(orion, $36.99)Chloe Zhivago is 43 and wondering if this is it. Her teenage children are ungrateful, her au pair is eating all the exotic fruit, her psychotherapy patients are driving her crazy and her husband is so irritating, it’s a miracle she doesn’t push him off the roof of their Queen’s Park house on page one.
If the Ginger hid the kettle in the washing machine and spent all day writing outraged letters about parking fines, he wouldn’t make it past morning tea. So when Chloe meets a handsome, flirtatious Russian at a party, she gives him her phone number; when he texts her, she answers; when he asks to meet her, she agrees; and so on. (It’s quite a big “so on”.)
Finally, Chloe has found some excitement, the passion she has been craving – but will it solve her problems or just add to them? I guess this is the thing any 43-year-old with ungrateful kids and an annoying husband has to consider when being chased by a spunky Russian. Is the grass really greener on the either side of the fence? or is it just a different shade of green, so it looks that way?
Unlike Dr Zhivago, ors Zhivago is probably not destined to become a classic – in a cast of wonderful characters, there are a few we could do without or who stretch the imagination a bit too far. Plus there are a couple of swear words that jar (you’ll know them when you see them).
However, this is otherwise a very modern and apt tale that will definitely ring warning bells with those who already have it all but still want more. And for once, we see a woman lose her marbles to a midlife crisis. Chloe doesn’t buy a Harley Davidson and start wearing medallions on her chest but she does pretty much everything else men do in the same situation. And we sympathise with her. Mr do we? Chick-lit for grown-ups.
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