excellent book about four friends--all chocoholics--who meet up regularly to gorge on gourmet choc--special meetings for choc emergencies. expands upon their lives--all going through major relationship issues. 2 single and 2 married. author is English. first read by her. ( )

Imagine if someone told you they were going to give you a beautiful, ribbon-tied box of Godiva chocolates (or better, handmade, fresh cream-filled Mozarts flown over from Vienna that day), you'd be really looking forward to that. Imagine then if with a bright smile, they gave you a family-size bag of Hershey's Assorted Miniatures instead. There would definitely be some disappointment there, eh?

And so there is in this book. It's not Godiva, not even Lindt, it's a collection of stories, Snickers, M&Ms, Mr. Goodbar and a Watchamacallit.

Disappointing. ( )

I really wanted to like this novel. Who doesn't like the idea of chocolate. In reality, as should be, the chocolate wasn't the star of the novel. The story centered around the lives of four women, and the complicated relationships they had with their husbands, boyfriends, or family.

The two married women had seriously flawed relationships with their husbands. I think that these were realistic situations, but overblown in the case of the couple not having sex, which drove the wife to illicit sexual encounters. The one single woman was mainly dealing with a brother on drugs, and the main female protagonist of the story had a flaky, cheating boyfriend and trouble holding down a job.

In all, the story was engaging. Please understand when I say that I was totally engaged in the story; however, I did wish that I could have just dealt with the main character, for instance, rather than bouncing from character to character. I realize this is a popular technique right now, but I really wanted to understand more about each individual story. With a bit more understanding, I might have not felt that it was being overdramatic. In the end, I started to feel like I was reading a soap opera on paper. The elements were there for an amazing story, but maybe just needed a bit more depth added to certain individuals so that you could relate to them more? ( )

This book sounded like the perfect light read for my vacation- a tight group of friends bonding over exotic chocolates and tales of woe should be an automatic chick-lit home run. Unfortunately, this book was more a swing and a miss to me because the main protagonist Lucy was clearly more caricature than character.

I would like to believe that no self-respecting young woman would truly be so proud of her ability to stick with a serial cheater of a boyfriend. I would like to believe no self-respecting young woman would be so proud of her absolute inability to perform any of the basic functions of her employment. I would like to believe no self-respecting young woman wants to read and sympathize with so vapid and annoying a main character.

It was a real shame to me that Lucy was so stereotypical and idiotic a character, because the problems faced by the other women in the book rang true and could have elevated this book above the fray if they hadn't been constantly undermined by clumsy babbling irritating Lucy.

A disappointing 2.5 stars. ( )

I love chocolate and I love good chick-lit, especially of the British variety, so I was ready and excited to dive in to this potentially delicious read. Unfortunately, good chocolate just isn't enough to carry a story when the characters are vapid, shallow and seem completely implausible as actual human beings.

The book definitely has some redeeming and hilarious moments - a fabulous break-up revenge scene and a plot-turned-caper to retrieve Chantal's stolen jewels - but it was so hard for me not to shake my head in disbelief at the way the characters acted and spoke that the good moments just didn't outweigh the bad. I was especially turned off by Lucy, the narrator and convener of the Chocolate Lovers' Club. No self-respecting woman would actually stick with a cheating boyfriend for so long and actually be proud of herself for it, nor would true friends let such stupidity go on indefinitely. And when her Crush shows interest in her she's about as awkward and moronic as a girl could be - and not just once, but over and over again. I appreciate characters drawn from reality, people whose lives aren't perfect and whose problems are real if sometimes mundane, but Lucy was over-the-top. Chantal was the most appealing character for me, and her problems seemed the most legitimate, but even she possessed a fair amount of bizarre and unrealistic quirks that didn't fit together.

If you want to learn a million different types of chocolate, or drool over your book a bit, then this book is a worthwhile read. As far as chick-lit goes, however, I was really disappointed. I want to find women in books that strike me as people I might know, friends I might have - not women who make me cringe and give the worst name to the fairer sex.