Millie's Fling by Jill Mansel
I like it. It is a chick lit book and doesn't pretend to be something else: it's light, funny, and entertaining.
I love the characters, and although Millie is the heroine, the supporting figures are also given a chance to shine. When they interact with Millie, they are not vague and hiding in the shadow, they have their distinct personalities and managed to be as engaging as Millie, sometimes even more so.
Am not happy about Lucas' portrayal. I mean, although he was just a supporting character, it seems that he's only used as an easy fix for most conflict in the book. **Spoiler Alert** He stumbled across Hugh and Millie and gave a not so subtle and yet "inspiring speech" to encourage Hugh to do the right thing. He offered Nat and Millie jobs and solved their employment problems, He "cured" Hester's obsession with him in a very selfless and almost degrading way for him, and he solved any potential romantic conflict between Nat and Hester by telling the truth to Nat. He even had an indirect influence on exposing Giles' cheating way, and he has a spot on intuition about Colin's preference!
It's like, Lucas is a reluctant hero disguised as a womanizing, self-centred man who's not given a chance to have his own story told. Maybe the author didn't mean it that way, maybe, while the focus was about Millie (it IS Millie's fling after all), the distractions was supposed to revolved around Hugh, Orla, Hester, and Nat.
Only for me, the distraction was Lucas. Or to be more exact, the injustice portrayal of Lucas' character. Give the guy a chance! He's not as bad if he does all those noble thing, if he does the right thing and not chose the easy way out (by refusing Hester's advance in the pool, by telling Nat the truth).
Then I remembered that it is a Chick lit. It's all about Millie's fling and not about a conflicted and elusive supporting figure in Lucas character.
Hm, I wonder if Jill Mansel would write a story with Lucas as the hero? I'd definitely buy that one!
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