Student Mitch Samuel's life isn't going to plan: his girlfriend has just walked out on him (to be fair, he did forget to pick her up from the airport); his estranged father has landed in the hospital and his literary ambitions are dashed once and for all after his umpteenth rejection letter. However, when he meets Katharine Longwell, the queen of women's fiction and she seems to like him, he senses an opportunity for literary riches, if not reputation. He tells her that his female cousin is an aspiring chick-lit author and secures a promise that she'll help said cousin get published. The only problem is, he needs to come up with a manuscript - fast. He buys every woman's magazine and watches Oprah endlessly on DVD but he still can't quite get inside a woman's head. Then his roommate suggests that Mitch sign up for sister's dance class. Mitch attends the first class as an alter ego, "Jason." Problem is, after a class or two, Mitch/Jason is hooked - both on dancing and the charming Marie, who has no idea that he knows her brother or the real reason he's come to the class. Suddenly, his novel-writing project is becoming a lot more than he bargained for . . .
What’s this? Chick-lit written by a man? Not only did a man (Dan Begley) write this, but he did it very well. I really enjoyed the cast of secondary characters, from Mitch’s friend Bradley to his fellow dance students. True to chick-lit form, Mitch is a bit of a bonehead from time to time, but he does try his hardest to fix things in the end. Stereotypes abound here, both for women and men, but not to the point that it’s offensive (unless you’re *very* easily offended) – it’s really part of the shtick. The ending was not what I was expecting from this type of story, but I’m not sure if I’m let down by this or not. Sometimes being different is good.
