I love Marian Keyes. Also like others say, I am always drawn to stories about the Walsh family. Maybe because I have two sisters and we are all different as can be. I loved this story. I loved that Maggie was able to explore, live life and learn so much in a relatively short period of time. I loved that she came through it, scathed, but a bit smarter and with more experience under her belt. The one thing I love in any book! Fantastic. One to another Marian Keyes book. ( )

Maggie Walsh leaves her husband and head off to L.A. to really live life for a while. Another good read from Marian Keyes, not quite as dark as the last Walsh sister book I read. There's definitely more to the story than I thought there would be, but that's the joy of reading a book by Keyes. There's tonnes of funny bits, a few sad bits, and a bunch of bits that make you say "EXACTLY!" ( )

There's chick lit, and then there's gooood chick lit. Fortunately this falls into the latter and makes a great holiday/plane read. The Walshes must be one the most comical families written about and Angels continues the cringe worthy moments of the family. The plot is nothing new (Maggie leaves her husband to find herself, cue dreamy ex-boyfriend and wacky fish out of water scenes) but it doesn't feel naff. Just plain vanilla yoghurt fun. ( )

As always, I am compelled to read all things Marian Keyes, particularly if it's about the Walshes. This one was about the "lickarse" Maggie. These books always engage me but I find that the characters are always drawn a bit vaguely, I never feel like I got to know them enough. I do like reading her books because the dialogue can be so funny, especially in Irish idiom.

Description: After catching her husband having an affair and being fired from her job, Maggie Walsh suddenly finds her perfectly organized existence has become a perfect mess. She decides, for the first time in her life, to do something daring -- and flees to her best friend, Emily, in the faraway wonderland of Los Angeles. In this mecca of tanned, beautiful bodies, unsvelte, uncool Maggie is decidedly a fish out of water. Yet, overnight, she's mixing with film folk, pitching scripts, even experimenting with sex -- and discovering that the end of a marriage is not the end of the world.

My thoughts: I don't know why this book has so many pages, the story could have been written much shorter. I must say that I often found myself bored while reading, that is not my definition of chic lit. ( )

Although I enjoyed the book, it is not my favourite one by Marian Keyes, and it’s definitely my least favourite of the “Walsh Sister’s Series.” The book had Keyes’ humour and spectacular story telling ability, but I just couldn’t relate to the character, Maggie, as well as I have been able to relate to those in her other, and I also didn’t I enjoy the novel as much I have in previous books by Keyes. The supporting characters, like Emily’s neighbours were far more interesting, with their stories the Maggie’s, for me, her story just fell a little short to what I normally expect from Keyes. Don’t be fooled, it’s still a good book, and I know a lot of people could relate to how Maggie feels, and what she went through. Keyes’ does an excellent job; at bring the emotion, though the pages. Also, the story does pick up quite a lot near the end, and things fall into place and grabbed my attention for a while, but I still felt, it didn’t have that same appeal as her other books.

Review can also be found at my book review blog
http://juliebooks.blogspot.com/2009/0... ( )

This is a great book on a gloomy day to read, will have you laughing she is such a great writer ( )

Good Girl Goes Bad…just a Little!

This was the third novel in the Walsh sister’s series – it’s time to get to know Maggie a little better.

The story starts out when Maggie discovers that her husband has been unfaithful and decides to leave their home in Ireland and go for an extended visit to her good friend in California. She gets reacquainted with the US, as her and her husband once lived in Chicago when they were first married – and now she gets to see what it’s like in Los Angeles, aka movie-land.

This was a good book and I enjoyed the story, but not as much as Watermelon and Rachel’s Holiday. There was a lot of time spent chronicling the happenings of secondary characters and I didn’t have that much interest in them. Marian Keyes is a talented story teller and she’s not stingy with the details – she gives it ALL to you and readers can decide for themselves what they come away with. It was because of that detail, it took me longer to finish this book than the others; part of my lackluster response comes from the fact that Maggie is basically a good-girl, and has pretty much followed the straight and narrow – marrying her high school boyfriend, - she’s not as wild and crazy as the sisters detailed in other novels and so there were no huge bells and whistles going off…at first!

Then the story gets going and Maggie is exposed to the world of Hollywood. It was fun to see how L.A. affects Maggie. What did make this book noteworthy was the way that Keyes showed the slow progression as Maggie comes to realize what real love is, but first she has to figure out what it IS NOT! At one point during her visit, her parents & two sisters (Helen & Anne) come to visit and it was this part of the story that I enjoyed most, reading about the antics they inevitably get into & this time in America! Maggie gets to see the world of movie production from the inside and meets many wild people with their own stories to tell and her involvement with them is when she goes a little bit wild! You will definitely want to read Angels if you are a fan of the series and even though I didn’t love this installment, Keyes is still one of my favorite authors and I will certainly keep reading! ( )

Liked it. Good story.Not just the usual single girl story, but a married woman whose husband has an affair, and how she goes out to explore her life. Plus her quirky family and friends.
7/9/04 ( )

The "good daughter" of the infamous Walsh sisters of Dublin gets her say in ANGELS. Maggie, always held up as the standard of stability and normalcy to her sisters finds out her husband is having an affair. Maggie then takes off for Hollywood and her best friend Emily, a struggling screenwriter. While soaking up the fun and sun of Hollywood, Maggie tries to carve out a future and deals with certain issues from her past. A classic Keyes novel that handles even the hardest issues with humor and love. Maggie is just as interesting as sisters Claire, Rachel, Helen and Anna.

Reasonably entertaining. But, this is true chic-lit, which is a genre I just don't enjoy. The story picks up a little when the Irish family arrives, but most of the time, it's a whiny, poor-me story with descriptions of LA that doesn't have anything to do with the real thing. I'd suggest that nobody who has ever lived in LA reads this book. The good thing is I'll never be temped to pick up another Marian Keyes book.

http://boklista.livejournal.com/34556...

This looked like a fun, light read, and it was fun. In parts, it was even light, but overall, it was well-written and actually pretty deep. The story starts with the main character’s (Maggie) marriage falling apart right about the time she gets let go from her job. Keyes reveals what is going on from only Maggie’s point of view, and it takes some time to get to the whole story, as Maggie tries to avoid it all by diving into a new life in L.A. with her best friend. As time passes, however, Maggie realizes that running away from her immediate problems is not working, and she begins to face what is really happening in her life, and we discover more about the real situation. It is clear pretty quickly that there is a lot more to the story than we know, but it takes a while for the tale to unfold.

I loved it. I wasn’t expecting to love it. I think I will have to read some more Marian Keyes books. ( )

This book almost does something very interesting for chic lit: the main character, an Irish woman whose marriage is coming apart, comes to L.A. to escape from it all. She is shocked—shocked!—to discover that the old friend she's staying with has another friend who's a lesbian. Then she gets a little crush on the lesbian friend. Then she has a lesbian fling! This is almost cool like fanfic. But then the main character realizes that she really loves her husband and goes back to him. Sigh.

Keyes does the same thing with the flashback abortion plot. Main character (whose name, in case you can't tell, I've totally forgotten) goes to England to get an abortion. But at the last second she changes her mind! THEN SHE MISCARRIES ANYWAY! Now, in the present, she has angst because she thinks this has made her unable to have a baby now that she wants one. Um...wouldn't this plot have been better if it involved actual guilt from an actual abortion? There's too much trying to play to both sides in this book. It's annoying.

But the brief lesbian fling part was hot.

This was a good read. I enjoyed the story of Maggie finding who she means to herself and to her marrage. Feminine, honest, seductive. It goes a little slow for a few chapters, but just keep going, the ending is good. ( )

Could have done with being shorter, I found it a challenge to stay inspired enough to keep turning the pages. ( )

This was a nice read, with a feel good ending.

Marian Keyes must be pretty good because I empathised with the main character Maggie which surprised me considering everything she got up to (yeah, I'm a judgemental sort, huh?).

Great summer read -- any of Marian Keyes' books dealing with the Walsh sisters is worth reading ( )

Right, this one is a readable entry into the chick-lit genre, undemanding and not too bad. Maggie Walsh has run away from her life and her husband. Actually she looses her job and then decides that there is nothing to keep her in Ireland so she runs to a friend in the US. Her adventures in LA, meeting new people, finding out the difference between love and lust and finding herself are all good things. The path to the breakup of her marriage are clearly shown and it's interesting to see. ( )