Books: Review: 'Personally I Blame My Fairy Godmother' by Claudia Carroll
Just in case you have been living under a rock in the past couple of years Claudia Carroll previously known as 'Nicola' from Fair City has been writing for some time now and is quite the established author. In fact she also runs her own literary groups from time to time to boot..
Personally I Blame My Fairy Godmother was something that caught my eye on bookstore shelves last Christmas and I subsequently bought a copy for a friend thinking she likes 'chick-lit' (personally I blame my American slang-schooled post-feminists) and it would be more up her alley than mine.
What attracted me to the story was Claudia Carroll's own synopsis of it on a popular national chat show last year. Our country was just bounding into full swing recession, and I remember Carroll cleverly describing her latest offering as a modern-day Cinderella story in reverse! And she was right, both the timing of the book release was impeccable, suiting the times we live in and the story intriquing.
Personally I Blame my Fairy Godmother is the modern day tale of
down-trodden Cinderella with her bitchy stepmother Joan and her two
wicked step-sisters Maggie and Sharon. Jessie Woods - a believer in
fairytales, is convinced that she will one day have her own happy
ever after. She has a successful television career as a Daredevil TV host, a media-friendly, charismatic high-achieving boyfriend and a pink mansion that
even Barbie would envy.
But suddenly a lapse in judgement ensues and before she can utter the words happily ever after, it’s
all whisked away from underneath her feet and she’s left with nothing.
Her boyfriend isn’t quite the Prince Charming that he led her to believe,
her party loving friends are quite pretentiously distancing themselves and won't return her calls and even her old
faithful Visa has declined to help.
So there is nothing else for it, with no other alternative, jobless
and with no money, Jessie has to return home. Back to the council house,
where her stepmother and stepsisters made her life miserable after her
father died. Begrudgingly they let her stay, allowing her sleep on the sofa but
with no money, the only way she can pay her way, is to do all the
household chores, so she is left with a list of things to do to keep her
days occupied. She has basically hit an all-time low. From here the character of Jessie Woods goes into self-discovery mode and through making an unlikely friend in her step-sister Sharon she eventually begins to rebuild her life, realising what is more important to her along the way.
I had not read any of Claudia Carroll's previous books and since I enjoyed reading the synopsis on the back I was looking forward to reading it. However, when I started reading I found the story moved at a very slow pace which is strange since I felt I was speed reading. Let me explain - the words seemed to role one on top of the other so I read it quite easily and fast which is great, but the story took time to develop. So two pages would fly by and I felt I was playing catch-up, reading more description than anything which was quite tiring. I get it though, Carroll, obviously trying to appeal to the Sex and The City culture or perhaps a fan herself was prone to humourous 'Samantha-esque' one-liners which sounded a bit too familiar for me. To be honest, I found them a little too try hard but then I'm not a huge chick-lit genre fan, I'm not even a fan of the term 'chick-lit' quite frankly. Regardless, as riches to rags stories go there are some funny laugh out loud moments in the book amid a relatable story for our times but overall I felt it was all very predictable.