BOOKENDS.

BOOKENDS by JANE GREEN.

SOURCE: Bought at a church fayre.

Total opposites, always together and both unlucky in love.

Cath is scatty, messy and guarded. While Si is impossibly tidy, bitchy and desperate for a man of his own. They live near each other in West Hampstead, close to their other best friends Josh and Lucy - who are married, with a devil-spawn child called Max and a terrifying Swedish nanny, Ingrid.

When Portia steps back into their lives - beautiful Portia, the undisputed queen of their group at university, who broke their collective hearts one night and from whom they have all gradually, silently, grown apart - her reappearance sets off a chain of events that tests Cath and her friends to the limit.

Does Portia have a hidden agenda, or is she just looking for happy endings all round? Whatever the answers, none of them could predict the outcome ....
...... Outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (Chapter 1): The first time I met Josh, I thought he was a nice guy but a transient friend.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS (Page 66): Max stands in the doorway, blocking my path, looking at me as if I'm about to start selling him dusters and dishcloths, a mixture of disdain and pity, which is quite extraordinary, bearing in mind he's three years old and half his face is covered in chocolate.

MY THOUGHTS: '.... Whatever the answers, none of them could ever predict the outcome'. If only the same could be said for me who had worked out the outcome of the book by about quarter of the way through.

'Chicklit' through and through though (and please excuse me for being evasive here, I'm desperately trying to avoid a spoiler) the Si thread of the storyline stops it from being completely fluffy. 

If you can get past how predictable the plot is, see beyond the stereotypical characters, two of whom could well have come straight from an episode of the American comedy Will and Grace, enjoy a pantomime-like 'will they/won't they' scenario, and an ending in which everyone ..... now that would be telling ..... then, like me, you might quite enjoy Bookends as an 'unthinking comfort read' perfect for these cold, dark nights.

The story of a group of thirty somethings who have been friends since their university days at the heart of which is Bookends, the business opened by friends Cath and Lucy. An aspect that could perhaps have been made more of. Not that it in any way impaired my enjoyment of the book but I certainly feel that the person responsible for writing the synopsis on the back cover missed something in not mentioning what is after all the dream of countless bibliophiles the world over.

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