Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys

by Eric Garcia

Cassandra French 29 has three handsome young men chained to cots in her basement. They're enrolled in her Finishing School For Boys. Cassie has spent years in the dating hell that is Los Angeles, finding endless disappointment. Jason Kelly, major heart-throb, tries to seduce Cassie into fudging a contract. That's no way to treat a lady -- and Cassie has just the cure.

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Humor

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2004

About the author

Eric Garcia grew up in Miami, Florida, and attended Cornell University and the University of Southern California, where he majored in creative writing and film. He lives outside Los Angeles with his wife, daughter, and dachshund. He is also developing a series for the Sci Fi channel based on the Rex novels.

Reviews

[Davida Chazan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if women could find a way to teach men how to behave properly? Well, Eric Garcia (yes, a man) came up with one idea, and he wrote about it long before the #MeToo movement. This novel has been called “Sex and the City meets Misery,” as well as a “brilliantly twisted take on chick lit,” and you can see what I think of it in my review here. https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2013/12/1...

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, the ending somewhat redeemed the book. I say somewhat but it's still a fair to middling read in my opinion. You lose nothing if you don't pick this up. The bad guys win, the idiot is punished, and no one learns a lesson.

[Katy]

My penance... Or I guess punishment...
Mitch says, "If you're gonna go psycho over Opal, might as well take it to its logical conclusion."

[Shauna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like a lesser person for having read what I did.

[Randi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure what to say about this book. Entertaining, twisted, and different, for sure.

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only thing saving this novel is its actually surprisingly good writing quality. If you can forgive the unforgivable, you might enjoy this book.
I can't.
I'm fairly proud of my suspension of disbelief--as someone who tries to be completely pragmatic in most aspects of my life, I try to suspend that with works of fiction as best I can. However, when your narrator is a complete psychopath who suffers from zero repercussions for kidnapping, abuse, and murder... I don't think I have to justify myself. I couldn't stand this novel.
Let me be clear when I say that I don't think Eric Garcia is a bad writer: the fact that I managed to finish this nightmare of a novel is proof enough of that. But this concept, characterization, storyline, and execution didn't work for me in any sense of the words. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody with the exception of using it as an example to prove that anything can get published if you try hard enough.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

My friend made me read this book since she wanted someone else to suffer and have someone to discuss the absolute whacked stuff that happens in this book. I will admit that the book is well written, but I did not like any characters in the book and was completely unsatisfied with the ending. Cassandra French isn't an anti-chick heroine but a freaking nut case who deserves to be put away for life. She hears her freaking dead dad in her head and doesn't think it's weird at all. Come on! Cassandra is annoying, her friends are annoying, and there are no basements in Southern California to keep any "boys" in!

[Caroline David · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the strangest books I've ever read. It was about a woman who kidnapped grown adult men to make them better human beings by teaching them sympathy and style. It was bizarre and I didn't like the ending. The main character is an absolute sociopath. This would be good for those who like that kind of story line but I expected something totally different.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny! The fact that this man created this woman and did so with such a wit is fantastic. Of course it makes you think about his past dating life a little bit, what has he experienced to create these boys and the need to fix them. I hope he's working on a sequel.

[Jenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the few books I put down before finishing. It had promise, but when I accidentally skipped ahead and saw a glimpse of the ending, I _hated_ it. I'm sorry I spent any time reading this- it was traded in to the used book shop.

[Jess Van Dyne-Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was spectacularly awful - the best comparison I can make is if one of Sophie Kinsella's heroines (y'know, the Shopaholic series author) snapped and decided to start chaining people in her basement.

With lots of chat about lunches and 'do these boots make my ass look fat?'

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Technically I didn't finish reading this one. The characters where unlikable, the series of events far fetched and without consequence for horrible actions. I just now realized a man wrote this... no wonder I found the female narrator so unrealistic.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a fever and needed something to distract me. It was so terrible I even still remember the plot. gross.

[Dest · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is too stupid and boring to finish.

[Mary Jane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I regret buying this book. It wasn't worth my $1.99.

[Sue Kozlowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bad. Only read 1/2. Cassandra lives in LA and keeps men in the basement and trains them???

[Adrianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyable and amusing. all men should go through this finishing school. :)

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book, a little crazy with lots of offbeat humor.

[Joanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite funny premise - they should make a movie! I enjoyed it til the end with laughs throughout.

[Claudia Sorsby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this ages ago, when it first came out, and I clearly need to re-read it because I don't remember it well enough—but I remember loving the premise, and laughing a lot.

I'm actually intrigued by seeing quite a few one-star reviews here, with complaints that simply didn't occur to me. Maybe my sense of humor is darker than I'd realized....

[Poornima · Rating 2 out of 5]

A chick-flick type novel with a story that can only happen in fiction. It seems to have been made into a tv series or some such. Read if you are into girly novels. I am not, actually! but I generally finish what I have begun reading. Writing style is decent - ok for one-time read. Such kind of no-brainer books offer a break from those that tax your brain cells.

[Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. It is hard to have a lot of sympathy for the main character due to her actions and another reviewer put it perfectly when they commented that “No one learns a lesson.”

[Lesley Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was on the high side of okay. It's fiction so you can't really blame it for not being believable. And there are some humorous parts to it. If you want to psychoanalyze it, it's interesting to see what a male author believes women want from men.

[Luna Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am actually unsure of what to say about this book.
It could be funny. But it was also strange and... well. It was something else to say the least.
Some parts were hard to get through, other parts were good.
Definitely not a book for everybody.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, a bit too bizarre at times, but I found this book hysterical.

[Yvette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depends what your looking for, outlandish and funny. Plenty of imagination in this one. Light hearted read.

[Patrick Elsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it’s because it took so long to track this book down but it was insanely disappointing. The TV show got the premise of the book a lot better.

[Marley Gans · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was so funny and witty. I’m a sucker for good references and there was a lot of that. There was definetly a lack of depth and thought from all the characters but it was very entertaining

[Joyjesoh · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is very very disturbing.
The main character Cassandra French is definitely insane.

She keeps grown men in her basement, chains them, make them sleep in cots, feeds them morphine so that she can control them. Treat them like puppets waiting to be controlled, in the name on training them to become better men. I have no idea how she brainwashed them into listening to all her commands.
If this is a real life story, she would definitely have been imprisoned.

You can guess I did not finish the book, it is absolutely disturbing.
I'm going to throw this book away after. No one else deserves to read this after.

[Melissa (Vacation Mode) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny satire about a woman who keeps men locked up in her basement to refine them. You have to "get" what the author is going for with this...

Sick of sappy chick lit? Then Eric Garcia has a darkly humorous alternative for you. Cassandra French is twenty-nine and sick of the dating scene. The men she meets are uncouth, immature, and vulgar. As legal counsel for business affairs at a major movie studio, she is paid a lot for minimal work, so that part of her life is just dandy. She also has a great best friend, Claire, with whom she shares all the heartaches and joys of life. Then there are the three men chained to cots in her basement, members of 'Cassandra French's Finishing School For Boys.'

Cassandra met all her 'boys' during horrible dating experiences. She decided that they needed re-training (all under strict lock and key) before they can re-enter the world and relate to women again. With classes on choosing clothing, dating, and behavior modification, Cassandra should have these boys shaped up in about a year. As she says to Claire, 'We change the boys we're with every day, little by little, whether we know it or not. So the Finishing School is just a quicker way of doing all that.'

Things are moving smoothly when Cassandra is introduced to her lifelong crush - movie star Jason Kelly. He quickly puts the moves on her, and she falls for him hook, line and sinker. But then she comes upon information to suggest he's using her to manipulate his movie contract, so ... into the Finishing School he goes! When Jason isn't quite as compliant as her other students, it's time for drastic measures. Can Cassandra cope with the consequences?

I found the novel laugh-out-loud hilarious. But I also believe that one must have a dark sense of humor to appreciate this satirical look at the dating scene - disturbing elements include the fact that Cassandra routinely drugs the boys with morphine to keep them compliant. The plot moves at a steady, quick pace, and Cassandra is a character the reader can't help but love. Her intentions are so pure, that for a while you can almost forget that these men have been kidnapped and held against their will. The inventive conclusion ties everything up cleanly.

Eric Garcia is known for his tongue-firmly-in-cheek humor (i.e. Matchstick Men, the Rex series) and does not disappoint with Cassandra French's Finishing School For Boys. Garcia's creativity shines and his originality provides the reader with an entertaining escape from reality.