Looking for La La

by Ellie Campbell

[Leah]

When Ellie Campbell, or rather, Pam and Lorraine as Ellie is their pen name, got in touch with me to tell me about their new novel Looking For La La, I was really looking forward to reading it. I really enjoyed their novel When Good Friends Go Bad, and I thought the premise of Looking For La La was really interesting. When Lorraine told me that the novel was actually based on something that happened to her – her husband receiving love postcards in the post, I was even more interested to read it, because it’s a bit bizarre to receive love postcards from someone you don’t even know! I’m pleased to say Lorraine and her husband are still together, and I love that she used it as the inspiration for her and Pam’s new novel.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Looking For La La. I did have some issues with it. I found it to be quite long, and I did at points find my interest waning a bit. I think that’s probably due to that fact that Cathy has so many different friends (and enemies) that I truly couldn’t keep up. Raz, Belinda, Zena, Alec, Patience, Jessica-Ellen and I’m sure I’m missing a couple more, but there were too many for me to get to know any of them, if that makes sense. They all have so many secrets as well that I truly couldn’t keep up, it was somewhat mind boggling. I’d have cut a couple of characters because then it would have been a lot easier to follow. There was just a bit too much going on for my liking and I will admit my concentration has been lacking lately, which probably didn’t help.

Cathy is very much your down-trodden housewife. She doesn’t like being a housewife (she even has a cleaner, but as she actually doesn’t work which is a bone of contention with her husband Declan, I found it weird, ‘cos surely she should have cleaned?), but she doesn’t want to work either, until she finds her ‘perfect’ job, so the letters from La La are very much a distraction for her. Perhaps a bit too much, to be fair as she does jump to conclusions rather quickly. I expected a long drawn-out search for La La, a proper detective-type novel with Cathy tailing people and spying on them in bushes (and considering Cathy’s personality it wouldn’t have surprised me), but there’s not that much in the way of detective work, apart from Cathy throwing a BBQ and writing down suspicious notes. The idea for the novel was spot on, I think it just needed a bit more execution, a bit better finesse. I wanted Cathy and Raz to team up and be like a female version of McGarrett and Danno from Hawaii 5-0 but they don’t. In fact, after Raz’s initial excitement about it all, she sort of disappears and becomes a bit weird and secretive. Everyone ends up being weird and secretive, during the novel. Even I was becoming suspicious.

I don’t really know what genre this novel falls into. I’d have said Chick Lit, but the whole stalking/murder thing was just a bit too odd and dark to fall into the Chick Lit genre. It seemed a bit confused, I think. I wanted a light-hearted read, especially as some of the darker, weirder aspects were a bit beyond the realms of possibility. One thing I definitely know is that everyone who lives in Cathy’s part of London is quite clearly mad and secretive, and I’d never want to live there in a million years. I wanted to like the book so much – I’m on such a good run of books lately, and you never want that to end, but Looking For La La was just a bit too over the top for me. There’ll be those that really enjoy it, and it’s just my personal opinion that I found it a bit hard to follow with a few too many characters for me. I’ll still look out for new Ellie Campbell books, and the idea was excellent, it just needed better execution, with a few less secrets, and a few less nutters.