Afbeelding auteur

Kim Gruenenfelder

Auteur van A Total Waste of Makeup

8+ Werken 701 Leden 46 Besprekingen Favoriet van 2 leden

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Werken van Kim Gruenenfelder

A Total Waste of Makeup (2005) 307 exemplaren
There's Cake in My Future (2010) 164 exemplaren
Misery Loves Cabernet (2009) 153 exemplaren
Love the Wine You're With (2017) 13 exemplaren
My Exs Wedding (2020) 1 exemplaar

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Algemene kennis

Geslacht
female
Nationaliteit
USA
Woonplaatsen
Los Angeles, California, USA
Korte biografie
Kim Gruenenfelder grew up in and around Los Angeles and began her career in TV at the age of nineteen. In addition to A Total Waste of Makeup and Misery Loves Cabernet, she has written feature films, episodic teleplays and two stage plays. She lives in Los Angeles, California. She loves her fans and can be reached through her website and on myspace.com

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Read this in less than 24 hours. Fast paced, familiar feeling chick-lit with an unusually high level of foul language. Good for mindless time killing. I was especially fond of the cake pull storyline since I wanted to do it when I got married but never actually bothered to get the charms!
 
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hmonkeyreads | 7 andere besprekingen | Jan 25, 2024 |
 
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AbneyLibri | 25 andere besprekingen | Jul 22, 2023 |
So this is a weird feeling. I have liked/loved every Kim Gruenenfelder to date. I finished this book yesterday and absolutely disliked it. I only liked one out of the three characters we are introduced to in the book. We don't get a lot of development for any of the characters except one. The men (except for one) are all terrible people. The main plot (opening a wine bar) is barely in the book. Instead we get a fast forward years later and everything is coming up roses. I thought this have more funny stories about trying to run a business with your best friends, instead of sitting around and complaining and flirting with guys. Bah to this book. Bah humbug.

The three women in this book is Holly (struggling actress), Jessie (not thrilled with her job as an accountant and upset her boyfriend Kevin is not doing the right thing by proposing to her and getting a house together), and Nat (sleeping with her married boss).

FYI, I am not spoiling anything that is not in the synopsis for this book. My own damn fault for not looking at it before I purchased it. But Gruenenfelder was always on my "buy with no reservations list". Not anymore.

First off, I can't stand to read about cheating in a romance novel. Yes, I know it happens in real life, but I love my romance novels to not have cheating terrible ass people in it, with them trying to justify it. This is a key reason why I gave up on reading New Adult books cause there's always a whiff or out and out cheating going on, but people go, but true love and apparently that makes things better.

Second, I hated the whole trope with Jessie and her madness about not getting married with her boyfriend. She reminded me unfortunately of a character in one of Gruenenfelder other books. It just got old. And when she starts to get what she wants, it apparently is not enough cause her boyfriend doesn't like all the same things she does.

Third, the whole wine bar thing just came together too easily. We don't hear about any struggle, any issues with renovations, any problems getting customers. Hell, I was intrigued about the character of Nat trying to be a sommelier but failing at it, cause she didn't have a "nose." Instead we get some bs psychobabble about Nat and her issues via another love interest (I hated that dude) and apparently everything is good.

The only character I felt connected to throughout was Holly. Holly was awkward as anything with her crush, when she found out he was dirt, she was done (or at least partially done). I did like her with the guy she ends up being friends with, Joe. She and him both had a lot of more adult things to get through. Both lost fathers, and for Holly, she is still dealing with the everyday of not having her dad with her. Also reading about her trying to wean herself off of antidepressants made me feel for her too. I could have read a whole book about Holly. I really wish she had been the main character with the other two friends devoted to side characters until they got their own books. Sigh. Whatever.

The writing was not that great. We start in medias res and than we go back to what had the three friends ready to throw in the towel at their jobs. Than we get back to the scene we got during the medias res scene (and I mean exactly) and I seriously got ticked that we got a word for word repeat of something I already read.

The dialogue between characters except for Holly and Joe was not good. I seriously hated Nat and her bullshit rules (hey I have a rule, don't sleep with a married man and act like you got taken advantage of and pretty much until the end of the book you were still trying to be with him) and Jessie who just goes on and on about Giovanni to the point that he doesn't even feel like a real character, just a stand-in for the most perfect guy ever.

The flow was up and down. I tended to like Holly's POV chapters better. There is more meat in her story-line. The other two, nope.

The setting of Echo Park I thought would be really cool to delve into. You don't get that in this book at all.

The ending just made me roll my eyes. At least the way things ended, we won't have to see another book starring any of these people. I was hoping that maybe Gruenenfelder could save things in the end by pulling off what she did with "There's Cake in Your Future" by having a follow-up with the three friends and you getting to see that not everything was wine and roses. But nope, this is most definitely the end.
… (meer)
 
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ObsidianBlue | 3 andere besprekingen | Jul 1, 2020 |
Unlike with the previous novel this sequel to "There's Cake in my Future" focuses on Mel. For those that read "There's Cake in my Future" know that it ended with Seema preparing for her bridal shower with Nic pregnant with her first child and Mel in a new relationship.

We start this novel in medias res on Seema's wedding day and we have Mel then flash-backing to a week prior to the wedding and then the novel catches up so to speak to the present. I honestly don't think we should have started the novel on Seema's wedding day but maybe some place further along in Mel's future (trying not to get too spoilery here) especially since there were so many events that could have been used instead of this one. I do think Ms. Gruenenfelder may want to re-think doing this in her novels unless it really adds something to it by starting off mid-story and working back.

Other than that I have to say I really did love this novel. It was nice to see all of the 'girls' again and I adore the friendship between Seema, NIc, and Mel. It reminds me of my two best friends who always have my back as well. Also it was great to see Mel struggling with what she wanted to do with her life and realizing though it was scary she needed to make some changes. We get to follow Mel along to Paris and then to Hawaii which Ms. Gruenenfelder has been to or read enough about to make me feel as if I were in those places along with Mel. I also give kudos for the decision to have Mel be the main protagonist in this novel. I did like the prior novel and having an opportunity to be in all of the girls' heads but I realize that since both Nic and Seema had their happily ever afters it made more sense to have this one just be about Mel. Ms. Gruenenfelder often writes the most funny scenes I have ever read and she does so again here repeatedly.

I really hopes she revisits her main character Charlie from her novels "A Total Waste of Makeup" and "Misery Loves Cabernet" again some day since she showcased an excellent female friendship in that one as well.

I 100 percent recommend this novel!
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
ObsidianBlue | Jul 1, 2020 |

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Statistieken

Werken
8
Ook door
1
Leden
701
Populariteit
#36,120
Waardering
½ 3.6
Besprekingen
46
ISBNs
22
Talen
3
Favoriet
2

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