Watermelon by Marian Keyes

I am a confessed "chick lit" addict.

I love reading stories about women who start out whiny women who are sad about being single or being dumped and end up living happily ever after, usually with a handsome fellow by their sides.

I know what you're probably going to say--it's unrealistic, it's not very feminist, it's boring, it's not quality writing--and I could care less.

It's fluff and I love it.

When I read Marian Keyes' book Watermelon, I was expecting more of the same. I've read Keyes' writing before, and while I often find her kind of long-winded, I always find her to be an engaging storyteller.

What I got, though, was a lovely story about a woman who ended up being more than she ever thought possible.

Claire, a 29-year-old Dubliner living in London, finds herself a single woman on the day she gives birth to her first child. James, her estranged husband, tells her he's been having an affair with another woman and that he'll "be in touch."

Claire doesn't know what to do or where to go, so she does the only think she can think of. She goes home to Dublin. She lives with her parents and her two sisters, wallowing in the sorrow of being a single woman and a woman dumped for someone else. Slowly, but surely, Claire surrenders to the calm that comes from realizing that life after great tragedy does go on.

I thought, per usual, that Keyes did a great job of assembling an interesting cast of characters. Each of the sisters is different from the others, but Keyes draws them as "real" people instead of just caricatures. Her writing breathes life into what could be a set of stereotypes--the recently dumped woman, the flighty narcissist, the hippie.

The plot doesn't seem to drag in this story as it sometimes does in Keyes' work. The book didn't feel too long, and the action didn't seem contrived or rushed in any way.

Overall, it was a good read that I enjoyed and would heartily recommend.