Sometimes, you want to simply take your brain out of your head and set it lovingly down in a nearby jar filled with nurturing fluid, and just... rest.

The key however, is then not reading something that will scorch the insides of your head far too much for your brain to feel welcomed back.

Ding Dong (I have already forgotten the main character's name) is not Bridget Jones. The book promo wants to be rilly rilly clear about how not Bridget Jones she is, while she rings all the changes on Bridget Jones' Greatest Hits, mostly involving underwear, falling over and obsessing about which men are suitable. All at once, for preference.

The thing about Bridget Jones, however, is that you either find her likable or at the very least, redeemable. Ding Dong is neither. She is also not a Mean Girl, per se, because part of being a Mean Girl is being cleverly cutting. But if all you do is direct mean comments at your so-called close friends, that's just plain mean. For instance, one of her good friends shows up to lunch with a busted nose, having "walked into a door", and Ding Dong's reaction is to put a piece of beetroot on her own nose and ask, "Who am I, then? Eh?"

That is something you are taught not to do when you are seven. Ding Dong, however, skipped that lesson. She is like that the whole entire book.

I was supposed to care that Ding Dong's dad died, because that is sad, but honestly, she cared less than I did, so it felt like just one more unfair ask among many. I did not, ultimately, care about either. There are a lot of things that happen in the book where you hope that this, yes this will be the thing that gets Ding Dong to change her ways. Finally!

No dice. She learns nothing. She fails to grow. She continues to be horrible.

My poor brain, still paddling softly about in its jar somewhere, deserves a better bath, and now I am off to find one.

I really liked this book. I'd read reviews comparing it to Bridget Jones' Diary and thought it would be a nice palate cleanser after my recent spate of serious reads. It was much better! The story follows a 20-something in London working at a women's magazine and her circle of friends as they deal with all kinds of things, from getting evicted to abuse to a parent's death. This book somehow managed to be snarky and fluffy while still dealing with serious issues in a non-cliched manner. I'll be looking for more titles by Anna Maxted in the future.

I think I expected run of the mill sappy chick lit. This was something a bit better. Will definitely continue to read Anna Maxted's books.

I really enjoyed this book. From the beginning I was worried it was another Bridget jones. One more of the same book I had already read- but it turned into more really enjoyable storylines and had a really great voice. Course, I lent it to my mom and she skimmed it and hated it. So. Hmm.

I read this one a while ago so its hard for me to recall anything specifically that I liked or disliked about it.

Overall its a good chick-lit read. Anna Maxted always seemed a little bit heavier in subject matter and problems for her characters than say...Kinsella, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

This is my favorite book of all time

Along the same vein as the Shopaholic books, though not as dear to me. I remember liking this and laughing a lot. You've got to indulge in some chick-lit every once in a while.

I read this in between Halloween reads last week and just forgot to update and publish a review. " I used to really love Anna Maxted. She was one of my go to chick lit authors. Then she disappeared and I fell into like/love with other authors. I think that "Running in Heels" was interesting though on a re-read I realized how problematic it was. The same thing happened with "Getting Over It." It used to be a favorite, but I realized that the main character (Helen) is a jerk to her friends and to people she dates. Without realizing it, she's the female version of her jerk of a father. There is no scales falling from her eyes side of the road moment though. Instead there are just a bunch of things that happen and then the book limps off to a happish ending.

Helen Bradshaw is in a dead endish kind of job (she's an assistant to a tyrant) and has two really good friends (Lizzy and Tina) and an okayish relationship with her parents. When her mother calls and tells her that her father is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack, both women are left stunned when he passes away. For Helen, her father was always there. She tries her best to be there for her mother, grandmother, all while dating and dealing with her cat Fatboy. She makes a connection with a vet named Tom the day of her father's funeral, and then due to circumstances keeps coming back to him while she tries to grow up.

Helen is in her late twenties and self absorbed. I realized on re-read she's also selfish as hell too. She breaks up with a boyfriend who is a prat (Jasper) and then admits she still wants him hanging around cause of her not being able to stand on her own two feet. And then she gets involved with her roommate Marcus and blows off Tom cause Marcus commands her to. When that blows up she drifts back over to Tom and honestly I was sick of reading her bouncing from guy to guy since she wanted them to fix everything wrong in her life. I just realized she's no better than her mother who needed her father to tell her what to do as well.

When Helen finds out something about her close friend, she gets mad when another friend doesn't believe it (Helen tells it to her in a gossipy I head way) and then she doesn't do much but call that friend and try to force her to break up with him. It just felt like a weird side plot to put in this book. It didn't help that then the friend seemed to maybe getting pushed into another relationship after the disastrous one and I really didn't understand what the heck was going on.

Helen's friends have some backstory to them, but we don't get to spend much time with them. Unless Helen is mocking them to the readers or to their face, she doesn't seem to give a good crap about them. Same issue with the men in her life. I just realize that I started to find her unpleasant and I was only halfway through the book.

The writing is okay, there is a lot of banter, but none of it really made me think much besides the fact most of the people except for Tom, Izzie, and Tina sucked.

The flow was awful though. I am still confused about the timeline, but it appears to be a year in Helen's life showing the effects of her father's death on her and their family.

The ending eh. It was a happy ending, just not much of one I thought.