A Funny Thing Called Life
The first, a funny and racy story from an acclaimed writer. The second, a mesmerising and heart-wrenching debut novel. This fortnight’s offerings, based on the lives of different sets of young women, promise to make your weekend enjoyable.
Chasing Harry Winston
by Lauren Weisberger
Price: Rs 195
Pages: 280
(With permission from HarperCollins)
Girls Aloud
The girls all laughed, each accustomed to this oldest of female bonding traditions. When your life was in the gutter because your ex-boyfriend suddenly surfaced on weddingchannel.com, nothing offered comfort like trashing the new girlfriend. It was actually how they had become friends in the first place. Leigh and Emmy met each other first in Astronomy 101, a class both were taking to fulfil the dreaded science requirement.
Neither realised until it was too late, that Astro was actually an aggressive mixture of chemistry, calculus and physics—not the chance to learn all the constellations and look at the pretty stars, like they had hoped. They were the two least-competent and lowest-scoring members of their lab group, and their TA had strung together enough English words to let them know that they’d better start improving or they would fail the class, which prompted Leigh and Emmy to meet three times a week in the study lounge at Emmy’s dorm, a glass-enclosed, fluorescent-lit pod wedged between the kitchen and the co-ed bathroom.
The girls were just beginning to tackle the review notes for the upcoming mid-term when they heard banging followed by distinctly female shrieks. Emmy and Leigh looked at each other and smiled as they listened to the angry words being exchanged down the hall, sure it was yet another argument between a scorned sorority girl and the drunken guy who hadn’t called the next day.
The yelling shifted, however, and within seconds Emmy and Leigh watched as a gorgeous honey blonde with a sexy accent took a verbal barrage from a hysterical redfaced, significantly less pretty blonde directly under the study lounge.
Pandoras Box
by Giselle Green
Price: Rs 225
Pages: 437
(With permission from Avon Publishers)
Planning for Death
Kieran doesn’t know it yet, and neither does Solly, but this afternoon may well be the last time we ever meet. I wonder if Miriam had any idea how close to her end she was when she wrote me those words? In her heart of hearts, I mean; I wonder if she even had an inkling? Maybe I’m lucky that I do know. In a week’s time I’ll be off to Summer Bay and then… that will be that! I don’t know what I’m going to tell Kieran when I see him today. I still don’t know if I’m going to split with him because that’s the kinder thing to do. I just… can’t think about that.
