Review: LUCY IN THE SKY by Paige Toon ***

"Settling down for a 24-hour flight to Australia, Lucy finds a text message on her phone - not from her boyfriend James, as she fondly hopes, but from a woman claiming to have slept with him four times in the past month. Trapped on the plane, she questions everything about her relationship with James. She finally calls him and he reassures her: it was only his mates playing a silly joke. James is a lawyer, persuasive and gorgeous and Lucy adores him. So why, at the wedding in Sydney of her best friend Molly, does she have niggling doubts, and find herself attracted to Molly's brother-in-law Nathan? The sooner she gets back to her regular life in London, the flat she shares with James, her job in PR, the better. Nathan is a happy-go-lucky surfer boy, with no prospects, no place to live, an almost-girlfriend in tow. And the other side of the world ... Lucy - a girl caught between two distant continents - and two very different men ..."

(summary)

I've been hearing so much praise for this novel and I quite enjoyed it myself, I just wasn't blown away like I expected to be, but please don't hate, I'm just a silly girl with a strange book taste. ;)

Firstly, I liked how the novel was set in Australia and London, two destinations that I adore so it was interesting to read about those two places. Furthermore, I thought the jokes between Lucy and Nathan were a cute addition and even if most of them were plain silly, some of them really cracked me up! On the other hand, that seemed like a cheap way of entertaining the reader and personally I prefer to be amused by the writing and the dialogue. I just appreciate that more because it's harder to achieve, but nonetheless these little jokes were a lovely touch and made the budding relationship even cuter.

I didn't quite warm up to Lucy, I thought she wasn't the best narrator ever (even though she had her good moments), but I quite liked the two guys. Obviously Nathan had more good points going for him, but I found James quite well-portrayed (he had the most dimension, I think) so I could understand Lucy's dilemma, at least at the beginning and then it was just plain obvious where her heart was. Speaking of which, I found the relationship between Lucy and Nathan a bit too sudden and too convenient, albeit cute, but by the end it was simply too corny, shame. All in all, I thought the theme itself (being caught between two men aka emotional cheating) was very interesting, but I just don't think this was the most interesting executing I've ever read (a similar theme was occured for example in Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier and I thought it was more emotional and 'real', same for Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin, both excellent books). Oh and also, is it just me or was the topic of cheating underdeveloped? It was supposed to be a life changing thing, but I thought it was too quickly brushed aside and not investigated enough.

Personally, I found the novel to be sort of badly written, firstly because the writing itself was really simple and also because I thought there were several events and characters that contributed hardly anything to the main story. I also thought certain things were too detailed for no apparent reason. Sometimes I just had this feeling that the author was just trying to fill the pages ...

What I liked by far the most about this book is the cover, which is simply goooorgeous! That's why I'll most likely be buying Ms Paige's other two novels, simply because I feel the urge to own such beautiful books, can't resist them (yes, I know this is silly, but I don't care, must have these books). I'm just hoping the other two novels will be better. I'm not saying this was a bad book, far from it, it's a lovely summer read, but very very light and simple and not particularly funny (apart from the jokes). It's a cute read, but I think there's definitely room for improvement. :)

overall rating: 3/5
plot: 3/5 | writing: 3/5 | characters: 3/5 | cover: 5/5