Love @ First Site: A Novel Book

1.5 stars
About 100 pages in with no predictable love interest on the horizon, my hopes perked up. Maybe this wouldn't be another vapid, predictable, unsatisfying chick lit novel about a British girl looking for love. Maybe our heroine would actually learn there is more to life than men and drinking and do something. When the lighthearted, predictable plot turned somber, I figured it might just happen too.
Alas, for wasted hopes.
It isn't that the book utterly fails. From one angle, it actually succeeds in giving some plausibility to Jess's character change. It is easy to see how grief and worry would give her more of a backbone as she re-prioritizes her life. Even the very dated references to technology (AOL? Eeek, save me) didn't ruin the story (though I double checked the publishing date, like, 4 times.)
What made Love @ First Site a failure in my mind was the somewhat mushy, tepid conclusion at the end. "Sex is great but not everything in a relationship."
Wowza, thanks for that burst of wisdom.
Jess is 34 but she drinks and carries on like she is 10 years younger. She's constantly drinking, drunk, or recovering from a hangover. While I appreciated the pro-motherhood statements, she was not the strong "I-don't-need-a-man" heroine promised to me in the synopsis. She followed the standard, hormonal chick lit heroine too closely to be strong. I got seriously bored with her snobbery.
Finally, though, the largest turnoff for me was Jess's relationship with Simon, a slime-ball, and the lack of any real chemistry between her and her eventual love interest. Everything is neatly (and utterly predictably) tied up with a bow but I find it hard to feel anything other than relief than its over.