The First Affair

"Oh my God Jamie! Being the President's girlfriend doesn't make you a grown-up - it makes him a child."

Jamie McAlister has problems. She's a recent college grad in a down economy with a train-wreck of a family. Also? She's got a pretty serious case of immaturity and is almost too naive to live. 

Jamie manages to land an unpaid internship at the White House along with a free luxury apartment (belonging to the parent of a friend) but she's still not happy. Because she deserves more. Because she's earned it somehow. By existing, I guess. She, almost by accident, finds herself having an affair with the President of the United States a la Monica Lewinsky and the book details the affair itself and the fallout when it's discovered.

I wanted to like The First Affair so much. I loved The Nanny Diaries and have always thought the writing team of Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus was great but this book just left me disappointed. 

I don't know if it was the blurriness of the main character or if it was just the fact that the whole book read like weird real-life fanfic but it just didn't work for me. Jamie never became a real person for me. Even though the story is a first-person narrative, her personality just never quite came through. She's just sort of there. Vacuous and insecure, floating through life passively. I could never quite get a sense of her beyond that I didn't like her.

As for the "weird real-life fanfic" observation... to be fair, that may be on me. This might be a fantastic book for anyone who doesn't remember the whole sordid Clinton-Lewinsky ordeal of the late nineties. For those of us who can remember the scandal though? This book is like an almost-but-not-quite retelling of that story with a few details changed - Jaime doesn't come from a wealthy family and it's a coat that provides the DNA evidence, not a blue dress from the GAP. 

I will say that the last quarter of the book was better than the rest. The pace picked up from its previous plodding, repetitive tone and the drama increased once the affair was leaked. There were still moments of frustration as Jamie proved herself to be dumber than dumb at times but there were also stand up and cheer moments, like when Jamie's horrible, narcissistic older sister Erica piped up with the quote I opened this review with. I actually said out loud as I read that line, "Thank you!"

Pink Slip

Pink Slip is an older book (published in 1999) by Rita Ciresi that I'm embarrassed to admit I forgot about. I picked it up from my local library on a whim and was a full chapter in before I realized I knew these characters, I knew this story. Full disclosure - I even used to own this book and it somehow made its way into a donation bin along with most of my other books in one of my Great Purges several years ago.

Don't mistake my donating the book to mean it's bad. It's not. It's a solid read and now that I've rediscovered it (and learned that a sequel was written!) I'm regretting letting it out of my hands.

Pink Slip tells the story of Lisa (Lise) Diodetto a twenty-five year old woman on the verge of becoming... something. Whole maybe? An adult, certainly. She's a first-generation Italian-American who hates her parents and has happily escaped her New Haven upbringing only to find herself back in the suburbs when life in NYC doesn't quite work out how she'd hoped.

The story begins with Lise starting a new job as an assistant manager in the Editorial department of Boorman Pharmaceuticals. She quickly begins an affair with her boss which is a bad idea for all of the obvious reasons and the story gives a realistic and sometimes funny view into the ups and downs of their relationship and all of its challenges.

Despite the pink cover and the silly tagline "Lisa's mother wants her to get married so badly anything in pants will do" this book is not your typical chick lit. There are frank discussions about serious issues and the plot isn't all silly misunderstandings and madcap shopping trips. Lise comes off as a real person with real flaws and personality. Eben Strauss, the love interest, is a little more wooden. He never quite makes it off the page for me, but the story is so Lise-focused that this doesn't really matter as much as it seems like it should. This is a love story that's more about learning to accept a happily ever after, warts and all, than it is about the romance. There aren't a lot of hearts and flowers here, and that's a good thing.

I can't believe I let this one get away from me once. Maybe I needed to read it in my 30s vs. my 20s to really appreciate it. I'm looking forward to tracking down the sequel, Remind Me Again Why I Married You and reading it next.