REVIEW for Dune Road and a quick interview with Jane Green

A great big thank you goes out to Barbara at Penguin Group for sending me this book!!!


TITLE: Dune Road

AUTHOR: Jane Green

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

RATING: 4 Stars





It has been extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that Jane Green (who I considered to be, along with Helen Fielding "the masters when it comes to chick lit" has all but deserted us when it comes to writing more chick lit. I absolutely adored ALL of Green's chick lit books, Jemima J. being my absolute favorite. I have, however, read all of her other books and while I can't say that any of them touched me as much as Jemima J., I have enjoyed them. I am happy to say that Dune Road has become a favorite of mine - even though its not a chick lit novel (I won't use THAT against it :) Dune Road is a fun beach read.

By this I mean that all the characters, especially Kit are extremely interesting, but live a life that is just slightly over "the top" - which gave this book a delicious feel of "I get to see how the other side lives". This is what I liked most about this storyline - it felt as thought I was privy to some great gossip and got to live through the characters in the book. These are all affluent women (thanks, for the most part by their working husbands who make ridiculous amounts of money and who are NEVER there) and these women don't have a clue what to do with themselves for the most part - so they shop, do yoga and complain alot! and i loved it.

I also like the general theme running through this book - which is that you never really know a person, least of all yourself and that life is about growing and discovering who you really are and, hopefully, at the same time, develop a tolerance and understanding for the people around you.

I think I like this book, in part, because these women live a life that I, at times, wish I had - it must be great to be able to "lunch" 3 days a week, spend my days in the yoga studio and basically do what I want to do all the time - with someone else's $$$ - so I think that this storyline is close to our hearts in many ways (most of us working women or stay at home moms, etc.) so kudos to the author for giving us a glimpse of this life - only to realize that its not quite as magical as we may think (of course, the grass always beeing greener on the other side....).

The love story between Kit and her estranged husband is interesting - and I thought it managed to work well in propelling Kit to find out who she was and what she really wanted out of her life.

I still miss Jane Green's chick lit writings - but I have to say that I was delighted to have read Dune Road and I definitely look forward to more Jane Green books.

I ALSO HAD THE OPPORTUNITY OF ASKING JANE THE ONE BURNING QUESTION THAT I HAVE BEEN WANTING TO ASK FOR A WHILE NOW.....

Tina's question:

I am wondering what Jane's "take" on Chick lit is? and also, in my opinion, she has wandered away from the genre in the last few years and I am wondering if this is a conscious move on her part (and I would love to know if she will consider doing 'chick lit' again - she was soooo great at writing it).


Jane's answer:

It all depends on how you define ‘Chick Lit’. If you define as funny, fluffy tales of a twenty or thirty-something single girl looking for Mr Right, then yes, absolutely I have moved away. I started writing when I was twenty seven and single, and have continued whilst getting married, having children, getting divorced, marrying again. Many years on, my books have charted the course of my life. I just couldn’t write about young single women anymore because I’ve been there, done that, and it just isn’t reflective of where I am in my life…I hope those readers who aren’t in the same place, will get there eventually…

There you have it! I liked Jane's answer about "growing" but I must admit that I still love chick lit and I would love, love for Jane to consider writing another chick lit, more specifically maybe a sequel to Jemima J.????