Easy by Emma Gold

I just finished reading this book. (There was the Harry Potter interruption and I am a REALLY slow reader due to an addiction to TV that keeps me from my reading.) And I wanted so desperately to write a review of it or just talk about it, but I'm just no good with this kind of writing. Perhaps if I took notes about the book while I was reading it? Dog-eared even MORE pages??

But I had to write something about it because the main character is SO much like me that I just now realized, and I am NOT making this up, that throughout the book because it is told in first person I was never informed what the main character's name WAS. It felt THAT much like my own writing, my own thoughts, my own feelings -- I identified SO much with this character that the fact that I didn't know her name didn't even blip on my radar. Nutty, huh? I can tell you that this is something that generally disturbs me, as with the main character of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier -- I tore apart the book trying to find one reference to Mr. de Winter's second wife's name. It is a famous exclusion, but noticeable. Now, I'm not even going to begin to try to compare these two books because Rebecca is one of the greater pieces of literature of our time, in my opinion. When that twist comes, you JUST don't see it coming and you're railing at yourself that you could have missed that.

Easy isn't literature, for sure. The opening scene of the book has our heroine drunkenly bellowing at the end of a party "Who wants my number?!" -- not the stuff that's going to wind up in the classics section of your local Waldenbooks for sure. Which is part of its appeal. The heroine is brash, bold, brazen and terrified of rejection and suffering from extreme levels of low self-esteem. In other words, me. Needs to be the center of attention most of the time and yet feels like an ass for always pulling the spotlight on herself. Intensely loyal to her friends and recognizes that the nights in with the girls are often so much better than nights out looking for boys.

There's your expected twist where she learns to love herself for who she is which of course leads to finding the perfect man. No surprises here. Sorry, if I've given it away but if you're living under a rock and so haven't had a chance to read Bridget Jones' Diary then these sorts of endings will always come as a surprise to you. And still, I have to say that while I expect them they're still a bit of a let-down. First of all, it's still promoting the belief that the only way you're ever REALLY going to be happy is by meeting and settling down with a man. Now, at least they've modified this theme to be that the man really has to be the "right" man for you and has to treat you right and all that crap. But ultimately, the message is the same whether you're reading The Rules or watching Sex and the City: the only way you as a woman are ever going to be truly happy and fulfilled is by partnering up with a man. Making yourself half of a partnership. Settling down.

What I don't understand -- and don't get me wrong here, I enjoy being in a relationship and definitely get a strong sense of fulfillment out of said relationship -- is why isn't this propaganda pushed on men, too? Why are men released from this drive to find their ultimate destiny in the soft loving arms of the right woman?? Why isn't our society geared towards making men work and change and evolve in order to be more appealing to women?? When men see happy couples they don't think, those lucky people have got it all -- they've reached the apex. Men are programmed to think that SINGLE LIFE is the apex, and that choosing anything other than that is an end to their freedom. And even while they're dating you and wooing you, they treat you like the enemy. With game tactics the likes of which most generals have never even see in active combat.

And one of the most ironic things is that more likely than not the hype that exists to push women towards trying to change themselves in order to find and secure a man is pushed on them by corporations that are probably run by men... Cosmetics and fashion and exercise and entertainment and the whole kit and caboodle. Men are pushing products on women to make them more appealing and then pushing them away when they try to use that appeal to lure them. Crazy, isn't it??

Okay, now that I've pushed away all of my male readers, let me just round off here and say -- buy the book, read the book, it's a GREAT book! Or just keep reading this here blog because there are a LOT of similarities! ;-)