Free to Love

Loved this book!

It's a romance novel. If you like those, you will like this. I couldn't get past the first chapter.

Thanks so much!!

I saw the cover of this book-- a misty photograph of Ivana in a large, bright-pink hat-- and read the back cover, which promised a trashy roman a clef about Life Among The Jet-Setting Famous (with a possible subtitle of The Donald Is Horrible And Underendowed), and promptly filched it from the Free Books shelf of my laundry room.I wish I hadn't.The subtitle holds true, but so does every other cliche in existence, and the writer (no, not Ivana, the person who actually wrote the book) clearly felt that writing trash was beneath him/her and coped by taking no joy in the process whatsoever. As Our Heroine (a Czech ex-model recently divorced from an embittered-- and infertile-- business magnate with mommy issues) winds her way through the worlds of the Rich, the Famous, and the Very Very Rich And Extremely Disturbed, she accumulates the usual round-up of supporting characters, including Illegitimate Eurotrash Son Given Up For Adoption At Young Age (evil) and Naive Singing Czech Cousin (not evil), advises friends to have plastic surgery because "it will make you feel better," and copes with The Donald's (who is here "The Adam," although, alas, he is never referred to as such) attempts to destroy her life by expressing absolute faith in her current husband (a cardboard cutout with a tortured past) and wandering around with saintly mien. Producing a book such as this is clearly not a crime, or Jackie Collins would have no career. No, the crime is that the author was having no fun and seems to have felt compelled to pass this feeling of complete and utter disinterest on to the reader. Correct Czech diminuitives are employed, all emotions and actions are spelled out, and the complicated intertwining relationships of the characters are thoroughly explained, even when the character in question will disappear at the end of the sentence.This book is going straight back into the laundry room. I can't guarantee it won't slip and fall into a washing machine along the way.

very good