Josie Silver

Un barbat si o femeie. Zece ani. O iubire de neuitat. „Cea mai induiosatoare poveste de dragoste. E minunata!“ - Marian Keyes „Un Love Actually in proza.“ - Bookseller Laurie e convinsa ca dragostea la prima vedere e un mit. Dar, intr-o zi de decembrie, printr-o ninsoare puternica, zareste din autobuz un barbat si stie imediat ca l-a gasit pe EL. Convinsa ca ii e sortit sa-l revada, isi petrece un an de zile cautandu-l prin toate cafenelele din Londra. Nu il gaseste, in schimb, il reintalneste la o petrecere de Craciun, cand cea mai buna prietena i-l prezinta ca pe noul ei iubit, Jack, barbatul din statia de autobuz. „Josie Silver scrie cu o caldura atat de palpabila, incat personajele ei iti intra in suflet si raman acolo mult timp dupa ce ai inchis cartea.“ - Jill Santopolo

O zi de decembrie

Nona G

Ok... I get that there's a market for this kind of books. I'm occasionally part of that market. A love story never hurt anyone and it's good for the soul from time to time.

But, for the life of me, I cannot understand how books like these are bestsellers and have 5 star ratings. What are people comparing them to? Certainly not good literature. And don't come to me to say there is no accounting for tastes. There actually is such a thing as good literature, just as there are good and bad movies, music and art (the banana on the wall comes to mind).

I wanted this to be a perfect easy Christmas book. It's easy, alright. It's sort of Christmassy. It's far from perfect.

The love story is bad, you guys. There's no emotion. I had trouble actually finding the connection between Laurie and Jack because, to me, there's nothing there past that glance in the bus stop. All they think about (when they think about each other) is sex. How is that a perfect love story? Laurie talks with more emotion about her 5-seconds husband than about (supposedly) the love of her life. 

Also, there's zero, none, absolutely no chemistry between Laurie and Jack. They claim they are best friends, but they barely spend any time together. In fact, they actively try to avoid each other! 

I hated (or at least disliked) most characters. I mean, yeah, people are stupid in their early 20s, we've all been there, but the level of stupidity reaches new levels with every page. There should be a limit. Writers should make them at least a little bit likeable. It's very, very hard to like people who spend all their free time drinking and never having any meaningful conversations. The cheating doesn't help either (and yes, kissing is cheating! If anyone claims differently, they have never been in a relationship in their life.). Can I also say that Jack is really an asshole? He spends his 20s using women mostly for his own physical pleasure (all he thinks about is sex and we know about this, since it's in all his POVs).

The only one I liked is Oscar, he was great to Laurie and didn't deserve such a fate. He seemed the only one with a certain level of maturity and I even understood his ambition and desire to make a career. Brussels is quite close to London and Laurie should have made the effort. 

It's not only that. The book is full of inconsistencies. There's one chapter, towards the end, where Laurie and Oscar are fighting over the phone. Then she says he starts pacing the room, implying they are in the same room. Then she says they're on the phone again. Also, I could not understand how Laurie and Jack could have stared into each other's eyes since she was on the top floor of the bus and he was in the bus station, reading... on a December afternoon. I spent most of the book confused like that.

The only good thing about this wastepaper is that it only took me a few hours to finish. You don't really have to use all your brainpower for this toilet paper. I hate that I contributed to this girl's paycheck and really, I cannot grasp how publishers agree to publish junk like this.

O zi de decembrie

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