bdunlap's review against another edition
3.0
Pretty good book.
It's about a woman who is paranoid that her fiance (or maybe just boyfriend) is meeting up with his ex. A bit psycho and stalker-ish, but still interesting.
It's about a woman who is paranoid that her fiance (or maybe just boyfriend) is meeting up with his ex. A bit psycho and stalker-ish, but still interesting.
heidinyc's review against another edition
3.0
Elise and Donald are in middle of their wedding plans, when Donald’s hot ex-girlfriend shows up in their lives. It’s a charming little story about a woman beginning to feel insecure about her place in her
relationship. I read through it in couple of days – I probably would’ve read it in one sitting, if I wasn’t
feeling guilty about not doing my errands/chores. I can definitely relate to Elise, b/c like her, I tend to
question and analyze perfectly fine situations and become insecure. Especially in a relationship. Of course I’m not as neurotic and find out my boyfriend’s passwords for voicemails/emails and go through his personal items. I mean, that’s so horribly dishonest. You really get to see how much they love each other and everything, but then you know that she totally picks his pockets, so then you wonder if true love can be based on this kind of distrust. But, overall, a fun, charming, lighthearted book.
relationship. I read through it in couple of days – I probably would’ve read it in one sitting, if I wasn’t
feeling guilty about not doing my errands/chores. I can definitely relate to Elise, b/c like her, I tend to
question and analyze perfectly fine situations and become insecure. Especially in a relationship. Of course I’m not as neurotic and find out my boyfriend’s passwords for voicemails/emails and go through his personal items. I mean, that’s so horribly dishonest. You really get to see how much they love each other and everything, but then you know that she totally picks his pockets, so then you wonder if true love can be based on this kind of distrust. But, overall, a fun, charming, lighthearted book.
happy_hiker's review against another edition
1.0
Elise is engaged to Donald. Ever since she started dating him, she has been obsessed with/worried about Donald’s ex-girlfriend, Adrienne. Adrienne, who is physically perfect and wealthy, moves from NYC to Washington (where Donald and Elise live) and begins to insert herself into their lives. Of course, Elise volunteered to meet her at the airport, drive her around town, and help her find an apartment. [Got about halfway done, and started on another book – got sick of the whininess and needed a break. Finshed the interim book and because Her was short and sitting there, I finished it.] Elise tried to make friends with Adrienne, didn’t work out. Elise thinks Donald is having affair with Adrienne, stalks both Adrienne and Donald. I just kept wishing she would actually communicate with Donald, as that would have solved problems and then I wouldn't have wasted my time on this book.
lauriereadsrom1's review against another edition
3.0
The author's writing style annoyed me a little. It was hard to follow some of her sentences because she kept going off on tangents in parentheses.
dontmissythesereads's review against another edition
3.0
This book was okay. It was my first by Zigman, and I'm not sure I'll visit her work again. The book kept me entertained, but it did not leave me with anything to remember it.
psalmcat's review against another edition
4.0
This is a psychotic little story of Elise and Donald, engaged and happy until his former fiance moves in a couple of blocks away (they are all New Yorkers transplanted to D.C.). She just happens to be drop-dead gorgeous, Yale-educated, and French. Elise immediately assumes that she's still after Donald and that he can't help but prefer Adrienne to plain, boring (in her eyes) Elise. She completely goes off the deep end and very nearly ruins her future with her obsessiveness. Well-crafted but you want to smack the girl for being so dumb.
cherryghost15's review against another edition
1.0
Not good. About a 30-something's fiance's ex-fiance who is absolutely perfect and sort of turns the protagonist's life into a nightmare. However, the main character is horribly insecure and snoopy from the beginning; and it is not a good example of how to be healthy in a relationship.
Would give 0 stars.
July 2014.
Would give 0 stars.
July 2014.
howifeelaboutbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Her by Laura Zigman is an interesting read. As much as I/girls try to play it cool, I think we are often overanalyzing things and being jealous over the pettiest things that don’t actually matter. So it’s refreshing to read something that tells you No, you’re not the only one who thinks this way.
It was a bit heavy on the stalking and marriage talk. I wasn’t really connected with the main character. I know it’s harder in first person to know the narrator by name, since it’s not stated every other line like it might be in third person, but I only learned Elise’s name in the first part of the book, and was reminded of it once in the 2nd half. I’m not saying I don’t do that - I think it’s strange that I love writing first person because it’s so intimate, yet when it’s workshopped, most people don’t feel like they’re in the character’s head. That’s how I felt about Elise, and since I could identify that problem, I tried to learn from it and think of how I’d fix it.
I came up blank. Oh well. I guess I need to work on my first person intimacy...
It was a fun read though, and easy to get into once I could sit down and give it my full attention. Zigman has a fantastic way of ending the chapter on a cliffhanger without seeming overly dramatic. I read this book on my lunch breaks, and I’d be ready to close the book and get back to work when my eyes would flit over and see the next line of the next chapter. If the chapter endings were cliffhangers, the first sentence of the next chapters were even more intense. She’s very skilled with language, and can draw you in so completely it’s a rude awakening to come back.
The last few lines of the book are worth it alone; apparently I’m going to spoil it here, because I must share.
"Love, trust, faith - they are not equipped with radar devices,
sonar devices, night-vision devices, lifetime guarantees.
They are blind as bats.
But they are all we have.”
It was a bit heavy on the stalking and marriage talk. I wasn’t really connected with the main character. I know it’s harder in first person to know the narrator by name, since it’s not stated every other line like it might be in third person, but I only learned Elise’s name in the first part of the book, and was reminded of it once in the 2nd half. I’m not saying I don’t do that - I think it’s strange that I love writing first person because it’s so intimate, yet when it’s workshopped, most people don’t feel like they’re in the character’s head. That’s how I felt about Elise, and since I could identify that problem, I tried to learn from it and think of how I’d fix it.
I came up blank. Oh well. I guess I need to work on my first person intimacy...
It was a fun read though, and easy to get into once I could sit down and give it my full attention. Zigman has a fantastic way of ending the chapter on a cliffhanger without seeming overly dramatic. I read this book on my lunch breaks, and I’d be ready to close the book and get back to work when my eyes would flit over and see the next line of the next chapter. If the chapter endings were cliffhangers, the first sentence of the next chapters were even more intense. She’s very skilled with language, and can draw you in so completely it’s a rude awakening to come back.
The last few lines of the book are worth it alone; apparently I’m going to spoil it here, because I must share.
"Love, trust, faith - they are not equipped with radar devices,
sonar devices, night-vision devices, lifetime guarantees.
They are blind as bats.
But they are all we have.”
pussreboots's review against another edition
3.0
I pick books to read by creative and sometimes random leaps of logic. Her by Laura Zigman had catchy cover art and a title that reminded me by association with She by H. Rider Haggard, which in turn made me think of the Rumpole series. Somewhere in the middle of all that thinking I decided what the heck, I'd check out the book.
What sets Her apart from the other chick lit books I've read is that Elise, the protagonist, is the self described other woman. She is now going head to head with her fiancé's ex-girlfriend. She spies, she schemes, she plots and she seethes inside. It is really easy to get carried away with her perception of the situation and begin hating the boyfriend and his ex until Elise will do something so completely out of the blue to knock one out of the story.
The main drawback for me was Elise's personality. She spends so much of the book being defensive and paranoid that it's hard to like her or get to know her. If she went a little further (like torture, main or perhaps kill one or both of them) then she'd have the same uneasy charisma as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley. As the book is pegged as a chick lit it's on a course for a happy ending which precludes Elise from embracing her inner Ripley. I would have given the book a five out of five if she had.
What sets Her apart from the other chick lit books I've read is that Elise, the protagonist, is the self described other woman. She is now going head to head with her fiancé's ex-girlfriend. She spies, she schemes, she plots and she seethes inside. It is really easy to get carried away with her perception of the situation and begin hating the boyfriend and his ex until Elise will do something so completely out of the blue to knock one out of the story.
The main drawback for me was Elise's personality. She spends so much of the book being defensive and paranoid that it's hard to like her or get to know her. If she went a little further (like torture, main or perhaps kill one or both of them) then she'd have the same uneasy charisma as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley. As the book is pegged as a chick lit it's on a course for a happy ending which precludes Elise from embracing her inner Ripley. I would have given the book a five out of five if she had.
helloams's review against another edition
1.0
I have personally experienced the overwhelming jealousy that the heroine in this book experiences, and since this was billed as "comedy" and "light-hearted", I thought it may be fun to read. But she really bothered me - she was immature, impatient, borderline delusional... basically, all the things that I did when I was in that situation. A quick, easy and light read, though forgettable.