Jane Fallon (1) (1960–)

All hail Jane Fallon, the queen of the revenge novel. She's back with another fantastic story, this time focusing on the perils of online dating. When Joni joins a dating app she, in a panic, uses a fake photo. She's planning to confess all to Ant, the man she's been happily dating for a few months, but then she finds out that he's in the midst of a much bigger indiscretion when she discovers messages from other women, ones he's communicating with at the same time as seeing her.

I absolutely show more loved Just Got Real. It's modern, it's relevant, it's funny, and I was completely hooked from start to finish. Whilst the dating story is the primary storyline, it's very much Joni who is the main focus of the story, as she moves on with her life after a divorce, the loss of a friend and her daughter leaving home. She takes comfort in her routine but there's no real joy there. I won't go into what happens along the way but by the end I was full of hope for her in the future.

Fallon describes Joni's job-sharing down to a tee, that slight resentment of the other person and any work they didn't manage to get to. She also does a brilliant job with the online dating world. More than anything though, I think I just found Joni and her life really relatable, and I enjoyed all the details of her life, her flat, her job and her love of the gym. I was sad to leave her behind and I feel like I got to know her really well.

Just Got Real is a book I didn't want to end but it had to, and like another book I've read recently, although there is romance in there, it's very much about female empowerment, with or without a partner in tow. Fallon is a supreme observer of human nature and dynamics between women, and a fabulous writer of fresh, contemporary fiction. I loved it! show less

Are we all guilty of Over Sharing in this modern age of social media. Is everybody simply faking it?

On the face of it Iris has a good life. She has a nice flat and a good job. But underneath she is still not over the end of her marriage to Tom, and with it her chance to be a mother. She blames Maddy, the woman Tom left her for and so when she sees Maddy has become an influencer on social media along with her husband Lee and their twins, Iris is incensed. Where is Tom and how dare Maddy be show more living this wonderful life when Iris is not? She decides to find out what might be hiding behind Maddy's perfect façade.

I always enjoy Jane Fallon's books and Over Sharing is no exception. She writes engagingly and realistically about women in their 40s and the issues they face. This book is about friendships, about having to move on with your life when you don't have the life you want and your friends do. There's no doubt Iris is bitter about her situation and it leads her to do things that seem irrational but deep down are the result of her unhappiness.

I enjoyed Iris's progression through the story and I found the conclusion particularly satisfying. Fallon puts her characters through the mill but they come out the other side much stronger and she portrays them sympathetically and with understanding. There's a lot of female empowerment in this book. I really enjoyed the changes Iris made to her life and despite the fact that some of the things she does are not very nice, I still liked her and was really hoping things would work out for her.

The underlying message is don't necessarily believe all you see on social media. It's so easy for people to show the world an image of themselves that just isn't real. Over Sharing is relevant, current, incisive and witty. I found it an extremely readable story of revenge and recovery. show less

Originally published at Curled Up With a Good Book and reprinted at http://www.skrishnasbooks.com

What happens when you get EXACTLY what you wish for? This is the dilemma presented to Helen, a 39-year-old “Personal Assistant” (codeword for secretary – not exactly Helen’s dream job). For four years, Helen has been having an affair with Matthew, her one-time boss at a London-based PR firm that represents the “15 minutes of fame” people you loathe to call celebrities. And for those show more four years, Helen has been urging Matthew to leave his wife, Sophie, and two daughters. They say wishes don’t come true, but Helen’s actually does. One day, Matthew shows up on the doorstep of Helen’s one-bedroom flat with a suitcase and pronounces his marriage as over – he has left Sophie. And so Helen’s nightmare begins.

The message of the novel is clear: “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.” As Helen adjusts to life with Matthew, she finds herself becoming more and more miserable. This leads her to reevaluate everything in her life, including her job. But her primary concern is what to do about Matthew, especially after attempts to break up with him fail miserably.

Getting Rid of Matthew is a unique look at “the other woman.” Traditionally in chick lit, the sympathetic character is the victim of an affair, rather than the cause. However, Fallon does an exceptional job in making the reader understand Helen’s decisions. The reader really empathizes with Helen’s situation. She isn’t painted as a monster with no feelings – indeed, she continually wrestles with the guilt of Matthew leaving his family for her. Fallon does not try to sugarcoat the reality of the situation in order to make Helen a more sympathetic character, and it pays off. The situations seem real, and the characters are three-dimensional.

The book is also extremely funny. Fallon’s wit shines through as perhaps the best part of the novel. Helen continually finds herself in more and more absurd situations, especially as she seeks Matthew’s wife out under an assumed identity (Eleanor) in order to learn more about her and assuage the guilt. The reader can sense this tangled web of fibs and lies getting increasingly complicated by the page and can see that it is all about to come crashing down at any moment. Fallon’s wit keeps this from being awkward and makes each page enjoyable, rather than stomach-clenching.

One issue that Fallon could have clarified is the narration change in the book. The narration switches between Helen and Sophie with no clear break – all of a sudden, the narrator will switch without the reader realizing it. Fallon should have used the chapter breaks to switch the person telling the story; as it is, it gets very confusing.

In the end, the book is about friendship and love: Helen trying to handle Matthew, Helen’s attempts to win over Matthew’s teenage daughters (one of whom despises her, the other just wanting to be loved), Helen’s attraction to a new mystery man she meets through Sophie, whose real identity throws her for a loop, and finally, the surprisingly real friendship that Helen develops with Sophie. The real charm in the book lies in Helen’s introspection and analysis of all these relationships and the personal growth that develops from them. At the beginning of the book, Helen is a bit petty and doesn’t consider the consequences of her decisions. Throughout the book, as she considers the mess she has created, Helen matures as a character, which is enjoyable to read. Fallon does an excellent job of taking a traditional story about a wife, a cheating husband, and the woman on the side and telling it to us in a unique and enjoyable way. show less

So ok, I’ve succumbed to chick-lit again, but this time I don’t feel bad about it. As a matter of fact, it was the negative reviews of this book that drove me to read it. Any book that is shouted down for its “excessive” use of the word fuck is something I can’t ignore. Coupled with an “unpopular” heroine, I succumbed.

And it didn’t suck. Sure Helen is a twit, but she’s a reasonably ok twit. Not nearly as scatterbrained or vapid as Bridget Jones, but equally stupid in some show more areas, it was fun to watch Helen bumble through the first parts of the book and try to get her shit together and make amends in the latter. The fact that there was no wicked step mother-type to latch onto for a villain also helped. That particular cliché I don’t have time for.

I also liked the fact that the author sharply pointed out that Matthew would never change his spots – he threw over Sophie for Helen in exactly the same way he threw over his first wife for Sophie. The fact that Sophie acknowledged this, felt bad about it and wasn’t all poor-poor-pitiful-me about it was refreshing as well. Once a cheater, always a cheater I say. The women who sign on as the latest mistress are so deluded as to be farcical.

Helen found out that the grass is not always greener in the most graphic way. Matthew is no longer the romantic figure when he’s taking up space in her flat. During their tenure as a legit couple, Matthew frequently harangues Helen to grow up and she has to. Plunged into a relationship where she actually has a stake has opened her eyes to what she wants and what she has a chance of actually getting and she doesn’t like it. Instead of being as cruel to Matthew as he was to Sophie, she tries to repair the damage she has done and get the broken couple back together again.

Her unintended success transcends those two people and completes her growing up process and the ending isn’t as sickly sweet as it could have been and for that I was grateful. I was expecting some tacked on, that-would-never-happen-in-a-million-years sort of ending which I thankfully didn’t get. Instead I got the emotional lift needed for getting all the way through the story.

It is not perfect. There is a long-suffering friend – de rigueur for these types of books. Also there was the nasty backlash of family who despite Sophie’s early classification as usurper take her side in everything. And of course there was a possibly life-changing romance in the offing that seemed too good to be true. But those are necessary evils and expected. show less