160. Miranda’s Big Mistake by Jill Mansell
Publication: Sourcebooks Landmark (June 1, 2009), ebook, 498pp / ISBN 140221832X
Genre: Romance, “Women’s lit” (or whatever)
Read: December 4-5, 2011
Source: Bought
Summary from Amazon:
Miranda’s track record with men is horrible.
Her most recent catastrophe is Greg. He seems perfect—gorgeous, witty, exciting. And he and Miranda are in love… until Miranda discovers he left his wife when he found out she was pregnant.
With the help of her friends, Miranda plans the sweetest and most public revenge a heartbroken girl can get. But will Miranda learn from her mistake, or move on to the next “perfect” man and ignore the love of her life waiting in the wings…
Even the worst mistake of your life can lead to true love in the end…
Review
Okay, so: this book is not just about Miranda. If you’re familiar with Marian Keyes’ books, with their multiple POVs and really long storylines, then you’re familiar with the sort of book that Miranda’s Big Mistake is. There’s three main female characters and a lot of secondary male and female characters, and though it seems like it’d get confusing you very quickly get used to the switching POVs and whatnot.
The storyline, meanwhile, is long. It’s got lots of subplots and secondary threads and they all snake together in a way that works pretty well. To be honest, I thought the book was over at the 50% mark. It was the ending of what I thought was the major storyline, only it turned out that storyline was more like a secondary one. So I was a little bit thrown. By the time I got to the real end I was happy the book had continued, however, because I do like the HEA, everyone-gets-married type of endings in romances.
I liked the characters, especially Florence who’s this amazing old lady with tons of pizzazz. Chloe was great, too, and though Miranda didn’t read as a true 24-year-old to me her personality really freshened up the story. All the male romantic partners (with one exception) were great, too. I like nice men in romances!
So basically: I liked the story overall, and I liked the characters. Some aspects of the way the story was set up bugged me, and I don’t think the various separate character story arcs really worked together all that well after the first half of the book. The HEA was somewhat fanciful, I suppose, but it made the getting to the end worth it. And it’s nice to read a romance with genuinely nice men in it (minus two or three who were serious jerks).
Rating
I liked it, with some reservations.
Buy
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Other reviews
Booking Mama: “Of course, Miranda was terrific and I couldn’t help but like her (even when I knew she was being rather thick-headed.) But I actually liked some of Miranda’s friends (and housemates) even more.”
Notes
FYI, the Kindle version has wonky formatting. Not sure about other formats.
Credit
Author’s photo is from Goodreads. It’s not mine!
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