Review: FOURTEEN DAYS LATER by Sibel Hodge

TITLE: Fourteen Days Later
AUTHOR: Sibel Hodge
AUTHOR WEBSITE: www.sibelhodge.com
GENRE: Adult, Romantic, Comedy
PUBLISHED: Sibel Hodge  (March 18, 2010)
MY RATING: 3
FIND ON: Amazon


SYNOPSIS:

When accident-prone Helen Grey finds a thong stuffed into the pocket of her boyfriend’s best work trousers, it’s time for her to move on.
Helen’s life is propelled in an unexpected direction after her best friend, Ayshe, sets her a fourteen-day, life-changing challenge. Helen receives a task everyday which she must complete without question. The tasks are designed to build her confidence and boost her self-esteem. Is it really possible to change your life in fourteen days?


REVIEW:


The book’s funny tone pulled me right into the story. The main character telling the story is quite hilarious and down-to-earth. I didn’t realize when I bought this book that it was in modern day Brittan which explains all the different expletives and odd words for everyday things. Their different vernacular made it a little hard to read.
I liked the main character. She was real, heartfelt, genuine, a basket-case, clumsy, and a total mess. This challenge was definitely something she needed. I wondered if she would be the same person after that 14 days had she not done the challenge? No definitely not. It probably would have taken her years to get to that revelation.
All the characters where different and totally extreme. The over-the-top gay neighbor, the extremely Christian friend, to name a few. Helen’s best friend Ayshe was about the only normal person in the bunch and even she was interesting and quirky. But the characters seemed a little too cliché.
The story was like a wild roller coaster ride of crazy mishap after silly slip-ups. I just hope there aren’t real people out there that do stuff she did—walk around with her skirt tucked in her underwear, swim with a boob hanging out, trip all the time, get arrested by accident. This girl was a mess! With the amount of crazy things in this book, it began to be not quite believable. This could not have possibly happened in a 14 day period. But it was all quite funny. I loved how she filled out her gym membership… I definitely LOL for that part.
The story was totally predictable and I couldn’t wait until the satisfying ending of seeing them together. The whole story was mixed together like a big cake, baked, frosted, and then the end came it was like I got one forkful. I was not satisfied by the ending. It was disappointing that we only see like five minutes of them together. Where’s the reward for reading about disaster after disaster?


RATING:

I enjoyed the book but can’t say it was the best. I’d rate it at a 3. Good.

RECOMMENDATIONS: 


Of course there’s a little bit of language. It was hard to read. There are several risqué scenes for only grown-ups. I’d recommend this book to only those who like romantic comedies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Bridget Jones’ Diary.

BOOK CLUB REVIEW:

We read this for our monthly book club. The consensus was that everyone loved the comedy aspect of the book but they were all impatient with the romantic side of the story. They rated it at an average of 3.5.