The Good, the Bad, and the Dumped

This is is about a young woman called Posy. She’s filled with insecurities, and decides that she needs to find out what happened to her three exes, who are in far-flung places around the UK. Unfortunately, she decides not to tell her new fiancé Matt...

It was hard to like Posy. She’s had a difficult life, as we learn through subsequent chapters, with flashbacks to her childhood, but she's also immature and self-centred. The novel isn't all told from Posy’s viewpoint, which is a bit confusing. There are snippets of thoughts from other people interspersed with the story, and that made it feel less personal.

I kept reading, because the style is engaging, and I was interested to see how it all panned out. The ending of the story is show more nicely satisfying and the epilogue is quite clever, if a bit predictable. But none of the characters grabbed me. They’re all rather one-dimensional.

Still, I kept reading, often several chapters at a time. It made a pleasant few evenings’ reading, and would be a good novel to take on holiday for someone who likes women’s fiction, and doesn’t want to have to think too much. show less

Posy Fairweather should be happier after her boyfriend Matt proposes to her, but she wonders if he is really “the one.” She decides to visit her previous boyfriends to make sure she isn’t missing out on anything. Penny has to figure out what and who she really wants, but it may be too late with respect to Matt; when he found out what she was doing, he asked for his engagement ring back.

Evaluation: I found it hard to warm up to this book. There is the usual obsession as in other Colgan books with weight and being thin, which onhy added to the impression of shallowness of most of the characters. Posy herself is whiny and self-absorbed, and it is hard to tell from this book why she would have had any boyfriends at all. She definitely show more seems to be more interested in the *idea* of a boyfriend or a husband than whoever might be willing to fill the role. In any event, we never got to know any of the characters very well, although from what we were told, I’m not sure that I wanted to know them any better. show less

I picked up a 2021 digital copy of The Good, The Bad, and the Dumped, thinking it was another recent release by Jenny Colgan. I enjoyed The Christmas Bookshop, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, and 500 Miles From You and anticipated this would be equally enjoyable. Unfortunately, this was a re-release of a 2010 book, and the quality was decidedly inferior to that of her recent works.

The Good, The Bad, and the Dumped is an over-the-top satirical treatment of the aimless young woman who ripped through her twenties without purpose. Posy is now in her early thirties and seemingly still as flighty as she was ten years ago. When Matt proposes to her, she says “yes,” without knowing why or having a view of what her married life would show more be like. Realizing this, she decides to visit three of her former lovers to get a clue as to what her life would have been like if she had married one of them. Matt learns of her existential search and puts the marriage planning on hold.

Several factors diminished my enjoyment. First, the description states Matt dumps Posy a few days after he proposed, but that is inaccurate. Matt halted the ongoing wedding planning much later after he learns Posy is uncertain about marrying him and checking in with former boyfriends. The jargon used in describing the London dating scene was challenging to decipher, and the failure to include speaker attributions (e.g., Posy said) made conversations difficult to even when only two people were conversing. The writing and editing were inept (e.g., I counted five places where Posy was spelled Pose). Some humorous elements (e.g., Posy’s unwillingness to say the name of one of her former boyfriends) were not funny and became tedious with repetition.

Finally, readers who struggle through this boring story are rewarded with a blasé ending and a three-page epilogue that alternative “happy-ever-after” endings of Posy to each of her alternative lovers. I liked Posy as she struggled to mature, but this book greatly disappointed me. show less

Posy gets engaged but wants to make sure Matt is the right one for her so she goes back and sees her exes to learn why they did not work out.

Reading the blurbs and ads about this book I was expecting something funny but I found it to be a book that was sad. It was sad that Posy had so little confidence in herself that she could not believe Matt loved her. It was sad that she listened so much to others who did not seem to have her best interests at heart. They (her best friend, sister, and mother) were constantly putting her down because of her past failures. They also questioned why Matt would want her--a perpetual screw-up. Matt does not help when she goes off on her journey of discovery. He gets mad and quits talking to her (although show more I can understand why.) Both need to learn to communicate better. Posy's mother was--well, I cannot find the words to describe her but she did not build Posy up.

I did enjoy the book though it was not what I expected. I found the epilogue interesting. I enjoy reading Jenny Colgan. show less

This was so 2010. So dated. So aged. The Facebook statuses were hilarious throwbacks. I loved it. Not at all substantive and the emotional depth it tries to go for falls a bit flat but a very readable distraction.

A woman (in her 30's) gets engaged but doesn't know if he is "The One", so decides to find her ex's on Facebook - just to make sure. It follows her through her voyage of the grass not been greener on the other side, when he fiance calls off the engagement after finding out what she's up to - at their engagement party.

The first book by Jenny Colgan that I have read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found it difficult to put down. Would definitely recommend it.

Not as good as the later books. I found this more tedious than charming. This one gets to go to the thrift store.