Reinventing Mona by Jennifer Coburn

From the publisher's blurb you could be led to believe that this is a humourous book.  Sadly, it really isn't.  There are attempts at an almost black kind of humour here but they really don't work.  In fact I spent more time wincing than producing a smirk which is all I really expect a humourous book to do for me.  If you want genuine funny read Susan E Paul.

The main character, Mona, certainly lives up to her name.  She moans - a lot.  This is dressed up as being in touch with her inner self or her feelings or some such.  In reality it is just moaning - she doesn't know how to "be" in a modern world because of her hippy upbringing removed from all modern conveniences.  Although nearly 30 and having spent the last 15 years living with her outrageously wealthy Grandmother she still doesn't have a handle on life because of her upbringing.  I call hooey.

Even worse her pursuit of her CPA is nothing less than stalkerish but this is seen to be acceptable because she's female and clueless.  The employing of "The Dog" is completely laughable and her constant turning to a local theatre troupe to provide scenarios for her dates just tips the whole thing in to farce.  I'm not after realism in this genre because who wants to read about the perfect guy's foibles and filthy habits (we all have them) but I do expect there to be some grounding in the realism of how people actually are.  This certainly has none of that.

The best I can say about this book is that it passed the time and took little to no brain power to read.  The characters are all pretty much either unlikeable (the best friend who's a therapist you would have ditched long ago even if it left you friendless - who needs that negativity in your life?), preposterous or barely fill a sentence with their fictional personality.

This got 2 Stars instead of 1 because there is at least an attempt of a plot here.  Unfortunately the skeleton of this can be seen through the text so you know after only 3 or 4 chapters more or less how things will unfold.  At least the author tried to make one rather than meandering along with no real idea how to get from Point A to Point B.