Thursday 3 July 2014

Don't Tell The Boss - Review

Don't Tell The Boss
Anna Bell
Quercus 19/06/14 paperback
7/10
Competition win (Quercus)

I was very excited to win @thebookbar's twitter competition from Quercus to win a copy of Don't Tell the Boss by Anna Bell. They asked for what we definitely would not tell our boss. On that particular day, everyone in my office was out in meetings, so I worked from home. I mentioned (at 2pm on a Thursday) that I was working from home and still in my pajamas. My slovenliness was rewarded with a jiffy bag in the post. Thanks Quercus!

Don't Tell the Boss is the third in the series of 'Don't Tell' books, her first was
Don't Tell Penny, a tale of engagements. Her second is: Don't Tell the Groom in which Penny is getting married, and while muddled up in the mania of wedding planning, dreams of a Vera Wang wedding dress. The ensuing adventures mean planning a wedding in secret and on a shoestring budget. Book four's title has already been revealed as Don't Tell the Brides. Similar to Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic novels I'm hoping for book five to be, Don't Tell the Baby Sitter.

Now, I have not actually read Don't Tell the Groom but the third book neatly retells the story so that the reader doesn't feel left out. The telling of the first and second book is triggered at believable moments as if the characters are genuinely remembering what happened last year.  But Don't Tell the Boss can stand very well on it's own as a single piece, and I wouldn't say that you needed to read the 1st two in order to enjoy the third. This has been my first introduction to chick lit and I think that it was a good first book. While an easy read, the story is realistic, a reflection on the real life juggling act that we all have to put up with everyday.

As an aspiring Editorial Assistant, I was a little disappointed to see that there were some type setting errors which had slipped through the net. I noticed some clumsy grammar, and some very clunky sentences (mainly due to the exotic misuse of commas). There were also some contractions and missed spaces eg: 'Instead,they' rather than 'instead, they' which lead to a comma at the start of the line. There were also some fairly ugly instances of stacking, where words at the start or end of each line end up all being the same on top of each other. Hopefully though, most people won't notice those tiny details. That is just what my eye is trained for.

I love Penny, as a blogger, she is immediately close to my heart.  I'd recommend it for anyone planning a wedding, who has plenty of time. It is a good holiday read, perfect for the beach, maybe a pre-wedding get away.  I can probably guess that anxious girlfriends should NOT read Don't Tell Penny, as I can imagine the obsessive behavior sparking. Don't Tell the Boss seems to be very grounded though, perhaps because of the distinctly grown-up and career focused narrative. Every chapter (or most of them anyway) is headed with one of the character's blog posts about budget wedding ideas, short and sweet and and inspiration for my own.

Buy a copy of Don't Tell The Boss from Quercus here.


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