is that the reader should follow their curiosity without being inhibited by their fear.
Enchantment
Gilbert believes that ideas are disembodied energy that wants to manifest. But in order to do that they need to work with willing, creative humans. Humans that will commit their time and energy to bringing the idea into reality.
A good lesson learned from Gilbert in this section is that you have to make space for the idea. Both physically and figuratively. Which is why in my workspace, my desk has been cleared, ideas have been listed on the wall (in the order that they will be completed) and that time is regularly set aside to work on the idea at the front of the queue.
Gilbert writes that if the reader commits to an idea, that they should try to keep their end of the bargain. Otherwise the neglected idea will eventually get fed up of excuses, waiting and will continue on its travels looking for another human collaborative partner.
Gilbert gives an example from her own life, writing about an idea for a book that got away from her and found its way to Ann Pattchett (another author who has an especially special place in my heart for writing The Magician’s Assistant, but I digress). Gilbert tells the story of a conversation she had with Pattchett:
I tried to summarize my ex-novel as concisely as possible. I said, “It was about this middle-aged spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing, and my character gets sent down there to solve things, at which point her quiet life is turned into chaos. Also, it’s a love story.”
Ann stared at me from across the table for a long minute.
Before I continue, I must give you to understand that – decidedly unlike myself – Ann Patchett is a true lady. She has exquisite manners. There is nothing vulgar or coarse about her, which made it even more shocking when she finally spoke:
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Why? I asked. “what’s your novel about?”
She replied, “It’s about a spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing, and my character is sent down there to solve things. At which point her quiet life is completely turned into chaos. Also, it’s a love story.”
Gilbert explains that she never felt the need to be given permission to begin writing; but that some people do feel the need for permission to create. So she advises the reader to give themselves permission to start living creatively. She advises the reader to label themselves, i.e. I am a Writer. Gilbert advises the reader to be authentic and live creatively, first and foremost for themselves.
Gilbert advises the reader to avoid getting into debt. According to Gilbert debt leads to trappings that will greatly influence the ability to live creatively. Being debt free is likely something that most readers will need to work on.
Persistence
Gilbert encourages readers to keep going and don’t be disheartened if the first thing created gets no recognition. Take your time. Learn your craft. She reminds readers that people go to great lengths to create, often maintaining a day job, having busy lives, but always making the time for creativity.
Gilbert motivates her readers to protect the space and time to create from intrusions, distractions and most of all procrastination. Procrastination can be fear’s way of avoiding starting, continuing or finishing a creative project. So watch out – because fear can be sneaky in its tactics.
Gilbert advises of the perfectionism pitfall for creatives. She writes that done is better than good. Yes, by all means work hard to make sure the work is good, but good enough will do. Aiming for perfection is where most people set themselves up to fail, because perfection is an unrealistic goal that either drives a person insane or causes them to give up on an idea.
Trust
Gilbert writes that a creative should go where the idea takes them, even if it’s emotionally uncomfortable. Gilbert states that you should trust in the idea and continue with Stubborn Gladness.
For Gilbert, living creatively is all about following where curiosity takes her. She encourages the reader to follow their own curiosity.
Divinity
Gilbert concludes by writing that creativity is scared and that the reader should start creative living immediately.
Throughout Big Magic Gilbert’s writers voice is warm and engaging. Gilbert tells many wonderful, meaningful and great little stories as examples of her ideas on creativity in action. She tells these stories exceptionally well.
Stories are not the most scientific form of evidence. But does there need to be empirical evidence for creativity and the creative process? After all, even those at the heart of creative processes struggle understand or explain how their creative process works.
What matters in Big Magic, is that Gilbert writes her truth. Every word is written for herself – so that she can further her study of creativity.
The audience for this book is anyone that wants to live a creative and fulfilled life. Gilbert is undoubtably clever, wise and inspiring in Big Magic. The reader will find that some, most or all of Gilbert’s work will resonate with themselves.
So go and buy Big Magic to lap up some creative living inspiration. Big Magic is available to buy on Amazon.
Review soon,
Antony
TED Talk – Your Elusive Creative Genius by Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.
(From: TED, Last Accessed: Thursday 3rd December 2015.)
Mother of three and wife of John-Paul, Cecilia discovers an old envelope in the attic. Written in her husband’s hand, it says: to be opened only in the event of my death.
Curious, she opens it – and time stops.
John-Paul’s letter confesses to a terrible mistake which, if revealed, would wreck their family as well as the lives of others.
Cecilia wants to do the right thing, but right for who? If she protects her family by staying silent, the truth will worm through her heart. But if she reveals her husband’s secret, she will hurt those she loves most…
In The Husband’s Secret, you follow Cecilia, Tess and Rachel over one life-changing week. It starts with a secret, a revelation and a long standing injustice.
The Husband’s Secret is an utterly captivating, addictive and compelling read from page 1.
Moriarty initially only used surnames to give the characters a sense of reality, but as the story continues she share’s the characters thoughts. This sharing of thoughts helped the reader empathise and connect with the characters. This was a shrewd move on Moriarty’s part, as the clever and intricate plot is character driven.
The pacing is full of suspense and the reader will find themselves thinking just one more chapter before I stop.
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