Cougars

by Claire Irvin

[Leah]

In the past year or so the term ‘cougar’ has become increasingly popular, thanks to the fact Demi Moore married someone so much younger than her and laterally because of Cougar Town, Courtney Cox’s new show. It seems that everywhere you look there’s a hint of the cougar going around and obviously, with her debut novel, Claire Irvin has attempted to tap into the fad. Now I must admit, I find the term cougar to be very off-putting. As a twenty-something it just sounds such a horrible term for a woman. It also obviously starts the age old debate that if a man dates someone so young he’s a cradle-snatcher but if a woman does it she’s a cougar? However, getting back to the book, I was looking forward to reading it and when I received a copy, the cover was very eye-catching with how red it is so I decided to give it a read.

Cougars opens with a Prologue, set in November, as Caroline rushes into a pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test before finding out she’s pregnant. It ends with the line “By whom?” (referring to who she’s pregnant by) and we then go back nine months previously to begin the story proper as Caroline finds out her husband has been cheating on her before the subsequently split up. It’s a very intriguing opening to the book and I was quickly hooked. Despite wanting to read the book, I didn’t entirely think it would be my kind of book. I was proven nicely wrong, it has to be said, as I found myself reading the pages rather quick, enjoying Caroline’s new life. When I read the synopsis, I expected Caroline to regress back to being a teenager, and to start sleeping with every man available, because that’s how the official synopsis words it essentially, but that’s not it at all and I was pleasantly surprised at that.

Cougars is very much based on relationships. Caroline’s relationship with her daughter Rachel, her relationship at work and a fledgling relationship with male-model and 19-year-old Adam. But it also focuses on the relationships of Caroline’s friends Esther and Maryanne. Relationships Caroline believes are perfect, but that are actually not as good as she thought as both Esther and Maryanne are cougars, cheating on their husbands with much younger men. I must admit, I didn’t like how both Esther and Maryanne portrayed their relationships and how flippant they were towards cheating on their husbands. I was even more surprised that Caroline, after a brief argument with Maryanne, accepted what they do as the norm despite the fact she separated from her husband for the exact same thing. Surely cheating is cheating, no matter who is doing it? I didn’t entirely understand why Caroline was so blase about it.

The characters were very well written, despite my questions over them. Despite Caroline’s acceptance of what her friends did, I did find myself quite liking her. At forty-two, she isn’t exactly someone I could see myself being friends with but she was very cool for a forty-two-year-old it must be said. Again, despite not agreeing to their lifestyle choices, I did like both Esther and Maryanne, they provided some light relief in their bid to get Caroline up and running again with her life. Rachel is a typical teen, prone to major strops and tantrums, which drove me bananas sometimes although I did find myself thinking that I was probably like her at that age as well. As for Adam, I loved him. He wasn’t what I expected at all, which is a good thing, believe me. I expected him to be cocky and full of himself and all of that, but he wasn’t at all. He was lovely, actually.

A major part of the book is set at Caroline’s office at Sapphires and Rubies and I liked that, not only did it introduce us to those who work around Caroline but it meant we got to see her in action as she came up with new lines for her shop. As the book came to a conclusion, a lot of issues came up, which had the feeling of just being crammed in and I definitely think it would have been better to spread them out during the book a bit more. Especially the one featuring Esther, that could have really developed a lot more, but instead it was relegated to the last 50 pages of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the read, it wasn’t what I expected at all. Irvin is editor at She magazine (and has worked at many other magazines) and her writing shines through. I’d definitely recommend the book, the synopsis makes it sound way more predatory than it is – the synopsis for me makes Caroline sound very flippant and able to move from man to man and that’s not true. Yes, these girls might be cougars, but that’s not the story, not really. In fact, you could very easily remove all cougar aspects and it would still be a great novel. It’s very much a novel cashing in on the novelty of cougar, but it’s an enjoyable one and one very much worth reading.