What's So Fascinating About British Books?

I don't know what it is, but I like 'em. Maybe it's the awesome British-lingo (you won't hear someone going "Like, that was amazing!" in a British book) or the fact that their emotions run a little different than the average American so things happen differently than you would have expected. Either way, every once and a while there's nothing like good British fiction.

So British chick-lit? DEFINITELY good. This writer reminded me of Meg Cabot if she was British, perhaps. The book was called Jemima J by Jane Green.

We start off with Jemima Jones, an overweight girl in Britain who is madly in love with her coworker, who is unfortunately drop-dead handsome and therefore will never fall in love back with someone like Jemima. So Jemima spends her days eating bacon sandwiches and chocolate bars and secretly loathing her two catty, super skinny roommates.

Until one day her entire newspaper crew gets signed up for the Internet (this is 1999, guys). Jemima discovers the thrills and perils of Internet dating, quickly catching the eye of a guy in Santa Monica, CA, who happens to own a gym and wants everything Jemima doesn't have. So Jemima lies, saying she's a news reporter and she's 120 pounds.

This starts the whirlwind of Jemima's life, forcing her to lose weight to meet this guy who thinks she's half the size she really is. The thing is, once she loses the weight, has she really gained any confidence? And whatever happened to the gorgeous coworker she was in love with?

The thing that was confusing at first and then kind of cool about this book was the narration. It starts off in first person, with Jemima talking, but then it switches to this omniscient, God-like narrator to show everything going on, the big picture. And when it does this, the new narrator will offer a lot of insight into the other characters, stuff Jemima can't possibly know but stuff that helps the story. I don't think I've read another book like that, but it was different. Different in a fun way, not different in a "weird kid who only eats tuna at school" way.

The best part for me was when Jemima came to California, because all the stuff about LA that's so foreign to her is commonplace to me, having grown up in SoCal. I love it when authors and characters are unfamiliar with stuff that you live with daily. =)