Leah
Written on Dec 16, 2009
When it was announced that Martine McCutchoen was writing a novel, I was a bit sceptical. After all it seems every celebrity is writing a novel at the moment. The main question seems to be whether the celebrities will write the book themselves or whether they'll use a ghost-writer. It seems Martine has used the former method and has written The Mistress all by herself. I read the first chapter online (http://readthemistress.com) and I thought it was the biggest pile of rubbish I've ever read. However I still wanted to read the entire book and decided to buy it for myself.
The book starts just as Mandy is heading out to her thirtieth birthday dinner. I wasn't thrilled with the first chapter as Mandy comes across as rather full of herself. Mandy and Jake see each other pretty quickly once at the restaurant and their attraction is instantaneous. I kind of didn't understand just how quickly Mandy and Jake seemed to fall for each other but I let it slide and carried on reading. As the book progresses, Mandy and Jake seem to fall much more in love with each other - if that's possible - but since Jake is already married, it causes quite a few problems (obviously). I thought the second half of the book was better than the first half, but it was all pretty dire.
The characters in the book really weren't that impressive and were so cliched, it was ridiculous. As I mentioned, Mandy seemed full of herself even during the first few pages so I found it so so hard to warm to her. My dislike for Mandy increased when she gave a huge speech to her friends about how she would never let herself become a mistress and then, a page later, she became a mistress. Her speech became almost hypocritical. I can't say I was a huge fan of Jake. There's usually a reason for a man cheating on his wife/girlfriend, if reason is the right word, but Jake had no reason whatsoever and although he said he was guilty quite a lot, he didn't seem at all sincere. Mandy's friends were all cliched: George, the gay best friend, Assia, the foreign friend and Deena, the hippie-chick friend. I have to say, although they were cliched I quite liked George and Deena. They really added to the book and made it just a tad more likeable. Mandy's mother, Valerie, and sister, Olivia, were also easily likeable and seemed so different to Mandy.
The writing really wasn't anything special. In fact, for the entire first half of the book, I felt that the book was stop-start in its writing style and seemed as if it'd been meshed together. The dialogue didn't seem to ring true and the conversations the characters' had seemed incredibly forced. The writing did pick up a tad during the second half of the book but by then it was just a little too late for my liking. I want a book to grab me right from the off and, failing that, at least after five chapters. The Mistress didn't grab me at all but I did manage to finish it relatively quickly as it's just so short. Amazon say there are 400 pages but there are only 322 pages. The writing is also spaced really far apart - so much so that if the book had been properly spaced, it would have been a much shorter novel. The whole book had a rushed feel to it, particularly the ending (which was rather stupid). I can only assume the book has been chopped and changed quite a lot pre-publication for it to have such a peculiar writing pattern.
Cheating is a rather taboo subject in books, as usually the mistress/husband's infidelities are glossed over and we usually focus on the wronged wife getting over such a betrayal, so books that focus on the mistress herself are always quite interesting. One of my favourite ever books - Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin - focuses on the aspect of cheating and is the only book where I've ever felt the cheating was somewhat justified. The rest of the time, I disagree with books about mistresses and just think of them as home-wreckers. Mandy doesn't see herself as a home-wrecker and is unrepentant about the possibility of splitting up a family. Jake and Mandy flaunt their relationship all around London without a second thought about anybody else and it surprised me that they were never caught.
I am really not a fan of celebrities turning to book writing because it's usually only done to make them more money, rather than the fact they really want to be an author. I think Martine has written this because she wants to be an author rather than doing a Katie Price and writing for the money rather than the fun of it. It's a shame that I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have wanted to. As much as I like Martine - she seems very nice - the tag of author doesn't seem to be something that works for her. For me to pick up her second book - she's apparently writing a trilogy of books - it would have to be a heck of a lot better. Give this one a miss.