The Seven Year Bitch by Jennifer Belle

Isolde Brilliant is married with a son.  She’s unhappy in her marriage but she and her husband have decided that they can’t afford a divorce.  As for plot – that’s pretty much all there is.  And usually in chick lit that’s enough, but somehow it just didn’t work all that great this time.

There were several things that annoyed me about this book.  First of all, Isolde loses her job right at the beginning of the book and for the three years that the book covers she doesn’t get another one.  Her husband has started a publishing company out of there apartment and you get the impression that he’s not all that successful.  But despite the fact that both parents spend the majority of their days at home, they still hire a nanny.  And they own a country home and they spend huge amounts of money on clothing and eating out and fertility treatments for the nanny.  What I want to know is where are they getting all this money from?

Second, Isolde was not at all lovable.  (And maybe that was the point?  After all she is the seven year bitch of the title.)  She was nosy (prying into her nanny’s infertility etc.) and she was a total cow to her husband.  Sometimes he deserved it, but sometimes not.  She was also really whiny.  She thought her life was so awful but it really wasn’t that bad.  And her husband, Russell, wasn’t all that lovable either.  It’s no wonder they both wanted a divorce – they were both complete nut-jobs!

Third, the story had no flow.  It got kind of confusing sometimes because it jumped all over the place.  And the book was divided into three parts that seemed almost arbitrary – there didn’t seem to be any actual meaning to the divisions.

Lastly, (spoiler warning!!) the ending was totally unrealistic.  All of a sudden in the last few pages she decides to start a new business and that she actually is happy with her life and marriage.  It just came out of left field.  It was like the author was trying to follow a formula which said that the main character had to end up happy with her marriage and her career even if it really didn’t fit the rest of the story.

There were a few things I liked about the book though.  It was an easy read and quick, even though it was over 300 hundred pages long.  It was also very funny – there were some parts where I laughed out loud.   And besides the jumpy randomness of the story, I actually liked the writing.  It was perfect for the genre.  I actually think this book could have been quite good with just a little editing to improve the flow and tone down Isolde’s whining (and maybe a rewrite of the ending!).  Some of the other things that bothered me could be forgiven if Isolde had been more likable.