Hissy Fit - Mary Kay Andrews

Summary

Goodreads:  Keeley Murdock's wedding to A.J. Jernigan should have been the social event of the season. But all bets are off when she catches her fiancé doing the deed with her maid of honor at the country club rehearsal dinner. The wedding's off, too, as Keeley pitches the hissy fit of the century, earning herself instant notoriety in the small town of Madison, Georgia.

Now A.J.'s unscrupulous banking family is bringing financial pressure to bear on Keeley's interior design business. But a redheaded stranger in a vintage yellow Cadillac is riding to her rescue. Will Mahoney, the new owner of a failing local bra plant, is about to offer the designing woman just what she needs: a plum decorating assignment, a chance to clear her name, and a golden opportunity to give her cheating varmint of an ex-fiancé the comeuppance he so richly deserves.

Thoughts

Oh my god that is the MOST RIDICULOUS ending I've ever read and now I can't stop laughing!

     After a long time, his hand found the zipper to my tightly fitted dress. The dress had begun to fall off my shoulders when I sensed, rather than heard, someone else in the room.

     "About goddamn time," Miss Nancy roared. And then she leaned in, flipped the lock on the doorknob, and gently closed the door.

These are literally the last words of the entire book. Like seriously.  I'm dying here!

Just so you guys know, the only reason I ended up reviewing this book was because of that last page, just so I could share the wonder of it with you.  You're welcome.


It was entertaining, but I couldn't shut off how much everything bothered me. People being judged by what their families did in the past, (entire female lines being called sluts). Nonchalance at women losing their entire source of income because the wives were pissed.  "Chick lit" can honestly be the worst at perpetuating sexism which I think is a real shame.  If we're going to have an entire genre just for women, shouldn't it be filled with awesomeness and badassery?  Instead of having this stigma of "not real literature", we might as well just OWN it.  Of course it's not all books like this - I LOVE Marian Keyes (I recommend the Walsh Family books) and Sophie Kinsella.  You want to read comedy? They're just absolute gold.  Check it.  But back to what I'm supposed to be reviewing.  There are so few female characters here that are shown in a good light.  In fact it's pretty much just the main character and her aunt.  And of course the main character is shown as superior by setting her apart from the other women.  And of course her best friend is not only:

A. A complete bitch
B. Comes from a line of sluts
C. Has no character explanation or depth.

I just can't.  Things like that...WHY? Just why? And of course the fiance's cheating is explained as: men from that family just can't keep it in their pants.  Seriously?  I will say that the main character puts very little stock in that. But then the fiance also has a weird mom fetish thing. So. There's that too.

Yes, there were other parts of the book that I liked (I mean there must have been? I gave it a meh instead of a blegh, but upon writing this review I can't remember the good things.  OH - I liked her other bff who occasionally slipped into gay cliches, but otherwise was lots of fun), but they were so overshadowed by almost literally ALL of my pet peeves that this book certainly wasn't for me, and I could not possibly recommend it to anyone else.  And authors really have some strange ideas about what the small town south is like.  Hint: not like this book.

And then after all of that, everything was wrapped up SUPER quickly. Like there was a before and an after, and no leading to the building of relationships. It was like BAM we're dating now!  Plus that ending.

TL;DR

Don't? I mean if you are one gung-ho chick lit reader, maybe this is for you?