Sophie Kinsella, Cecelia Ahern what are they like?

They are both utterly dreadful. Cecilia Aherne is so bad that my mum and I read PS I love You the same time just so we could ring each other up and howl at the worst bits, it was great fun. I didn't mind the first shopaholic book, I think I read it on the beach, but the subsequent ones are just more of the same drivel.

I love Marian Keyes though. Anne Tyler is good too, although I have never forgiven her for having a chacter go through passport control going from Southern to Northern ireland.

Jane Green truly awful, as is Lisa Jewell & Adele Parks

But still not as bad as CA

Fourth rate verging upon unreadable

Third rate

They are great, light summer reads.

I have enjoyed all of Sophie Kinsella's books, but really only Aherns first two (ps and rainbows).

Very simular style of writing to Jane Green, if you've read ay of hers.

IMO Kinsella isn't laugh out loud funny but the Shopaholic series is good fun and easy to read - streets above PS I Love You which I thought was awful sentimental twaddle. UnquietDad - I really liked Samantha Who and I suspect that maybe Ms Aherne didn't have much input as I didn't find it sentimental at all. From the trailers I've seen I'm worried that the Shopaholic film is going to spoil the books iykwim. I was put off by the covers for Anita Shreeve but read the Pilots Wife and would definitely recommend it. I like Anne Tyler but often find the main character a bit annoying by the end.

yes, she has me crying too but alas not with laughter

Celia Ahern is Fab!!! Thanks for the memories had me cring with laughter! The character of the father is so funny. Definately one of the better books I have read from chick Lit type Authors, not too mushy and very funny.

Sophie Kinsella I wasnt so enthralled with.

Would agree Marian Keyes a cut above the Kinsella-esque herd!

Marian Keyes a notch above chicklit, funny & entertaining

shopoholic series - just read the 1st one, they are fairly similar

Celia Ahearn (books) to be avoided AT ALL COSTS, isn't she married to the good looking one in Westlife?

My MIL owns all the Shopaholic books, and I tend to masochistically power through one whenever we stay.

They are atrocious! I find them painful to read - the heroine is such a bland, mainstream, shallow girlie who always needs rescuing in some way by her cardboard cut out millionaire husband.

SO SO BAD. Stay away!

Anne Tyler and Anne Fine great. David Sedaris hilarious is you want funny.

fairy one? i read the stoopid love notes one.

didn't read the gift & didn't finish the fairy one either, excpet to whizz through & confirm my worst suspicions.

i need to go read some chuck to calm me down

oh. is that not the plot of kinsella's latst? hated the lecture at the end of The Gift.

ahearn not even vausous derivative twaddle, it's more like - wouldn't it be great if fairies really did exist? life would be so happy & we'd all go skipping though the daisies.
makes little house on the prairie seem like x-rated violence in comparison.

so, yes, a tad twee.

'girl' - she's meant tobe in her late 20s or 30s, looks about 40, has the role of a 12 year old.

and yes, uttely believebale storyline of woman who suffers an injury leaving her with total amnesia from bfore the accident, but other wise your normal gorgeous, successful, glamorous person with nothing unusual about he, so loads of bloke still fancy her.

American TV sitcom about a girl with amnesia. I think it is on Living or Virgin or one of those.

What is Samatha Who? Now I feel a bit stupid.

She is also responsible for "Samantha Who?" in case you didn't know. I think she is a "producer".

Wickham became Kinsella for commercial reasons. It happens a lot, although it's not always as high-profile. Many writers go through different names because it is easier to launch a "new" name than one who has had disappointing sales.

e.g. Carla Banks is Danuta Reah, Daisy Jordan is Lynne-barrett Lee, etc.

ooooh. Didn't realised Kinsella was Madelaine Wickham. Whats
's that about? I really liked Judy Astley for a while.

I loathe C Ahern (she's about 20? Bertie Ahern's daughter?) - started a thread a while ago about The Gift and how trite it was Shopaholic by Kinsella v good, but her other stuff a bit pants and twee. Really like Anne Tyler and Anne Fine for slightly less chicklit stuff.

DW has read both of these. I've glanced at them.

Kinsella used to be Madeleine Wickham and had "literary" style books with poncy pastel covers and pictures on inside flap of her with flowing tresses, simpering smile and boastful biog about her travelling the world as a musician.

Ahern seems like vacuous derivative twaddle from what I have seen of it. I have no idea how this photogenic daughter of a famous front-rank Irish politician ever managed to get published...have you??

now i do like anita shreve, and have just started reading 'crow lake' by mary lawson, who reminds me of shreve's style.

not witty, but easy to read. 'typical' of good american writing - simple, straightforward style, no poncing about with endless metaphors or clever but disruptive vocabulary, but tells a really intriguing (and i fully expect heart wrenching) story. although i think i can see what's coming, it's well enough written that i need to read on.

a little like arundhati roy's 'the god of small things' but not so harrowing

ps, love jenny eclair on tv, never read. love chuck pala thingy, so perhaps we have similar tastes

suzy - cecilia is just about the complete antithesis of chuck.

badly written, overly sentimental drivel for women who still want to wear frilly pink dresses & skip around in meadows. hugely predictable from page one, contradictions and errors in the writing, overblown, endless and needless description, cliched and stereotyped throughout.
apart from that, you may like it?

I'm with kickassangel, Cecelia Ahearn books are awful. Sorry, but that's my opinion. I have read one which was about an imasginary friend which I finished but wasn't overly impressed with. Then I tried to read "Thanks for the memories" and it was so awful that I had to put it down it was all just so incredibly unlikely, even for fiction it was unlikely.

Sophie Kinsella though I love, shopaholic books are good, I didn't know that there was a film coming out must keep an eye out for that.