Angels

Walsh Family #3

by Marian Keyes

Maggie has always been the white sheep of the Walsh family.Unlike her comically dysfunctional sisters,Rachel(heroine of Rachel's Holiday) and Claire (heroine of Watermelon), she married a decent man who adored her and found herself a solid career. Where Rachel was reckless and Claire dramatic, Maggie settled early for safety. Or so she believed until she discovers that her husband is having an affair and her boss is going to fire her. Suddenly, her perfectly organized life has become a perfect mess.

Devastated, she decides the only thing to do is to run for the shelter of her best friend, Emily, who lives in Los Angeles. There, with the help of sunshine and long days at the beach, she will lick her wounds and decide where life will take her next.But from the moment she lands in the City of Angels, things are not quite what she expected. Overnight, she's mixing with movie stars,even pitching film scripts to studios.Most unexpectedly of all,she finds that just because her marriage is over,it doesn't mean her life is. In the end neither the City of Angels nor Maggie Walsh will ever be the same again.

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

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Marian Keyes (born 10 September 1963) is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for her work in women's literature. She is an Irish Book Awards winner. Over 22 million copies of her novels have been sold worldwide and her books have been translated into 32 languages. She became known worldwide for Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, and This Charming Man, with themes including domestic violence and alcoholism.

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I have loved other Keyes novels, but this one is SLOW. Nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens for FAR too long, mostly because the main character doesn't want anything, so she's not trying to do anything, so you get endless descriptions of her pointless days of hanging out. It's quite a long slog through the middle part. And Keyes seems to think Los Angeles "wackiness" makes up for all that, but it does NOT. At the end it gets pretty good, but I'm frankly surprised I made it all the way to the end.

[Sandysbookaday (taking a step back for a while) · Rating 2 out of 5]

EXCERPT: I'd always lived a fairly blameless life. Up until the day I left my husband and then ran away to Hollywood, I'd hardly ever put a foot wrong. Not one that many people knew about, anyway. So when, out of the blue, everything just disintegrated like wet paper, I couldn't shake a wormy suspicion that this was long overdue. All that clean living simply isn't natural.

Of course, I didn't just wake up one morning and skip the country, leaving my poor, sleepy, fool of a husband wondering what that envelope on his pillow was. I'm making it sound much more dramatic than it actually was, which is strange because I never used to have a penchant for dramatics. Or a penchant for words like 'penchant,' for that matter. But ever since that business with the rabbits, and possibly even before that, things with Garv had been uncomfortable and weird. Then we suffered a couple of what we chose to call 'setbacks.' But instead of making our marriage stronger - as always seemed to happen to the other luckier setback souls who popped up in my mother's women's magazines - our particular brand of setbacks did exactly what it said on the tin. They set us back. They wedged themselves between myself and Garv and alienated us from one another. Though he never said anything, I knew Garv blamed me.

And that was okay, because I blamed me too.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Maggie has always been the white sheep of the Walsh family.Unlike her comically dysfunctional sisters,Rachel(heroine of Rachel's Holiday) and Claire (heroine of Watermelon), she married a decent man who adored her and found herself a solid career. Where Rachel was reckless and Claire dramatic, Maggie settled early for safety. Or so she believed until she discovers that her husband is having an affair and her boss is going to fire her. Suddenly, her perfectly organized life has become a perfect mess.

Devastated, she decides the only thing to do is to run for the shelter of her best friend, Emily, who lives in Los Angeles. There, with the help of sunshine and long days at the beach, she will lick her wounds and decide where life will take her next.But from the moment she lands in the City of Angels, things are not quite what she expected. Overnight, she's mixing with movie stars,even pitching film scripts to studios.Most unexpectedly of all,she finds that just because her marriage is over,it doesn't mean her life is. In the end neither the City of Angels nor Maggie Walsh will ever be the same again.

MY THOUGHTS: I have had a love/hate relationship with the Walsh family series. I loved Watermelon; my sides ached from laughing when I first read it, and then read it again regularly over the years. I detested Rachel's Holiday. Just. Did. Not. Like. It. One. Little. Bit. I had high hopes for Angels, #3 in the series. Loved the beginning, but our relationship went downhill from there, and even though the ending was almost decent, by then I was over it.

The problem was everything between the beginning and the end. Very little happened. I didn't enjoy the endless days Maggie spent hanging out doing n0thing (the zero instead of o is quite intentional).

There are a lot of mixed messages in the plot. It's like Keyes is trying to please everyone, and not offend anyone, and it's just plain annoying! I can't even remember raising a chuckle during this read. I am a Marian Keyes fan, but really, she missed the boat with this one. But I do love the cover!

**

THE AUTHOR: Marian Keyes (born 10 September 1963) is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for her work in women's literature. She is an Irish Book Awards winner. Over 22 million copies of her novels have been sold worldwide and her books have been translated into 32 languages. She became known worldwide for Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, and This Charming Man, with themes including domestic violence and alcoholism.

DISCLOSURE: I purchased my copy of Angels by Marian Keyes, published by William Morrow paperbacks, but have since donated it to our local charity shop along with Rachel's Holiday. I still have my well thumbed, falling to bits copy of Watermelon. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system, please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbooksday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

[zainab]

Maggie has been married for many years and learns through chocolates that her husband is cheating on her. An old story leads her to Los Angeles, to her friend Emily. There she tries to make a new start, but he doesn't fool her and she returns to her old life. But this time things go better. The book was supposed to tell a love story, but it's more of a side story, even if there are always flashbacks. The focus is more on work than on love. The love is in the centre of the last pages. I found this point very unfortunate, because one could have developed the love more.
P.S. The stars are always there, even during the day, only sometimes we cannot see them.

[Suz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Walsh family didn't come to my party this time around. I listened to this on audio CD, via my public library, therefore my speed process was not able to be manipulated! Unfortunately I was bored, and was wondering what the clan were going to get up to, but to me, it seems they didn't get up to much! There were many days that Maggie sat around and I felt I sat around.

Maggie ran from Ireland to LA, to take refuge with her bestie, Emily after being cheated on by her husband. Emily is a script writer who was down on her luck. This storyline struggled, as did an obvious storyline with Maggie's occupation. She was a paralegal with experience in media, I assumed this would go somewhere, but it didn't.

Maggie had a crisis of confidence, she ran around trying to fix her bad nails, her bad hair, she felt she wasn't good enough. She fell for a guy 'mr teflon', and got rejected again. There was a lot of talk about 'lezzos' and how they are intimate with each other. Literally asking how this happens. It was weird! I suppose this is how the book shows its age.

The sisters didn't have a lot to do with things in this installment, but Maggie's adolesence was addressed and issues she had young in life. This book was light, full of fluff but I was not drawn in or connected in any way. The audio narration of American accents were horrible! No good!

I was enamoured with Keyes usual witty banter, but it wasn't enough to salvage this read past the 2★ stage for me, unfortunately.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book three in the Walsh Sisters trilogy and this book zooms in on Maggie.

Maggie always opts for the safer side of live but finding out her husband is having an affair and losing her job changes everything.

I love how Keyes writes, I find her books very readable.

Five stars.

[Wee Lassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating delve into the danger of given your wife’s slippers personalities 😁 But seriously a fantastic book - I laughed my ass (sorry arse) off.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider Angels the best book Marian Keyes has ever written (although I havent yet read all her books). Maggie is clearly the most sympathetic of the Walsh-sisters. I also think that Angels deals with wider themes. Maggie's problem isnt really low self-esteem, like Claire's and Rachel's. She’s somehow a deeper character. I also liked the plot. In Angels Marian Keyes is more entertaining than ever. I really laughed, especially when Maggie’s family came to LA to visit her. The Walsh family seems to be an Irish version of Bridget Jones' family. Marian however makes her chanters more realistic and nicer than Helen fielding. Angels was also a real page-turner like no other book I have read for a while has been. I completely loved it. It captured me. Marian Keyes has a great way of relieving the background of events little by little. First it seemed like in the book Maggie's and Garv's marriage broke down because they were simply tired of each other or something as shallow, but during the book it turned out there was a lot more to it. Really great! I really felt like I was Maggie when I was reading the book.

[Marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plain yoghurt at room temperature.. That's how the sisters describe Maggie the protagonist, and it describes how I felt about the book and the characters.

The book is quit slow in my opinion. I found the characters a bit bland, which is a surprise because I used to like the Walsh family. And I guess I still do. Maybe that's why I like the second half of the book better, where the family gets more involved in the story. The characters from LA were just a little stereotypical and in many ways predictable, and I didn't really care for any of them.

I like Keyes' books because they're normally easy to read and fun but also has some depth. This one... Well, it just wasn't as fun as other books by Keyes. And the serious part of the story drowned in a slow and not as interesting story about working and partying in LA.

[Carrie · Rating 1 out of 5]

okay, i started reading this book and i thought it was AWFUL! i got to chapter 5 and it was getting more awful! I don't seem to ever do this, but I quit reading the book and returned it to the library. it just wasn't worth my time. i don't know if it was because i hadn't read any of the others in the series and didn't know the characters, but i didn't want to know them, they werent worth it! i wouldn't even give it a full star, maybe a quarter of a star.

SKIP it!

[Magda Tatiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hace un buen tiempo no me pasaba eso de dejar un libro, y menos cuando le había dado tiempo para que me convenciera. Llegué a la mitad del libro y definitivamente no pude más. Ya leí los dos primeros libros de la saga y pensaba que este me iba a gustar y entretener como sus predecesores, y me equivoqué. Esta entrega pierde la chispa, no tiene ese humor, quizás ácido de los otros dos y lo peor es que este cae en la banalidad, en su tono más extremo, pasas las páginas y la historia no avanza, cae en un montón de detalles que no aportan y a mi me terminó aburriendo.

[Katsuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

So! Another Marian Keyes; another occasion for me to say that I liked it, buuuuut...

First of all, there's the protagonist, Maggie Walsh. She's the third of Marian Keyes's most famous literary characters, the Walsh sisters, to be the protagonist of her own novel. The first-person narration is pretty much identical, style-wise, to the narration from the earlier two books about the Walsh sisters Claire and Rachel, even though these are supposed to be three different characters. At this point, it's starting to feel like Marian Keyes only has one voice that she can write in – a zany, oh-I'm-such-a-silly-and-confused-woman voice – and gives that voice to every one of her characters.

The second thing to discuss is the plot.
The earlier two Walsh sister novels didn't really have stand-out plots, but to be fair, they didn't need stand-out plots. One of them was a standard love story, and the other one was a standard drug addiction story. What made the books interesting were the characters and the jokes (because while I might be critical of her, Keyes is an excellent humorist).

So what about this book's plot?

Well, there isn't one, really. At least not one worth the name.
Maggie Walsh goes to Los Angeles to live with her scriptwriter friend Emily, in order to get away from her failed marriage and her unfaithful husband After arriving in LA, she doesn't really want anything or try to achieve anything, so the book's basically just 400 pages of Maggie meeting wacky LA person after wacky LA person. You could cut away almost every scene between page 80 and page 400 and you'd still be able to understand the final 80 pages. (Well, you'd need to leave the flashback chapters in, the ones that describe Maggie's life before the beginning of chapter 1.)
That's one of the main recommendations for new writers: Plots are generally driven by a protagonist who wants something and is trying to get that thing. But the only one who that's true of in Angels is Emily, and her subplot isn't taken all that seriously or handled all that well. She could have been the Ahab to Maggie's Ishmael (that is to say, the character the book is actually about), but instead she's just a side character.

Yes, there are a few sort-of-plotty subplots, but they're very short and inconsequential. Here they are, with the conclusion spoiler-tagged even though they barely get one:

1. Maggie gets the hots for Troy, who Emily is in love with.
They have sex once and he doesn't call her back. Then in the end it's hastily revealed that Troy's in love with Emily.
This plot contributes nothing to the book as a whole.

2. Maggie gets to know a lesbian woman named Laura, who's Maggie's first lesbian acquaintance.
They end up making love, and right afterwards both of them realize that they're not suited for each other, Maggie realizing she's straight after all just like she thought before meeting Laura, and Laura deciding that Maggie was just a rebound thing and not really Laura's type.
This plot contributes nothing to the book as a whole. Also, I didn't really like the gay jokes. Like when Maggie sees Laura's bed while visiting her, and starts thinking of lesbian porn movie titles. Yeah, this book came out nearly two decades ago, but equating "lesbian" with "porn woman" isn't really something that I dig.

3. Emily wants to sell a script in order to get her career going. She keeps hoping her agent will call her back with good news.
Her script is accepted, but the execs demand so many changes that in effect, it's a completely different story from how she imagined it. In the end, though, the movie doesn't get made and she gets paid less but doesn't have to see her script get turned into family-friendly pablum.
This subplot does contribute something to Emily's characterization, but gets resolved in the "where-are-they-now" epilogue, where we get a brief recap of the resolution. It's as if Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was released with the final Death Star battle replaced by a brief text scroll summing up the entire battle scene in three sentences or fewer.
And that makes sense in a way, I'll admit, because we're not supposed to care about Emily. She's not there to be cared about by the reader, she's only a vehicle for more scenes about how crazy Hollywood and the movie business is.

The ending isn't all that satisfying either. In the last 30 pages or so, Maggie and her husband simply decide that they want to give it another go and try to fix their marriage. It pretty much comes out of nowhere, and is really just there because the book has to have a happy ending regardless of whether it fits the plot up until that point.
That's why I don't like this rule some people have, where books must have happy endings. A completely happy ending simply isn't going to fit every story's plot.

Before I finish, let me say a word about the characters. This is a book that has too many characters, and they're as poorly fleshed-out as you'd expect from L.A. characters. (Because people in L.A. are very thin, geddit? Geddit?) Almost everybody has exactly one role to fill and one character trait. Kristy is the mean girl. Troy is the hot guy. None of them are that interesting, and there are too many of them.

So yeah. This was a book that had no plot, a repetitive (though entertaining) protagonist who's just like every other Marian Keyes protagonist I've read, and that was okay but nothing special.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marian Keyes is one of my favorite authors. At first glance her novels appear to be "chick-lit" but once you start reading them, you realize there is a thoughtful depth to them. Sometimes it takes well into the novel for the true subject to be revealed, but it it always entertaining, and most times, funny, on the way there.

This is an oldie but goodie I had in my shelves that I came across when I was waiting for a library book to come in. Ms. Keyes' novels always make me feel like a better person when I'm done reading them. She does such a good job with her characters and the real life experiences she puts them into.

She is such a wonderful author and can minutely detail the fine points in interpersonal relationships that I find myself almost gasping and thinking, I've thought/felt/said that before!

The first novel I ever read of hers was Watermelon, a novel about a woman whose husband leaves her the day after she births their first child. So real was the emotions described in the plot regarding the husband and the baby that I was shocked to later find out Ms. Keyes had no children of her own. She is an amazing writer and I love each of her novels.

[Mulva? · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prologue:

"Shortly we will be landing at Los Angeles International Airport. Please ensure that your seat is in the upright position, that you weigh less than a hundred pounds, and that you have excellent teeth."

funny.

[Aoife · Rating 4 out of 5]

CW: Miscarriage, abortion

Maggie Walsh is tired and sad as within a couple of days, she loses her job and her husband. After some weeks living back home in the Walsh family house with her parents and sisters, she jumps at the opportunity to visit her friend Emily in Los Angeles for some sun, sea and maybe a bit of the other S word too.

I really enjoyed this. Exploring heartbreak, friendship, infertility and second chance romance, there were really emotional, heartfelt moments in this with Maggie but also some genuine laugh out loud bits that you're guaranteed with a Marian Keyes book. This is the third book in the Walsh Family series but can be read as a standalone - if you've read the others, it's just nice to see the other sisters pop in and out of the story and even though everyone in this family is as mad as a hatter, they will kill for one another.

I found Maggie the most likable sister so far in the series - and a lot of her problems are probably more relatable such as infertility and miscarriage, as well as these issues causing friction and loss within her marriage as well. I liked how she tried very hard to embrace the LA lifestyle from helping to pitch movies and even having a 'lezzer' experience (which was done in a funny but still a very genuine way - she gave it a good shot).

I really liked how this story ended - and it made me happy to see how Maggie ended up, and I feel like it was definitely the best place for her.

[Janjohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marian Keyes' style of writing needs getting used to. She writes in a very un-Sophie Kinsella way (which is what I'm used to). This is my first time to read a book by her and I'm impressed. She writes nonsense things with depths. I don't know if that makes any sense but I think, for this book, it does.

Okay.

Angels is the story of Margaret "Maggie" Walsh and her flight to Los Angeles after she found out about her husband Garv's affair with truffle woman. Maggie is probably one of my favorite fictional characters. She' funny and stupid, smart and dumb at the same time, and, well.. she's Maggie! I love how Marian Keyes made her not the usual I'm-too-perfect character writers are not tired of conceiving. She's not perfect, and her imperfection is what made her a beautiful and an easy to love heroine. She had sex with troy and a lesbian named Lara (The sex with Troy was great, by the way. I was just too short), she's "bad at being bad", she's had miscarriages, she's not perfect, get it?

I was halfway through the book and I was like, "What's this book all about?"

And the answer to that question is what made this book a great read. I won't tell more. telling more will spoil the book for you.

Angels is a moving book by Marian Keyes and when you're done reading you'll wish you have someone who'll take snails off your windshield. (Read this book to know what that means.) :P

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a cute book in the style of Maeve Binchy but with alot more humor.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

But the point I’m making is I wasn’t playing it safe when I married Garv, This is the way I really am!”
Plain yoghurt at room temperature?”
“Um…”
Plain yoghurt at room temperature and proud of it?” ‘…With Raspberry puree at the bottom?”
Yes! I might even get a T-shirt saying it”

Had I read the Walsh Family Chronicles in order I would have probably looked upon Maggie’s story as a relief after Claire’s marriage drama and Rachel’s hard-fought and very entertaining journey out of denial and into sobriety. I don’t remember too much about how I felt about it on my first read, by which time I was well into Marian Keyes’ oeuvre, which included many of her standalone novels. When I came to my second Walsh novel, at first I didn't realize I had read about these characters before. I remember I liked it better than most people did. This time on Audible, I liked it pretty well. After reading all of the Walsh sisters’ stories including sequels, I was very familiar with how the rest of her family views Garv and Margaret. I was interested in how Keyes would find much fodder in the boring life of boring Maggie and her even more boring husband Garv. He is accepted only grudgingly in the first go-round with the Walshes. Except Anna, and that’s a whole other story. They love and respect Margaret but she is somewhat of an outsider, being sensible, responsible, and stable compared the rest of the family's batshit-in-a-blender lives and times. As I got to know Maggie and learned about her life, I realized she was no different from the usual likable, funny, and good-hearted heroines of Women’s Fiction or Romantic Comedies. She was "every-woman" and not boring at all.

After she finds out her husband has cheated on her and she is fired from her job, Maggie flees from Ireland to Los Angeles to visit her best friend Emily. As the white sheep of the family who never strays from the straight and narrow, this unexpected turn of events is quite the shocker. As Maggie experiences life in California and meets many of their strange peoples, we also learn a little more about her teen years, her first love, Shay Delaney, whom she has never quite gotten out of her system, her happy marriage to Garv, and what has caused their marriage to fracture and then break. Her life there with her friend Emily, a struggling scriptwriter, is one curveball after another. But nothing of lasting importance happens to her there in Los Angeles, and most of the book is about Maggie meeting and interacting with various Los Angeles stereotypes. It has even less of a plot than Watermelon. She also meets Shay there, but there is no fear that he will be any more important in her future than the rest of the other large cast of characters. By that time, we understand what a wonderful man Garv is, how happy they both were in their marriage, and how much Maggie still loves him. But he doesn’t show up in the book live and in person until the 95% mark. By this point, I was half in love with myself and I was very happy to see him, hear his side of the story, and have him get Maggie away from her well-meaning but overbearing family. Yes, Mammy Walsh, Mr. Walsh, Anna, and Helen show up in L.A. late in the book and bring their own special brand of crazy and hilarious to the unsuspecting Angelenos. Most of the book is an affectionate send-up of Hollywood culture seen through Maggie’s Irish eyes. The only real people of any depth were her old friend Emily and her new friend Laura. Some of the book is quite dated and exaggerated, though there is also a lot of truth in it, I imagine.

I didn’t love it but I liked it, and I also enjoyed Gerry Halligan’s reading even if the accents of the American characters seemed a little exaggerated and “off.” Weirdly, she pronounced Rodeo drive like it was a cowboy contest and “4-1-1” as 4-eleven. Even those little quirks had their charms.
**3 1/2 stars**
https://rebekahsreadingsandwatchings....

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book almost does something very interesting for chick lit: the main character, an Irish woman whose marriage is coming apart, comes to L.A. to escape from it all. She is shocked—shocked!—to discover that the old friend she's staying with has another friend who's a lesbian. Then she gets a little crush on the lesbian friend. Then she has a lesbian fling! This is almost cool like fanfic. But then the main character realizes that she really loves her husband and goes back to him. Sigh.

Keyes does the same thing with the flashback abortion plot. Main character (whose name, in case you can't tell, I've totally forgotten) goes to England to get an abortion. But at the last second she changes her mind! THEN SHE MISCARRIES ANYWAY! Now, in the present, she has angst because she thinks this has made her unable to have a baby now that she wants one. Um...wouldn't this plot have been better if it involved actual guilt from an actual abortion? There's too much trying to play to both sides in this book. It's annoying.

But the brief lesbian fling part was hot.

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm enjoying my run of Marian Keyes books. This is another I read many years ago, and enjoyed it more the second time around. I remember the marriage strain and the trip to Los Angeles, but all the nuances and complexities were fresh to me. As with "Watermelon", I think being older helped a lot with feeling invested in these relationships. I love the Walsh family, and am enjoying getting to know each sister, and the different perspectives of the same family.

Marian Keyes does an excellent job balancing humour, quirky characters, genuine emotional and mental hardship, and relationships that feel real and well drawn.

[Krystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in the first couple pages, and can't wait to read more already. I love Keyes. She's had a couple little missteps, in decidedly subjective opinion. This though, has had me thinking all day! That's always a good sign.
Some of the content was painfully familair to me, but amazing in it's accuracy.
I seriously loved "Mammy Walsh" and Helen appearances throughout the story. There bits were so comical, especially the visit to LA.

Loved this one. I think this may be my favorite yet. I can't wait for an accounting of Helen. She's such a pleasing character =)

[belle de jour · Rating 3 out of 5]

«Las cuatro de la madrugada es el momento más desapacible del ser humano, cuando tenemos más bajo el ánimo. Es el momento en que la gente enferma muere. El momento en que la gente torturada se derrumba».

Y también es el momento en que suelto la última novela de Marian Keyes después de doce horas de lectura compulsiva, como sabía que sucedería (siempre lo hace) y por lo que no vacilo nunca al sacarla de la estantería.

Seré breve, porque los halagos hacia Marian siempre son los mismos, y las quejas, más bien escasas: me ha envuelto al principio y luego me ha ido desinflando, pero hasta que no me ha convencido del todo, no me ha dejado rendirme con él. No tener ni idea de a dónde me dirigía la trama me ha empujado a anticiparme al final, con la mala suerte de que me he llevado una sorpresa desagradable. Pero eso es lo que pasa al leer la última línea cuando aún llevas la mitad de la novela, que te falta media película, y esa media película es de la que Marian, como tantas otras veces antes, se ha servido para meterme en el bolsillo.

Esta autora es una maravillosa contradicción. Es lenta hasta un punto exasperante, a veces introspectiva de un modo tremendamente tedioso, pero te engancha como una superproducción hollywoodense de la casa Marvel cuando ni tiene efectos especiales ni un ritmo vertiginoso. No deja de ser un libro escrito en 2002 y plagado de referencias culturales de Los Angeles e Irlanda, zonas con las que no estoy muy familiarizada, pero su humor ácido, su frescura y espontaneidad siguen siendo para todos los públicos y no falla en sus intentos por arrancarme una carcajada de madrugada.

Puedo no ser la lectora más objetiva del mundo. No es un secreto que me siento afín a Marian Keyes por entrevistas que ha concedido, por lo que nos comparte en sus redes sociales, y que la aprecio por la mujer que no le da miedo ser. Podría intentar dármelas de crítica alegando que en esta novela tampoco renuncia a su fórmula, que no se diferencia en nada del resto de su obra y que una vez más lidiamos con el mismo corte de protagonista, el mismo prototipo de secundarios chiflados y el mismo drama existencial… pero si su fórmula es la de mi felicidad, ¿qué es lo que voy a objetar?

[Saray García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compré este libro por casualidad en una de esas librerías de segunda mano, pero en cuanto lo vi recordé las tardes de playa con lecturas de esta autora ya hace algunos años, y no pude resistirme.
Ha cumplido su cometido, entretenerme sin muchas más expectativas que una lectura ligera y rápida en la que el final me ha parecido un poco apresurado y sin demasiado desarrollo en comparación con el resto del libro.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

And my love affair with Marian Keyes continues to thrive, in spite of my distaste for chick lit as a genre.

This isn't the most thrilling or emotionally moving of her books - when you're writing about the serious, dull, well-behaved member of a family of genial cuckoos, it's hard to make the story stand out. But the book is still engaging, sweet, fun, and an easy read. Ultimately, it was the perfect palate cleanser between heavier, more oppressive literary fare. I probably won't go back to this one as often as I do 'Rachel's Holiday' or 'This Charming Man,' but it was absolutely worth reading.

[MaryG2E · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5★s
Angels is a light, humorous chick lit novel, which entertained me a lot. Following the break-up of her nine year marriage to Garv, Dublin resident Maggie Walsh jets off to Los Angeles to spend some time with her friend Emily O'Keeffe. Emily, a talented script writer, has been struggling for a couple of years, trying to break into the LA movie industry. In short time Maggie is drawn into the crazy lifestyles of Los Angeles wannabes, which become great sources of amusing anecdotes. Underneath the breezy writing style though are some thoughtful analyses of the cut-throat movie industry and the bizarre, and sometimes desperate lengths to which hopeful actors and production people will go to fit in, be noticed and get ahead.

I laughed out loud at this exchange:
On Sunday evening, Lara came over.
"Not out with Nadia?" Emily asked.
"Nah, she got her butthole bleached and can't sit down."
"Excuse me?" I spluttered. "Her butthole? Bleached?"
"It's the latest thing in plastic surgery," Lara explained. "Lots of girls do it. To make it look pretty."
"Like getting your teeth whitened," Emily chipped in. "Except it's your butthole instead."

Maggie has a rather sad back-story, which emerges in the latter part of the novel, and which adds poignancy to her situation with the failure of her marriage.

It's not a Pulitzer Prize winner, but an enjoyable story, and would be a great holiday read.

[El olor de los libros · Rating 1 out of 5]

Divertido a ratos, y muy ameno. Un librillo para desengrasar y desfragmentar el disco duro. Eso si, malo como el solo.

Maggie es una chica buena, ha hecho siempre lo que le han dicho que haga. Pero ha llegado un momento en su vida en que necesita gritar libertad y correr desnuda por los campos. Cómo la historia es muy convencional, cual película de sobremesa de A3, Maggie ve la luz. Y no sabemos si la luz que ve es la de la libertad o la del redil.

Si te gustan las historias en la que la protagonista es un pichote, esta es la tuya.

[María · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keyes sigue sabiendo mezclar a la perfección el drama y ese humor irlandés que tanto me gusta. Maggie y Garv son adorables juntos, aunque mamá Walsh es mi favorita. También se agradece la presencia de secundarios como Emily, Troy (me habría gustado ver alguna escena de los dos juntos al final, eso sí) y Lara.

"Cuando hoy te vi, me di cuenta de que mis sentimientos seguían vivos y supe que siempre te quitaría el caracol del parabrisas. A ti y a nadie más."

"Las estrellas siempre están ahí, incluso de día. A veces, simplemente, no podemos verlas."

[Sita · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a shame Marian Keyes is marketed as an author of fluff because most of her books explore women's lives and traumas with warmth and humour. The only reason this gets 3 instead of 5 stars is my brain automatically rejects any book set in Hollywood where the majority of characters are not sociopaths trying to out-sociopath each other.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third book in the series about the Welsh family tells the story of when Maggie, 'the sensible and responsible one' arrives at a turning point in her life. The characterization is great as ever and Keyes writing is superb and inimitable.

[Julianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish it, which I don't do with a book very often. What a slow read this was. Couldn't get through more than 120 pages...

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not only boring, but racist and homophobic.