The Good Life by Jodie Beau
The Good Life
Synopsis:
Twenty-two year old Roxie Golightly is a fun and carefree spirit...until she marries a wealthy man and her role as a trophy wife leaves her isolated in a condo with an ironing board and an obsessive desire to impress people.
When her marriage ends after seven years, Roxie's identity is buried under layers of furniture polish and piles of designer shoes. She doubts she can ever be the person she once was.
But when Roxie's charmed life is turned upside down, her best-friend creates The Good Life List to help turn it back around. The instructions are simple: Complete each task on the Good Life List by the end of the summer.
With list in hand and the help of a sexy and charismatic guy from her past, Roxie is only a few check marks away from living the good life, even if it means getting thrown out of a bar or skinny-dipping in the neighbor's pool at 3am.
Review:
After reading Jodie Beau's short in the Shiver anthology and loving it I went right out to pick up The Good Life. I finally had time to read it and it was a pretty good read. Roxie did start to get on my nerves by the end, but I still enjoyed the book.
Oh Roxie whatever shall we do with you? She is one of those ladies who wants everything to be perfect at all times. She is kind of a control freak planner and she gets so wrapped up in what other people think and trying to make everything appear perfect she doesn't notice that she isn't even happy. She thinks of her life as a movie. There are no re-takes in her life though, so it must be perfect on the first try. After a few not so perfect moments, like her first kiss which was hilarious, she decides everything from there on out will be film worthy on the first try. It is one of those impossible tasks. She has this plan of how and when things should happen and it doesn't even matter if it makes sense at the time. She marries this guy she doesn't really seem to love and ends up living this life that doesn't even make her happy. She is so wrapped up in what other people think she changes who she is. She stayed with her soon to be husband at first because he was moving to New York City and that was her dream so win win win. He was going to make it big there, and once he did Roxie just kind of lost herself. When things fall apart she is not even that upset that she is losing her husband, but more upset that her perfect movie is not so perfect now. She is one of those people that I will never understand. I love my imperfect moments. Some of her early ones are so hilarious and I loved reading them. Perfect is boring, embrace those imperfections! They make life more fun.
So once her perfect world falls apart she decides to head back home and live with her brother and her brothers bff. Her bff gives her a "Good Life List" of things to do this summer to find who she is again. Things to do that will make her open her world a little and let some fun back in. Things that will hopefully help her not be so plan focused and just live. It is a lot easier for Roxie to go with the list and accomplish all the items on it than I had thought it would be. Now I must say the list is full of things that I would do, and many that there is no way I am doing them. They are fun regardless and Roxie really embraces this list with gusto.
Now along the way there is a new guy. Or not so new. One of those guys who if they would have just talked and told each other how they really felt maybe Roxie wouldn't have turned into a rich, unhappy housewife in New York. It was interesting to see how their relationship evolved and see what happened in the past. I felt back for Jake, I really did. Roxie was so afraid of trying and having it fail that she would just rather not live in some circumstances. This is where she started to annoy me. I was just like dude, you are doing so well being happy and free, so why are you being so stupid about this?!? You are coming up with stupid reasons for not doing this, reasons that even once they have been debunked you still cling to. Come on Roxie! Get with it!
Jake is just so sweet and I loved him. When you see things from Jake's point of view, when he tells Roxie how he felt or what he thought at times, it is just made me love him even more and feel bad for him at the same time. Roxie for all of her growing is still afraid of getting something wrong. I loved him so much, but Roxie did get a bit annoying with her holding fast to things that she thinks that aren't really true. She just gets so ridiculous and you just want to shake her and be like wake up and see what is right in front of your face!! Still I loved them together. They were hot and fun and just...I am so glad everything works out in the end. They really are great together and Jake, Jake is just amazing.
Now I see that the next book is the story of the summer of Roxie and Jake. I kind of want to read it, but since you know how it ends I'm afraid I might end up hating Roxie. I mean she gives up Jake to go back to school and never returns to him. I don't know. I know it's not all her fault, but...We shall see. This book was a good read, the beginning was pretty humorous, and even though I wanted to hurt Roxie at times for being so dense with Jake I still enjoyed the book.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Review:
After reading Jodie Beau's short in the Shiver anthology and loving it I went right out to pick up The Good Life. I finally had time to read it and it was a pretty good read. Roxie did start to get on my nerves by the end, but I still enjoyed the book.
Oh Roxie whatever shall we do with you? She is one of those ladies who wants everything to be perfect at all times. She is kind of a control freak planner and she gets so wrapped up in what other people think and trying to make everything appear perfect she doesn't notice that she isn't even happy. She thinks of her life as a movie. There are no re-takes in her life though, so it must be perfect on the first try. After a few not so perfect moments, like her first kiss which was hilarious, she decides everything from there on out will be film worthy on the first try. It is one of those impossible tasks. She has this plan of how and when things should happen and it doesn't even matter if it makes sense at the time. She marries this guy she doesn't really seem to love and ends up living this life that doesn't even make her happy. She is so wrapped up in what other people think she changes who she is. She stayed with her soon to be husband at first because he was moving to New York City and that was her dream so win win win. He was going to make it big there, and once he did Roxie just kind of lost herself. When things fall apart she is not even that upset that she is losing her husband, but more upset that her perfect movie is not so perfect now. She is one of those people that I will never understand. I love my imperfect moments. Some of her early ones are so hilarious and I loved reading them. Perfect is boring, embrace those imperfections! They make life more fun.
So once her perfect world falls apart she decides to head back home and live with her brother and her brothers bff. Her bff gives her a "Good Life List" of things to do this summer to find who she is again. Things to do that will make her open her world a little and let some fun back in. Things that will hopefully help her not be so plan focused and just live. It is a lot easier for Roxie to go with the list and accomplish all the items on it than I had thought it would be. Now I must say the list is full of things that I would do, and many that there is no way I am doing them. They are fun regardless and Roxie really embraces this list with gusto.
Now along the way there is a new guy. Or not so new. One of those guys who if they would have just talked and told each other how they really felt maybe Roxie wouldn't have turned into a rich, unhappy housewife in New York. It was interesting to see how their relationship evolved and see what happened in the past. I felt back for Jake, I really did. Roxie was so afraid of trying and having it fail that she would just rather not live in some circumstances. This is where she started to annoy me. I was just like dude, you are doing so well being happy and free, so why are you being so stupid about this?!? You are coming up with stupid reasons for not doing this, reasons that even once they have been debunked you still cling to. Come on Roxie! Get with it!
Jake is just so sweet and I loved him. When you see things from Jake's point of view, when he tells Roxie how he felt or what he thought at times, it is just made me love him even more and feel bad for him at the same time. Roxie for all of her growing is still afraid of getting something wrong. I loved him so much, but Roxie did get a bit annoying with her holding fast to things that she thinks that aren't really true. She just gets so ridiculous and you just want to shake her and be like wake up and see what is right in front of your face!! Still I loved them together. They were hot and fun and just...I am so glad everything works out in the end. They really are great together and Jake, Jake is just amazing.
Now I see that the next book is the story of the summer of Roxie and Jake. I kind of want to read it, but since you know how it ends I'm afraid I might end up hating Roxie. I mean she gives up Jake to go back to school and never returns to him. I don't know. I know it's not all her fault, but...We shall see. This book was a good read, the beginning was pretty humorous, and even though I wanted to hurt Roxie at times for being so dense with Jake I still enjoyed the book.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Comments
Post a Comment