As Good As It Gets?

by Fiona Gibson

[Leah]

Fiona Gibson is one of those Chick Lit authors I really enjoy. Her books always make me laugh and although I have said I preferred her earlier, more serious novels, I do still look forward to her books and enjoy reading them. So when I spotted her new novel As Good As It Gets on Netgalley, I was chuffed! It sounded like a super read and I absolutely love the cover. It’s a very nice upgrade from her previous covers, while still retaining that fun feel.

As Good As It Gets? is pretty much your regular “is the grass on the other side of the fence greener” sort of novel. Charlotte and Will have been happily married for 15 years, but with Will out of work, and Charlotte being the breadwinner their lives are suddenly a bit upside down. Then daughter Rosie starts modelling, Will starts partying with the neighbours and Charlotte’s ex, Fraser, comes back in to the fold, Charlotte suddenly doesn’t know where she stands and begins to wonder how her life might have been had she been with Fraser all along.

Fiona Gibson is probably one of the best at getting into her character’s heads and getting us into her characters heads, and so it proves once again with the wonderful Charlotte! I loved Charlotte! She was a fantastic narrator and she regularly made me laugh, and fret. I don’t much enjoy novels where perfectly happy marriages suddenly start to disintegrate, it makes me sad, but I was always sort of hopeful Charlotte and Will had a stronger relationship than that.

I also really quite enjoyed the modelling aspect of the novel, with Rosie, Charlotte’s daughter. It didn’t exactly pan out how I had expected, but it was a fun insight and it will always be strange to be that you can be ‘scouted’ to be a model. (Not that it will ever happen to me, obviously.) Not to mention young Oliver. Oh, how lovely and insightful he was. I’m a sucker for receptive kids, and Oliver was one of the best.

It’s the thing I always don’t love in books like this: the ex who comes back and who is (of course) insanely delish. Ugh I am sick of it. SICK OF IT. It’s what stops books being a five-star favourite of mine, because it’s so cliched, so typical

All in all, it was a really great read that I loved from start to (almost) finish. As Good As It Gets? made me chuckle, made me warm and fuzzy inside, and I very much enjoyed the novel, except for the one teensy-tiny thing that drives me insane. It’s the one Chick Lit cliche that rears its head time and time again. But apart from that I really, really enjoyed As Good As It Gets? Fiona is a fantastic writer, so funny and witty and knows how to get you into her character’s heads and I absolutely loved Charlotte. She was a fantastic narrator and I loved her and her entire family.