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Three women on the verge of a nervous breakdown are profiled in SUSHI FOR BEGINNERS, a witty but inevitably predictable romantic comedy. Touching on heavy issues, from homelessness to mental illness, the novel nevertheless remains light enough to be devoured in one sitting.
Lisa is an in-demand London magazine editor with a fabulous lifestyle and extravagant wardrobe. When her expected job promotion sends her from London to the backwater of Dublin to launch a brand-new young women's magazine, she alternates between belittling the hopelessly backward Irish and grimly determining to make her magazine a success. About to undergo messy divorce proceedings, Lisa turns her romantic attentions to her rakish boss, Jack Devine.
Ashling is Lisa's second-in-command. Nicknamed "Little Miss Fixit" by Jack Devine, she is hopelessly practical and always ready to help a co-worker by producing everything from bandages to hairspray as if by magic. When her boyfriend and her best friend simultaneously betray her, she is forced to reexamine her role as willing victim.
Clodagh is a working woman, too --- but not in the glamorous world of magazine publishing. She toils at home, caring for her two children and perpetually redecorating rooms in her home. She is married to a handsome, successful man, and she should be more than satisfied. So why does she find herself recoiling from her perfect life?
The three women's intersecting stories, which culminate when all three face life-shattering revelations, could be nothing more than tired stereotypes. But, as in most of Marian Keyes's novels, history --- especially family history --- intercedes, and each character ultimately gains enough depth to make her truly human. Ashling, for example, can trace both her penchant for solving problems and her superstitious habits to her own mother's depression when Ashling was a child. Lisa's ambition and fear of failure can be traced to her working-class roots: "She was a working-class girl who'd spent her life trying to be something else," she reflects. "And despite years devoted to the grueling treadmill of networking, sucking up, doing down, always paying attention, never relaxing, she'd been brought inexorably back to where she started." Although SUSHI FOR BEGINNERS doesn't focus on issues of alcoholism, drug abuse, and violence that Marian Keyes has touched upon in other novels, its serious examination of family roots and their impact on women's working lives gives this novel a harder edge than many so-called "chick-lit" confections.
That's not to say that SUSHI FOR BEGINNERS is a downer --- far from it. It's ultimately a satisfying, if highly predictable, romantic comedy with not one but two happy endings. The romance is light, the situations --- particularly the lengths to which Lisa goes to make her magazine a success --- are a riot, and the dialogue is clever. There are worse things in the world than a good beach read, and if SUSHI FOR BEGINNERS can make you stop and think every so often, so much the better.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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