[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: D

I think Confessions of a Serial Bitch is supposed to be a chick lit series of connected novellas because despite the warning that this title contains graphic sexual material and isn’t meant to be read by anyone under 18, there was no hot boinking. Talk about false advertising. Shit, I got more action when Brian Wheatley felt up my booblet in the 8th grade.

Instead, we receive a short glimpse into Hadley’s life. She’s 28 and about to divorce a douchebag named Glen, who apparently married her for her money and then proceeded to cheat on her egregiously. Glen isn’t about to let her go easily, though, and Hadley is dumb enough to agree to one last date with him, where he takes out to a desolate location on a “picnic” and then when she won’t succumb to his manly charms, he proceeds to bruise her arms and shoulders, knock her into a tree and then abandon her to walk seven miles back to town.

I know this scene intends to slap me with, “Poor Hadley. Glen is such a dickhead. I can’t believe he did that to her. You go, girl! Get your revenge on!” But instead it leaves me feeling like that was a TSTL decision on her part. When you’re divorcing a man and you’ve filed papers that he’s refusing to sign, you do not continue dating him. You don’t go with him places. Sole contact should come through your attorneys and if you see him stalking you otherwise, you immediately call the police. I’m sorry, but this is not something a woman with a brain decides to do. This is an invitation for him to kill you with a shovel and bury you beneath the old oak tree and keep all your daddy’s money. MOTIVE, honey. Motive. Don’t you watch CSI?

Thus, our heroine comes across as insane, not bitchy, as she swings like a pendulum between sobbing over the way he trampled on her heart and wild surges of anger that she can’t seem to sustain. The spurts of anger lead her to selling all his belongings in a yard sale and crashing her BMW into his Mustang, but ultimately, even though this story is written in first person, it results in no reader sympathy for Hadley’s plight. I find myself wanting her to suck it up and move on, or better yet, learn how to become a real bitch. Once I figured out there would be no up-n-down in this story, I was all set for her to go all Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, right? Sadly she’s more like Glenn Miller.

Her ex, another Glen, stalks her throughout the novel, turning up in every chapter to berate her and then beg her to take him back. Meanwhile, things are heating up between Hadley and her lawyer, Drake Valenti (how’s that for a mafioso name?), but they never move past meaningful glances and a couple of kisses. We need more development, more of what she sees in him. It’s not enough that he’s a hot guy or that she dated him in high school. The reader doesn’t share any of Hadley’s memories of him, and we need to see him as she does. That can be difficult in first person.

Hadley spends her share of girl-bonding time with her best friends, but I didn’t care much for them either. Lucy appears to be unhappy because her husband is gone all the time on business and he won’t let her work. ‘Scuse me while I check the calendar. Right. It’s 2007, and I wasn’t aware a woman needed her husband’s permission to do anything, including kicking his sorry ass to the curb if he doesn’t hold his mouth just right. This whole story has a tired, dated feel, and around page 23, I found myself wondering if it was over yet.

Making matters worse, Hadley signs divorce papers agreeing to settle 50K on Glen, just to get rid of him. Yeah, I get she wants to be free, but she buckled like a belt. If she were a real bitch, she would’ve really ruined his life, not just played at it by selling his stuff in a yard sale and t-boning his Mustang. Really, this should’ve been called Confessions of a Bipolar Rich Girl — it would have offered the reader a clearer glimpse of what was in store.

However, let me say, it’s not that Ms. Holt-Whitlock is a bad writer, technically. Certain passages shine with a great, snarky sense of humor, but her characters need work to flesh them out and make them realistic. Claire was an interesting person who didn’t get much attention in the book, but she did more to develop her in two careless sentences than I saw in any other character. So the gift is present; Ms. Holt-Whitlock just needs to nurture it. In addition, there’s virtually no description or sense of setting, which makes it even less enjoyable to read. I could see this being a kickass series if she can show the difference between bitch and whiny-ass sack of marshmallow Fluff and write accordingly.

P.S. If the book carries a warning label, somebody should get some hot, hide the sausage action somewhere. What a gyp.

[Ed. note: If Annie’s review didn’t scare you, you can buy the book here. Thanks for the heads-up, Kate! My bad!]

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 9:18 am and is filed under Books, Grade: D, Romance: Contempo, Reviews by Annie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.