Gigi Anders

Gigi Anders makes the best of her ethnic composition, Jewish-Cuban, in this Jew-bilant memoir. She's hard on herself and on her beloved mother, who had enough rules and prescriptions to cause a lifetime of tsuris. As her family escaped from Fidel and climbed the occupational and social ladder in Miami and Washington DC, Gigi seems permanently caught between her rebellious nature, her pride in her brashness, and her desire to please her parents. She's resentful of the "penis worship" of her household and culture, but she also won't step outside without full makeup armor to please that gaze. The book has some hilarious moments, as she matriculates rebelliously at Sidwell Friends School in DC (Obama and other presidential daughters attended) and shops for an engagement ring at Tiffany's with a soon-to-be-ex fiancé. But her seduction at fourteen by a much older man, a co-worker of her mother's, and her subsequent miscarriage, are (almost literally) written in blood.

Quote: "Mrs. Blanchard looks like Pat Nixon but with less warmth, spontaneity, wit, and enthusiasm."… (meer)

Gigi Anders was born in Havana, her family fled Castro's regime for the United States in 1961 and lived in Washington DC. She is a graduate of Sidwell Friends School and the University of Maryland. She worked for the Washington Post, and then as a writer for the "Style" section, She has written for Glamour, Allure, Mirabella, American Health for Women, USA Today's USA Weekend just to name a few. Her first book, "Be Pretty, Get Married and Always Drink Tab" was recently released in paperback.

Visit Gigi ANders web site http://www.gigianders.com/

I could not put her book down once I started to read it .

Gigi Anders writes in a pleasurable way while really getting to the heart of every woman's genuine feelings of apprehensions about their relationships. Little Pink Raincoat is a compilation of mini-profiles in shopping and romantic audacity.

Each chapter highlights a different wardrobe item and what it means to her - how she obtained it and is all about the men in her life at that particular time in her life.

This stylish, amusing book recounts her encounters with her dual passions with clothing and men.

Taken from the back cover

"Ten vignettes chronicling ten choice sartorial items and the ten corresponding boyfriends.... A tasty, universal, uplifting, pop cultural meditation on the things we crave and the lengths we'll go to get them, Little Pink Raincoat is ten short chapters organized around one freakin' fabulous and hard-to-come-by item" -- either clothing, an accessory, or a kind of makeup"

The items and boyfriends are all from Anders' real life, "a ligthearted memoir of her real (extremely jammed) closet and her bed."

Excerpts:

"All I can say is that this pink raincoat is like a pretty, retro look," said my friend Mindy, a Washington, D.C., wardrobe stylist. "Very sweet, optimistic, and friendly, like grosgrain ribbon. Very Kennebunkport, yet uber-feminine."

"Then my sartorial soul mate Sarah Jessica Parker should have one! She even modeled for the Gap, albeit After Pink Raincoat, so she might've missed it. Plus, SJP's perfume Lovely and its print ads are all cotton candy pinkety-pink-pink."… (meer)