Hay tres reglas si uno quiere sobrevivir en tiempos de estrés. La primera es respirar profundamente. La segunda, contar hasta diez. Y la tercera, comer chocolate. Lucy, Autumn, Nadia y Chantal apenas tienen tiempo de contar hasta diez antes de abalanzarse sobre este sustitutivo del sexo. Y es que sus vidas sentimentales son un desastre: a Lucy la felicidad de que su jefe Aidan le declare su amor le dura un suspiro; el novio de Autumn va a conocer a sus padres; el marido de Nadia jura que ya ha dejado de robar, pero ella no le cree, y Chantal está intentando salvar su matrimonio. Por suerte, estas aguerridas mujeres no pierden su desternillante humor.

excellent book about four friends--all chocoholics--who meet up regularly to gorge on gourmet choc--special meetings for choc emergencies. expands upon their lives--all going through major relationship issues. 2 single and 2 married. author is English. first read by her. ( )

Imagine if someone told you they were going to give you a beautiful, ribbon-tied box of Godiva chocolates (or better, handmade, fresh cream-filled Mozarts flown over from Vienna that day), you'd be really looking forward to that. Imagine then if with a bright smile, they gave you a family-size bag of Hershey's Assorted Miniatures instead. There would definitely be some disappointment there, eh?

And so there is in this book. It's not Godiva, not even Lindt, it's a collection of stories, Snickers, M&Ms, Mr. Goodbar and a Watchamacallit.

Disappointing. ( )

I really wanted to like this novel. Who doesn't like the idea of chocolate. In reality, as should be, the chocolate wasn't the star of the novel. The story centered around the lives of four women, and the complicated relationships they had with their husbands, boyfriends, or family.

The two married women had seriously flawed relationships with their husbands. I think that these were realistic situations, but overblown in the case of the couple not having sex, which drove the wife to illicit sexual encounters. The one single woman was mainly dealing with a brother on drugs, and the main female protagonist of the story had a flaky, cheating boyfriend and trouble holding down a job.

In all, the story was engaging. Please understand when I say that I was totally engaged in the story; however, I did wish that I could have just dealt with the main character, for instance, rather than bouncing from character to character. I realize this is a popular technique right now, but I really wanted to understand more about each individual story. With a bit more understanding, I might have not felt that it was being overdramatic. In the end, I started to feel like I was reading a soap opera on paper. The elements were there for an amazing story, but maybe just needed a bit more depth added to certain individuals so that you could relate to them more? ( )

This book sounded like the perfect light read for my vacation- a tight group of friends bonding over exotic chocolates and tales of woe should be an automatic chick-lit home run. Unfortunately, this book was more a swing and a miss to me because the main protagonist Lucy was clearly more caricature than character.

I would like to believe that no self-respecting young woman would truly be so proud of her ability to stick with a serial cheater of a boyfriend. I would like to believe no self-respecting young woman would be so proud of her absolute inability to perform any of the basic functions of her employment. I would like to believe no self-respecting young woman wants to read and sympathize with so vapid and annoying a main character.

It was a real shame to me that Lucy was so stereotypical and idiotic a character, because the problems faced by the other women in the book rang true and could have elevated this book above the fray if they hadn't been constantly undermined by clumsy babbling irritating Lucy.

A disappointing 2.5 stars. ( )