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Now, I've quite like Marian Keyes as a person when I've seen her on telly, I quite enjoyed 'Rachel's Holiday' when I read it a good few years ago, and I don't mind the odd book in the chick-lit/lad-lit genre. This, alas, was a little disappointing and more of a two and a half than a three and a half. This is a clunky opening paragraph, isn't it?

The book follows the lives of three or four (or more) young women living in Dublin, centred around a women's magazine. There's lots of romance, bitching, glamour. There are some serous points made about the family/career balance, trust and relationships, and even stuff about clinical depression. Despite all this, I just found it all a bit long and relentless with the repetition of little jokey comments that could be reduced to "..ooh, aren't men rubbish!.." followed by "..ooh, but aren't we daft girls for loving them despite this!.." for 550 pages. It was quite entertaining and enjoyable, but I would've preferred to be more amused by something around half the length. Perhaps because most of the characters are in the end a bit unpleasant, the story could've done with losing a few of them.