Leah
Written on Jun 23, 2010
When it’s announced that Helen England, anchor of Channel 6′s Good Morning Britain, is to leave, the Girl Talk girls are suddenly pitted against each other in a bid to all try and land the job. But in the cut-throat, dog-eat-dog, world of TV presenting, can Karen rise above it all to come out on top, or will one of her co-presenters beat her to it?
Whenever I hear a celebrity is writing a book, I’m immediately skeptical because, let’s face it, more often than not, the only reason they’ve gotten themselves a book deal is because of who they are rather than their writing abilities. To then make matters worse, the celebrities then go and get a ghost-writer to pen their book, which I find insulting to all authors out there with genuine talent who don’t, and may never, have the chance to have their book published. So when I saw Coleen Nolan was trying her hand at fiction, I was dubious as ever. However I received a copy for review and the sparkly cover really caught my eye so I decided to try my luck and see if Coleen could change the trend of bad celebrity books.
When I first read the synopsis for Envy, I assumed it would be like reading Coleen Nolan’s auto-biography (not that I have) and that Karen would be a fictional Coleen. My second assumption was that the book would focus solely on Karen because that would have been the easiest way to write a book. I was wrong on both counts. Yes, Karen does have some similarities to Coleen; she’s a TV presenter and stars in a show similar to Loose Women and yes, she was in a band many years ago, but she didn’t base Karen on herself entirely, like I know a few authors have done. And secondly, the book doesn’t focus solely on Karen and it actually encapsulates the lives of many different characters which makes for a well-rounded, thoroughly enjoyable read.
As well as focusing on Karen King and her failed marriage with Jason and proposed new romance with Dave, the majority of the book centers on all of Karen’s co-presenters and it definitely feels like one big ensemble cast. Girl Talk, the show on which Karen co-presents on Channel 6, is very much in the vein of Loose Women, albeit in a later time slot, and as well as herself, there’s also Julia, Lesley, Faye and Cheryl. So when it’s announced that Helen England, the anchor of the morning show Good Morning Britain (a parody, I assume of This Morning), it’s obvious to think the job of anchor could go to one of the five Girl Talk ladies. This obviously causes ructions because each of the ladies believe that they should be the one to land the job and it all descends into cat-fights, allegations, counter-allegations and all kinds of secrets coming out but the question is whether any of the Girl Talk ladies will come out of it alive.
As well as having five female leading characters in Karen, Julia, Lesley, Faye and Cheryl, we also have plenty of other characters to flesh out the book ever more. There’s Jason, Karen’s husband, Hannah, Jason’s girlfriend (and the girl he cheated on Karen with), Dave, Karen’s potential boyfriend, and then there’s James Almond, the new controller at Channel 6, Helen England, the anchor of Good Morning Britain, and then there’s still more on top of that. How Coleen managed to juggle so many characters is beyond me and after the initial bewilderment of ‘Who is who’, I eventually managed to piece everybody together. With such an ensemble cast, you do have to concentrate just to keep track of everything going on but I personally didn’t believe there were too many characters at all. Karen is probably our ‘main’ main character and was a good one if a little naive at times. Her co-presenters aren’t particularly likeable but that only adds to the book and makes it more appealing. Julia, in particular, was vicious and was a great baddie. It would take a long while to discuss each and every character but all I will say is that they’re all different and they’re all well-thought out and well presented, good and bad.
From what I have gleamed from a quick Google search, Coleen appears to have written this all by herself without the help of a ghost-writer which is what most celebrities appear to do. And although this may be a surprise, Envy is well written. It’s told in third-person and switches around the characters very frequently and the book never seems to drag at all; how could it drag with so much going on? My first criticism of the book is the constant name-dropping and everyone from the Loose Women to Kate Thornton are name-dropped and the Loose Women references did make me cringe, because as everyone knows, Coleen Nolan is a member of the Loose Women panel. My second criticism is the fact there’s a pretty serious bomb dropped about one of the characters mid-way through the book and it kind of appeared from nowhere (which wasn’t the problem) and I would have liked to have seen it explored a bit more and I hope that, should there be a sequel, it will be picked up again as it was an interesting sub-plot.
Overall, I hugely enjoyed Envy. I didn’t expect to, and that makes my liking of the novel all the better; there’s nothing better than enjoying a book you had no hopes for at all. Coleen is apparently working on a sequel and I can’t wait for it’s release as there was lots left to explore throughout the book and there were a few revelations I would love to have been explored more, which will hopefully happen in book two. There seems to be a glut of showbiz novels being released at the moment, and Envy is definitely one of the better ones on the market. I hugely recommend it.