Since November 2009Book Review: Got You Back by Jane Fallon
May 12th, 2009 by Chloe
Stephanie and James are happily married and living with their son in London.
Or at least that’s what Stephanie was led to believe until she saw a text message on James’ phone which leads her to believe he’s having an affair. Stephanie decides to confront his mistress Katie, and they are both shocked at the lies and deceit of their lover, and decide to get revenge.
But one of the women doesn’t know when to stop… how far will she go to bring down the man who betrayed her? And will the other woman be able to stop her before it goes too far?
Once again, Fallon has tackled the issue of extra-marital affairs as she did in her debut, but this time with a very different line of attack which I found most enjoyable. Rather than the affair being a secret through the whole book as is usually the case in books, this affair is exposed right at the beginning of the book, and the book is really about revenge of the wives/mistresses. This take on affairs was really interesting and I wondered how well Fallon would tackle the issue from this standpoint.
The main characters are of course the cheated women Stephanie and Katie. Both are as different as night and day, which is a little bit of a cliche, but for this book it works. Although it is written in the third person, the book mainly focusses on Stephanie and her emotions about finding out about her husbands lies. She was an instantly likeable woman and I liked her approach towards Katie, and the odd bits about her job as a celebrity stylist just made her a bit more interesting. On the other hand I found Katie a bit dull at first, but it didn’t take Fallon long to warm her up as well and together the two women made excellent lead characters and were wonderfully unpredicatable throughout.
It was interesting to see how Fallon had written the women and the start and how they turned out at the end of the story. Although I had sort of predicted how things would turn out at the end, and which way it’d go for which character, I still found the book to be highly enjoyable. There were several areas of the book that totally surprised me, and left me thinking “surely she didn’t” but of course she did! The theme of revenge was well tackled, starting off as something small and inconsequential, but quickly spiralling into something bigger. Fallon really thought out the revenge scenarios well, and I do wonder if she’s been hurt in her life to think up such plotlines!
To be honest, the weakest link in the whole book has to be the character of James. What a sap. Honestly, it beggars belief how 1 woman, let alone 2 could have found such a plonker attractive, and this is a bit of a shame. There was nothing nice at all about him, which was a huge contrast to Katie and Stephanie who were both nice people. So at no point did I feel sorry for him but as the story is mainly abot revenge against him, my dislike for him wasn’t too terrible. I did enjoy some of the minor characters though who I really hoped would give James his comeuppance such as Sally the receptionist and several of his friends, and they added a good extra element to a great story.
As was in her debut, the writing throughout the book is sharp and witty, which kept me really interested and enjoying the book all the way through. I thought I would be able to guess how the things were going to go, but Fallon kept giving the reader great twists and turns, and I just couldn’t put the bloomin’ thing down! I had to keep reading to see the next twist even if it meant staying up way too late! I’d thoroughly recommend this to people who loved her debut novel, but also to those who haven’t read Fallon’s work before, it is great chick-lit, and one of my reads of the year so far! Most definitely recommended, and certainly deserving of the 5 stars I have given it!
Rating: 5/5
Posted in 2008 releases, Book Reviews, Rating: 5/5 | No Comments »
