Straight Talking by Jane Green

I just finished reading Straight Talking by Jane Green today. The synopsis, taken from the back cover, is:

Are you Tasha – single and searching?
Are you one of her three best friends?
Andy, hooked on passion;
Mel, stuck in a steady relationship with a bastard;
Or Emma endlessly waiting for her other half to propose?

Do you know an Andrew – suauve, good-looking and head over heels in love…with himself?
Or a Simon – allergic to commitment and dangerously treacherous?
Or an Adam – handsome, kind, humourous, but too nice to be sexy?

Follow them all in their odyssey to find fulfillment and the RIGHT kind of love in this novel that is very funny, painfully honest, sometimes sad but always on the button.

Though I can understand why some women will not be able to connect with the protagonist in the novel, I found this book thought-provoking and even liberating. The style of the prose was one I felt comfortable with, even though the language was a bit too crude for my liking (especially the descriptive sex scenes). Tasha uses the book as a way to talk to her readers and show them the realities of how a single 30 year old feels, and why she does the things she does.

I guess what resonated with me the most was how Tasha described her life; she said her group of friends were ladettes – those girls that had more guy friends than girl friends in their 20s because that is who they connected with. Those girls who searched their lives for a stable, loving relationship but never really found it. The fantasies about passion and love, even though appearing on the outside as not really needing it in their real life.

I read the book and found many parallels to my own life – in my 20s now, I do have more guy friends than girl friends because I simply do not how to act around girls. I appear on the outside as not wanting love and passion, but dream about it for hours on end. I think that most girls want to end up with a nice guy (like Adam) but crave the attention and thrills of assholes that treat them like crap.

I think the book is pretty trashy but one that people should read if they identify with the characteristics of being a ladette. There are times when I wanted to scream and yell at Tasha because of the crap she was doing, but I realized by the end of the book that it is always easier to reprimand the actions of others but much harder to be objective when it comes to one’s self.