Wednesday 15 January 2014

Review: A Beginner's Guide To Salad by Jennifer Joyce

Ruth loves nothing more than curling up in front of the telly with a family-sized bar of chocolate. She doesn’t do diets and she certainly doesn’t do exercise. But all that changes when she’s invited to her school reunion.


Bullied at school for being overweight, Ruth’s first reaction is to rip the invitation into a million pieces. But then Ruth hatches a plan. She’ll lose the weight and arrive at the reunion looking gorgeous and glamorous, leaving her old classmates in awe. Especially her former crush, Zack O’Connell.



With the help of her friends and a new, unbelievably hot colleague, Ruth begins her transformation. With six months until the reunion, losing weight will be a piece of cake, right?


Review: I was lucky enough to receive a review copy of this gem of a debut novel and I am so glad I was given the chance to read this as I might not have discovered it otherwise! I was expecting a story about a woman's battle to loose weight, the feelings and emotions associated with this and the highs and lows we feel when we are dieting, especially for an occasion! What I got was a whole lot more, I actually found It really hard to put this book down and found myself wanting more when I finished it. 

The character of Ruth was a lot happier than I expected her to be and reminded me of myself, dressing in bright colours and fabulous shoes, therefore I felt an instant connection with her. I didn't like the fact that she was dieting to look good for someone who had made her life so miserable in the past. If she had just been dieting for the reunion, i would've had more respect for her. I loved her relationship with her brother and his friends her roommate. Their relationship is unlike those you'd find in most books and so I really enjoyed this aspect of the novel. The other character I really liked was Ruth's sort of love interest. There were some really funny moments where this guy was involved, I found myself laughing out loud. There were also some reality touching moments too, when we found of that there was more to him than meets the eye. 

The dieting in this book is almost more of a secondary storyline, this being a romantic comedy,the romance and funny moments kind of take over. I would've liked to have seen Ruth sticking to some of the diets for a bit longer, I thought there might have been other humourous moments when she was only eating salad, or gorging herself on meat and cheese on the Atkins diet. This is my only criticism of this book really thougg. It's a super fun read with plenty of substance, humour and romance and perfect reading for when you begin a January diet of your own. I can wait to see more from this author!

Jennifer will be dropping by next Sunday when she has a fabulous guest post for us, so keep your eyes peeled for that one next week!  

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