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Original poster

Katie Fforde....good grief

29 replies

MrsDickens · 08/06/2010 19:34

Have just got back from my hols in which I ended up ransacking the small library of books left behind, having finished all the ones I took with me (cue major panic as I have to have something to read at all times). And Lordy, how bad was Katie Fforde's 'Love Letters'? Quite gobsmacked, really. Anyone else read it? What did you think?

It's not usually my cup of tea but I'm not averse to chicklit if there's nothing else on offer - will happily devour most things tbh, as a print junkie - but gosh, it was tedious. If you're going to write chicklit, at least do it well, I say.

That's all I have to say, really!

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 08/06/2010 21:10

Cards on the table, I know Katie and she is a lovely person. But her books are not my cuppa. DW has read a few of them, and says basically the same as some of you - that her characters are unconvincing, especially her younger women, and that she just tweaks the same scenario for each book!

Original poster
MrsDickens · 08/06/2010 21:04

Yep, her latest - though I think there's another ready to come out. I believe (so my mum tells me) she basically churns out one a year. But I was just at her characters - cardboard cut-out doesn't go far enough. The heroine of this one was 26, living like some sort of nun (the rather queasy premise of the plot was that she was 'a virgin' - all done very coyly but in a way that seemed rather prurient too), working for a small bookshop, didn't seem to have any social life, and kept apologising for how useless she was at any normal activity. This is 2010, FFS - can't we have a woman who's not so appallingly wet?

OK, I realise it's a chicklit staple to have stupid girly protagonists, but really.....it's quite a contrast to the L-Shaped Room (have been reading thread on that) in which the heroine does have to tackle some fairly gritty things - and that was written what, 40 years ago? Depressing, really....

OP posts:
tillyfernackerpants · 08/06/2010 20:30

I think Love Letters is her latest. I've enjoyed a couple of hers but tbh, they're all the same. Just changes the character & the setting, that's all!!

5Foot5 · 08/06/2010 20:03

Is that her latest one?

I have to confess I have read most of her stuff and find them a nice easy read, if a bit predictable. But I can't say I recognise 'Love Letters'.

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